Harvest Detroit West
Sunday Sermon - Proverbs 2 "The End of Wisdom”
June 23, 2024 In this weeks sermon, Reagan Rose show us the end of wisdom, as he unpacks Proverbs 2 showing us the condition that needs to be met and the consequences that ensue. Proverbs 2:1-22
[MUSIC PLAYING] We hope and pray that you are blessed by the Word of God as it's preached. I was thinking this. Pastor Kenneth was given the prayer and thinking about all the different folks in our own congregation who are facing various challenges and struggles, but those are the seasons of life when we are so desperate for wisdom, right? Those hard decisions that face us. Should I do this? Should I do that? Tough conflicts in a relationship. Do I press a little hard? Do I let it ride? Do I ease off? How do I do this? Parenting. All manner of different challenges we've faced in this life, we cry out to God for wisdom. And even just hearing that it just made me think how thankful I am that we have wisdom from above in God's Word, amen? That He has given us-- He's revealed Himself to us in the Scriptures. And it's a little early in the sermon for me getting choked up. I tell you, I am so thankful for the Word of God. I'm so thankful that I'm not walking blind through this life, that I've been given a light, a lamp for this path I'm supposed to walk. And I hope you are too. And I hope in this series we've been in this summer, we're talking about wisdom from above is our summer series. And we're looking at the wisdom literature from the Scripture. This guidance for how we make decisions, how we're supposed to actually live our lives. I hope that it's been an encouragement to you. And it's opening up to you how important wisdom from above, that wisdom that comes from God, really is. This is going to be my last week talking about the wisdom literature, but our series is continuing. I hope you join us next week. John Shepherd is going to be opening. I believe Proverbs 8, and we'll be getting to dive in. That's one of my favorite passages. So I'm a little jealous, but I hope you'll join us next week for that as we continue in the series. But I've kind of had a little mini series going here within the broader series. We've looked first two weeks ago in Proverbs 1, we talked about the beginning of wisdom. Where does it start? If we want to be wise in this life, where do we begin? And we're told right in the beginning of Proverbs, in verse 7 of chapter 1, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. That all of this, if we're to understand wisdom at all, it's not just little tidbits, little tips on life of, how do I make a good decision here and there? There's a broader context. And the context to true wisdom is submission to God. And that's why we talked about in that week, that it starts with submission to Jesus Christ, that you might be able to, in little things in life, even an unbeliever can make a good decision. They might have wisdom in certain domains of life, but in the grand scope, it all has to be considered under the lordship of Jesus Christ. That's the only way that true wisdom will permeate your life. And then last week, so first week we talked about the beginning of the wisdom, and then last week we talked about the call of wisdom. And we looked at how Solomon here in the Proverbs in the second part of chapter 1, he personifies wisdom as this woman going out into the street and saying, "Listen to me, get on the path, follow me." 'Cause you'll find life here. And so we've seen all throughout these first nine chapters of Proverbs, it begins with these, it's all these discourses from sort of a teacher to a student. And so with first week we looked at that discourse from the father to the son. And so a father is pictured in the home talking to his son and telling him, here's how you get wisdom. It's directed to someone who's on the path of wisdom. So we would say this is someone who's a believer, but then their instruction is stay on the path of wisdom. Don't forsake God's words. And then last week with the call of wisdom, Solomon turns his attention to those who don't know Christ, who are not yet believers. They're not even on the path yet. And so wisdom was calling out, you are headed the wrong way, come get on the path. And this week we're gonna look again at a discourse from the father to the son in chapter two of Proverbs. So if you haven't turned there yet, turn to chapter two of Proverbs. And the title of this message is the end of wisdom. So all along we've seen that Solomon pictures wisdom as a path, a path that you gotta get on, a path you gotta stay on. And what we're gonna look at this because where is that path leading? What we'll see is that ultimately, it leads to eternal life. But even along the way, the path itself leads to blessing. It avoids the dangers and the troubles and the snares that folly sends us into. And so we're gonna handle this in two parts. We'll look first at the conditions, and that'll be verses one through four, and then we'll look at five consequences of the life of wisdom. So we'll look at the conditions, and we'll look at the consequences. So turn to Proverbs chapter two, if you haven't yet, and we'll look here at the first two verses. He says, my son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, make 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. We'll get to the then in a moment. But you see these are the conditions. He's saying, my son, if you do these things, and there's really two things here in the first two verses. He says, receive it, right? My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, making your ear attentive to wisdom, inclining your heart to understanding, it's being receptive to it, of listening, even this is how Proverbs began, even at the beginning, he's like, here are my words, in verse eight of chapter one, here are my son. And so again, he's saying, if you listen, if you're attentive to you, if you pay attention, and the idea here of receiving it, it connotes acceptance. And that's just, you guys know the difference if you have kids between hearing and listening, right? That's the idea here. And he even goes on to say, if you treasure them, if you take these words of wisdom that we have from above and you accept them, good things follow. No, see, I just said this, but he says, treasuring them up, it reminds us of Psalm 119, verse 11, I've stored up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you, I've treasured up. Even when we heard in the scripture reading, it was about Solomon and about his wisdom and his riches, and he had these storehouses of wealth. And so you picture that, and here's the same guy, he wrote Proverbs, who was so wealthy, he's saying treasure wisdom, that's the thing to treasure up, the wisdom that comes from God, hide it away. We even see, that goes to this in the New Testament, in Colossians 3, 16, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. Or Luke 8, 15, when it talks about the good soil, says they are those that who, hearing the word, hold it fast, they hold it fast, that's the idea, is you're receiving the word of God for what it is, a precious, precious treasure. It reminds me of listening with wrapped attention. I try, we're out to restaurants, I try not to eavesdrop, but some people tell really good stories. Have you ever known somebody who tells a really good story, or have been out at a restaurant, and I'm trying to pay attention to the conversation, but the person that stayed behind me, boy, they could weave a yarn. And I'm just like, oh yeah, I'm on the edge of my seed. You know, and I'm naughty, you know, kind of to the person I'm supposed to be talking to. But I couldn't help but pay attention to it. And that's the idea, is with the word of God, with the wisdom that's from above, that we wouldn't just passively be like, uh-huh, uh-huh. But we would be like leaning in, tell me more, help me understand it. We saw it in week one, that that's even the way that we're supposed to engage with the Proverbs, that we're supposed to turn them over on our heads, that when you get to the later chapters of Proverbs, it's just those short little verse sets that you can just take a little chunk of wisdom and sort of pack it as a to-go lunch, and you can chew on it throughout the day. That's the idea, is it so precious to you? You wanna keep turning over your head. So the first condition here of wisdom is that you receive it, but he gives one more here in verses three through four. Said if you seek it like silver, search for it as for hidden treasures. Or sorry, I skipped this verse three. 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. So here's the other side of it, if you receive it, yes. So when you hear the word of God, you receive it, yes. But this is seize it. So you receive it and you seize it. You go out for it. He says you call out for it. And think about the contrast to last week if you were here of woman wisdom going into the street and calling out to the simple and they just ignored her. This is the reverse of that. This is someone who's on the path of wisdom who's saying, I want to know your word, Lord, and I'm gonna ask for it. Teach me. I wanna know more. I'm not just a passive recipient. I'm gonna go out and get it. One of the most practical ways we can do this is pray, right? Pray for wisdom. We're told this even in James 1.5. If anyone asks for wisdom, he knows he receives it. You're told by God that if you need wisdom, he wants to give it to you. What a wonderful thing. How often we forget this? We say, okay, I'm gonna figure my way out of this situation first. And as the last possible resort, I'll ask for God's wisdom. We've got that exactly backwards. Don't we? When you're faced, I mean, even each day, when you don't know what the day holds, begin your day with asking for wisdom. Lord, show me the way. Lead me today. You go out and you seize it. You don't just seize it. He presses it even further. You prize it even as he said before about treasure in it. He said, seek it like silver. Search for it as for hidden treasures. You're the idea of hidden treasures. You even see this in Matthew when Jesus is talking about the kingdom of God being like a treasure in a field. The idea when the scripture talks about a hidden treasure, why is it hidden? It's hidden 'cause it's valuable. You hide your valuables, right? And so the idea is it needs to be sought out because it's that precious, that valuable. You want to prize it highly. You guys ever watch Antique Roadshow? Yeah, it's still on. I saw a recent episode of it. I was very pleased. So if you don't know, the premise of Antique Roadshow is people bring in stuff to these appraisers and they tell them what it's worth. They find an old watch. They're a great grandfather left for them or some weird old painting. They're like, it's all clowns. I don't know. They're like, but it's worth two million. I don't want it, but someone does for that much. The idea is that those people appraise it. They appraise it rightly. The person who owned the thing, they might thought that's just creepy clown picture. Let's keep it in the attic. But they didn't appraise it, right? But someone with the knowledge, you understanding to know what they were looking at, they appraised it as valuable. That's what the idea is here is when you appraise the word of God, when you appraise the wisdom that's from above as valuable, you go seek it out, right? If someone told you, hey, if someone dropped a bag of $10,000 in the parking lot, it's up for grabs, you'd be like, maybe later. No, you'd say that's valuable. I want to go get it. That's the idea here. Seize it. You seek it out. You prize it. Seek it like silver. Search for it like hidden treasures. You pursue it with all your heart. And then it applies sacrifice. That implies effort, but that it's worth it. This is one thing, if you meet people who are consistent in reading the word of God in prayer each morning, you say it's so hard to be consistent in that, right? But you meet someone who's been doing that year after year and you're just like, every day they're so consistent. You're like, you must be so disciplined. And what you find is at some point, discipline turned into just enjoyment. Is that they started to understand and appraise rightly time with the Lord, time with the word, time in prayer. And because they appraised it rightly, they say it's worth the sacrifice. It's worth getting up a little early to hear from God, isn't it? It's worth putting off the other things I could be doing, I could get an earlier start, I could clean this, I could start on work a little early. It's worth that sacrifice when you rightly appraise the wisdom that's from above. And so a lot of us, it's not so much about, oh, I just don't have the habit, habits can help. But mostly it's about you don't have the heart, right, yet of understanding just what you're dealing with here. And so you have to receive it, you have to seize it. And I love even if you look over to the right in Proverbs chapter four, verse seven. He says the beginning of wisdom is this, get wisdom. And whatever you get, get insight. I just love the forcefulness of that. Like go get it. Like it's like almost like he's gotten to the end of his line. He's like, if you're not getting the message yet, the point is go get wisdom, it's precious. With the scripture readings we've been doing before each of these, talk about the life of Solomon. And again, Solomon's one who wrote the Proverbs. And so much of them deal with his riches and how God blessed him abundantly. And one of the reasons I wanted you guys to hear that is for the context of who the author is, but also because the guy who was just absolutely loaded said wisdom's more valuable. And so if that's true, what are all these other things that we're valuing more than time in the word of God? More than wisdom from above. We're not appraising it right. We're not appraising it right. So those are the conditions that the father in this discourse gives to his son. He's saying, hey, if you do these things, if you receive the wisdom, if you seize the wisdom, then. And this is the five consequences of a life of wisdom where you might call them the five blessings from a life of wisdom. And this is verses five through 22. And this will be the rest of our outline. We'll find these. The first one he lists is intimacy with God. Look at verses five through the first part of verse seven. 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 a sound wisdom for the upright. It's interesting here, if you've been with us through the last couple of weeks, he says, then you'll understand the fear of the Lord. I thought that's where wisdom begins. That's true, but there's a deepening. So it begins with a fear of the Lord, which is to say a submission to God that starts out the path of a life of true wisdom. But he's saying it also continues with that. And as you press into it, it starts to unfold and open up to you even more. You start to understand more deeply. He says in verse five in parallel to that and find the knowledge of God. It's easy to breeze over that, says find the knowledge of God. You might say, oh, does that just mean like knowing about who God is? Like if I learn from the wisdom from above then I'll get better at theology. No, in fact, the way that it's using this phrase knowledge of God is in the sense in Hebrew they would often talk about knowing is a term for intimacy. Even in the mail of the relationship, it'll say in the early Genesis it says that Adam knew Eve. And the idea is knowing in an intimate sense, you will know you'll find the knowledge of God. And so you deepen into that relationship with the Lord. And see, what's pictured here, just zooming out for a second is again, this is the sun here represents this person who's on the path of his and this is a believer who has not yet reached maturity, okay? That's the idea here. That's who this is addressed to. Someone who believes and they say, I'm trusted, I'm walking by faith, I want to pay attention to his words because I want to grow on and go on to maturity. And that maturity leads to growing in intimacy with the Lord. And so there's, it is an act of faith somewhat that the Father is really impressing upon the sun here, just listen to me, pay attention to the words. Believe that what I'm saying is worth it to give your attention to. Because you give your attention to this long enough, it will start to open up to you. You'll start to understand, you'll start to deepen in your walk, in your intimacy with God. And that's where the real goal is, isn't it? And it also leads to more wisdom as you get to know God better, who's the author of wisdom. You get to know him better in verse six there. He says, for the Lord gives wisdom from his mouth come knowledge and understanding. Of course it comes from God. Of course it does. He has all the wisdom. And so he will help unfold these things to you. And says here, he stores up sound wisdom for the upright. Again, that illusion to a treasure trove that he's got, he's got this store of wisdom for those who will walk closely with him. And he's just waiting to dump that on you. But what you need to do is you need to pursue it. You need to by faith say, "Lord, I want to know you more. "I want to know your word more. "I want this wisdom. "Ask for it, seek it." And he will start to open up that treasure trove too. He is ready to do so and wants to. That's the idea here. So intimacy with God. A close walk with the Lord, it's its own treasure. And it's its own joy. And at the risk of repeating myself, I cannot get away from this idea of spending time with the Lord in our personal devotions. I just, as I was reading this, the more I was convicted of how often I'm like, "Yeah, I'm a little tired today. "Yeah, I'm not appraising it, right?" And as it leads on to intimacy with God, it becomes something you don't want to forsake, right? And so if you're somebody who you're like, "I'm just struggling with this habit, "I'm struggling to get into the word, "trust that it's worth the discipline "to build that into a habit, "to build that into something "that will lead to wonderful, joyous fellowship with God, "because it does." And then it's hard to quit. So that's the first consequence of a life of wisdom. With intimacy with God, the second one is supernatural protection. We see this in verse, the second half of verse seven, and then verse eight. It reads, "He is a shield to those who walk in integrity, "guarding the paths of justice "and watching over the way of his saints." So again, he's pictured as a shield. He's protecting those who walk closely with him, like a shield, 'cause there's dangers about. He's guarding the path of wisdom, right? Again, this imagery of a path that we're on, seeking to walk with the Lord all of the days of our lives. It's like he's put a fence up around it. He's, "I'm gonna protect you from danger." It's like he's right there walking with us, saying, "If you are attacked, I will be here." There's a sense of peace, of trusting that if I stay on this path, this is the safest place to be. Sometimes it doesn't feel that way, does it, right? You think of Psalm 23, walking through the valley of the shadow of death, that's terrifying. Sometimes we walk through those valleys in life. That's part of the path, but who goes with you? Yeah, you fear no evil because he's with you, and that's the idea is that you stay on his path. It is the best and safest place to be. Often it doesn't feel that way though. When you come upon the challenges of life and you come upon temptations to sin, it seems easier if I go over there. And sometimes for the short term, it is easier. You choose this other path, you choose the path of temptation. You choose the path of whatever it is instead of trusting the Lord. And what you find is that way is filled with thorns and briars and it trips you up. And it was better to have just stayed with the Lord continuing to trust him because he provides protection for those people. It's interesting, actually at the end of verse eight, he says, watching over the ways of his saints, the often saints talks about his holy ones. The word here actually is related to the Hebrew word for faithless, so it's more like his loyal ones, his faithful ones. And so it's kind of like you've thrown in your lot with God. You're like, I'm on team God and I'm staying with him. And he's saying, I protect my own. That's the idea, that's the idea. He watches over the ways of his loyal ones. He wants to look out for you. The third consequence of a life of wisdom is godly character. Look here in verses nine and 10. It says, then you will understand righteousness and justice and equity in every good path for wisdom will come into your heart and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul. So again, it's this, you're going to step into maturity where there's a lot of trust, the father's telling the son here, there's a lot of trust, trust me, give heed to this, trust me, seize this wisdom because you will mature and then you'll start to understand at a deeper level. You'll start to appreciate it. You'll understand righteous justice and equity in every good path, which is interesting because back in chapter one, at the start when Solomon was listing the purpose, what the book of Proverbs is supposed to do for people, one of the things he said was these three words. He said to receive instruction in wise dealings in righteousness, justice and equity, that's the purpose or one of the purpose of the Proverbs. And here he's saying, if you continue on this path, you will understand that. You will gain a depth of familiarity with godly living. And that's really the key, it starts to become instinctual. It starts to become instinctual. I think of it a little bit like if you've ever played a sport, when early on you're learning the sport, you're trying to learn the fundamentals, you're trying to remember the rules. There were a couple of years ago, someone tried to teach me to play pickleball. Emphasis on the word, tried. There's a lot of rules, what's the kitchen? I don't know, can't go in there, can you? Anyway, if you don't know pickleball, it's pickleball joke. But when it's trying to play, you're trying to keep all this stuff in your head. Like what are the rules, what can I do and when, all these different things. But as you go on, you develop the muscle memory, you develop an instinct for it. You can just get out, you're not thinking, in the front of your mind about those things, you just know the rules and you play and your body just reacts when things happen, right? I think of that analogously to the way that we mature as believers is, we're like okay, I know these are the rules and this is, you have all these different guardrails and you're trying to keep it all in your head. But as you mature and as the spirit does his work in your heart, you start to understand it instinctually. And you start to just respond instinctually, you do the right thing. Not because each time an opportunity comes up to or temptation, you go and you say, let me give me three weeks to study the Bible on this and I'll get back to you with an answer. But instead, you've let it sink so down deep into you and the spirit so applied it to your heart that you just react in righteousness, you understand how to live rightly. He presses this further in verse 10, where he says, for wisdom will come into your heart and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul, pleasant to your soul. I think that's so interesting. It's an affectional transformation that you start to love it. In fact, the Old Testament prophets, when they looked forward to the new covenant, this was one of the big things they pointed to. When you read Jeremiah or Ezekiel, they talk about the new heart that you had, formerly in the old covenant, you have this outward law, you have the 10 commandments, do this and live. But as it pointed towards the new covenant, they said, hey, God's gonna write his word on your heart. The external will become internal, such that you will desire to do what is right. And that's our inheritance as people of the new covenant in Jesus Christ. We have, by his Holy Spirit, his law written on our heart in the sense that we can serve him out of a transformation of our affections, our loves. Where you start to develop, where you formerly had a taste for sin and evil, you start to develop a distaste for it, where you formerly said that the paths of righteousness didn't seem all that appealing, now they start to develop a saver to them. And what Solomon's saying here is, if you press on in that immaturity, they become even more savory, even more delectable. You hear people talk about, it's an acquired taste. It takes effort, but you trust that once you acquire the taste, the complexity of it is worth the effort. You develop new depths of enjoyment. It's the same way. Is that you actually start to desire the things of God. You do this when we first come to Christ, but let's press on immaturity. It becomes all the more. Psalm 19 verse 10 says, is more to be desired, speaking the words of God, more to be desired than gold, even much fine gold, sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb. Do we feel that way about God's word? Do we feel that way about living an obedience towards Him? What Solomon's saying is keep staying on the path. You will grow, you will mature. You might be sitting there saying, I don't quite have that saver yet. I see it a little bit, but I want more to desire what is right and to hate what is evil. And what Solomon's instructions here is just keep staying on the path. That godly character will continue to grow. You will continue to mature. Keep renewing your mind. And you will see that you will grow and you will desire it more. I think this happens with the runners. You got any runners here? Like people that not just run from people, but run for like exercise or whatever. Sometimes I run from dogs. No, I think this is one of the craziest thing, more than even developing a taste for like a certain type of food that you might not like. Some people develop a taste for running. And if you're not a runner, it's hard to wrap your head around, isn't it? Because it hurts to run. It doesn't feel good. I'd rather be on the couch. But people who develop, who start to run, they might just do it as exercise and then they become runners. And they just, they go, they're like sign up for marathons and stuff and you're like, what are you doing? Do you hate yourself? They develop a taste for it. They actually start to enjoy it. There's something about the discipline. There's something about the exercise. There's something even about the strain of it and the joy that comes afterwards and the sense of accomplishment. They start to love it. They start to love it and enjoy it. And I think it's very similar. Again, as we're trying to mature as believers, this is really, if I could boil all this down, at least what I hope to communicate through teaching about this text, is that the Christian life takes some effort to mature, but it's well worth the effort. That's the point and as Solomon goes again and again trying to make all these analogies to treasure and all this sweet stuff and some of the more blessings we're gonna look at in just a minute. Guys, press on. Well, let's not be lazy in our faith. But to press on, not out of bare duty, we're like, oh, I just hate this. You know, choke it down like medicine. I gotta read the Bible 'cause I'm supposed to, but in trust that as you study this, it will soon blossom like a rose in the early summer and you'll start to see the panoply of colors and the depth to it and appreciate it and understand, wow, it's so fragrant. It's so beautiful. I didn't see it before, but now I recognize it. It's worth the effort. It's worth diving in. It's worth the discipline because it will bless you tremendously. Yes, it will bless you and what we've looked at already these, the consequences, the intimacy with God, that's the biggest blessing. It bless you with the Lord protects you all the more. It blesses you and God, the characters, you dig deeper into the things of God, you become more and more the type of person God wants you to be in that in and of itself as a blessing. So pursue it, pursue it. We want to become, like it says in Psalm one, speaks about the righteous man in Psalm one verse two where his delight is in the law of the Lord and on his law, he meditates day and night. We love it and we want to meditate on it because that can proverbs. He has helped us make it pleasant to our souls, pleasant to our souls, something we enjoy. Okay, we've got three, three consequences of a life of wisdom. We've looked so far at the intimacy with God, supernatural protection and we just looked at God, the character, let's look at number four and that's deliverance from temptation. This is verses 11 through 19, deliverance from temptation. So look at verse 11 first, he says, discretion will watch over you, understanding will guard you. So I'll make a contrast here. We talked already about supernatural protection and that it talked about the fact that God protects those who are on his path, right? It's God doing the protecting. Here, it's saying that wisdom, discretion itself, will protect you, that as you grow in wisdom, as you seek the wisdom that's from above and you mature into more and more godliness, that wisdom itself becomes like an immune system for your soul, that the wisdom prevents you from those temptations that seem so pleasing in the moment. But because you have wisdom, you are more readily able to resist that, to reject that, to fight it off. And he gives us, he pictures this in two ways. He pictures the wicked man and the wicked woman. It's two sources of temptation. We'll look first at the wicked man. This is one of the ways that wisdom delivers us from temptation and this is verses 12 through 15. Says delivering you from the way of evil from men perverted speech. And so it's talking about those who would seek to lead you off the path of wisdom. It says perverted speech. It doesn't mean that they just say gross stuff. It means that their speech is twisted. They're gonna tell you things that aren't true. They're gonna try to frame things in a certain way that would draw you away from the path of truth. We saw this in week one with the first discourse from the father to son, that these men, the father warns him, people are gonna come to you and they're gonna say, hey, there's a shortcut to wealth and riches. And by your greed, if you follow us, yeah, we're gonna hurt people. Yeah, we're gonna violate justice and righteousness and equity. Yeah, we're gonna sin against God, but it doesn't matter 'cause we're gonna be rich and we're gonna be together and have fellowship and you don't you wanna be in our group and he's saying, avoid those shortcuts. There's people with perverted speech that are gonna come to you and they're gonna say, hey, I know a better way. And it's leaving the path of wisdom, leaving the path of righteousness. So the danger there is that people will seek to seduce you away from the path. Look at verse 13, continuing on. It says, who forsake the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness? So these are people who've given up on the path. Maybe they're like the fool that we talked about who sees the path and rejects it. Perhaps even their apostates, their people, when we think about the people that are on the path, as believers, maybe these are people who walked with the Lord for a while, but like the thorny soil in Matthew, they were choked out by the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches. And they turned aside. Those are some of the most dangerous people potentially to your faith in the Lord. I always think it's funny that whenever someone, if you get into like a argument with somebody and they say that they pull this one out, they go, I used to think like you do. That's always such a like a low blow. They're like, I used to be dumb. Patting you on the head like you're a child. But this is one of the things that people who have walked away from the faith is such a powerful rhetorical weapon. If someone who is not, who used to, you thought, man, they were a Christian. I thought they were walking with the Lord, but they walked away. And then you're saying, I don't get it and you're going through some stuff in your life. And they come to you to say, I used to think like you did too. But I saw the light, or I saw the darkness if we look at the suburbs. And so we have to be careful, is people will seek to draw us away from the path of wisdom. And so that's why Solomon is warning. Be on the lookout. Be on the lookout. There are people that will draw you away. And look at verse 14. Who rejoice in doing evil and delight in the perverseness of evil. Look at the contrast. He's saying, if you go on to maturity, you will start to find knowledge pleasant to the soul. You'll start to have a savor for the things of God. Those who walk away, those who leave the path of righteousness, who say, I don't want that. Instead, they find delight. They find their enjoyment in the things that are wicked in indulging in sinful temptation. So you're saying, look out. Be on the lookout for these people. Don't be drawn away. Verse 15. Men whose paths are crooked and who are devious in their ways. So the paths are crooked. It's the opposite of a straight path, right? People talk about beyond the straight and narrow. That's kind of the idea here of a crooked path. It winds, it weaves, it doesn't go straight through. And we're actually told in chapter 14, verse 12 of Proverbs, that these are the paths that get you in trouble. There's a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death. Or in chapter 22, verse five, it says, thorns and snares are in the way of the crooked. Who's... I can't read my own handwriting. I'm gonna flip over there. (laughs) Proverbs 22. I don't want to butcher it, you know. Proverbs 22.5. Thorns and snares are in the way of the crooked. So there's the crooked path again, right? Whoever guards his soul will keep far from them. Why is it saying thorns and snares? It's saying you're gonna trip yourself up. That's the idea, that's one of the overriding themes throughout Proverbs, is not just that the end of the path of unrighteous. At the end of these other paths, you might take besides following God, is death, which is a major theme. But also the paths themselves stink. Don't go on that path. It's filled with thorns, it trips you up. You cause pain for yourself. That's the thorns and the thistles. You're gonna triple, you've ever been walking out a path and it's all, it's been washed over by rain and you're in the woods and there's roots everywhere and you're tripping all the time, that's the idea. You're choosing the wrong path to follow these people. They're hurting themselves. He talked about this in chapter one, two, when he said the thing about in vain is a net spread out to catch a bird, right? These fouls that would spread a trap to catch birds. If they do that, it's in vain. If they do it in the side of the bird, because the bird sees the net and says that's a trap, I'm not gonna take the bait. He said, but these guys are dumber than birds because the fools, they spread out a net for themselves and then they say, great, a piece of candy and they jump into the net. But he's saying, that's the path of folly. That's the crooked path that people might seek to draw you away to. Is there saying, yeah, you, buddy, duddies and your Bible and you walking with the Lord and trying to seek to live up rightly before him and trusting in him, don't you get it, it's better this way. Meanwhile, though they might have pleasure for a little while, they might even enjoy some temporal success over and over again, that way is filled with affliction, it's filled with pain. And that's why Solomon goes out of his way to say, the path of wisdom, the path of following the Lord is not just the right thing to do, it's the wise thing to do. You only hurt yourself when you trust those that seek to lead you away from this path. He calls them devious, literally one who deviates from the path. One of the things that's a good check for us too, even in the time of temptation, it says that in Proverbs 3.32, for the devious person is an abomination to the Lord. Whew, I don't wanna go that way. Especially as I press on into maturity and I get to, and I have more and more intimacy with the Lord and I know him, what I don't want to do is walk away from that relationship. I don't, I don't want to turn my back on him. And that is where the wicked man, which is sort of a representation of a certain type of temptation would come in and seek to pull you away. But there's another figure here and it was still a number for the deliverance from temptation. So he talked about the wicked man, but then he talks about the wicked woman in verses 16 through 19. It says, "So you will be delivered from the forbidden woman, "from the adulterous 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. "No, do they regain the paths of life." There's a little bit of a foreshadow. I mean, if you know the book of Proverbs, you know that the chapters five and seven give this extended treatment, I think it's 65 verses, two avoiding the adulterous woman. That's what another one of those addresses to the son. And so he spends all this time on, "Hey, watch out for lust. "That's gonna lead you the wrong way." That's the big idea. But he's so eager to get this in his son's ear. He plugs a little bit of that early on. But if you want a longer treatment, read chapters five through seven. I think one of the interesting things about wisdom is, as we've talked about it, it gives us insight. We understand how God has designed his world to work. It goes with the big picture, the world view of that God's in control, how he's created all that, helps us understand that, helps us understand God's word. But a big thing wisdom does for us is it gives us insight into people. You know, people talk lately about like red flags. Like I hear people in like people in talking about in the dating context. So like, "Oh, that's a red flag. "That's a red flag, right?" Wisdom helps you in your red flag detection. And that's the main point I think he's making here. So again, this is addressed to a son. And he's saying wisdom is going to help you choose a spouse. Wisdom's gonna help you, I think even broadly, we can take a lot of these principles and apply them more broadly to relationships. They help you see through a duplicitous character so that you aren't hoodwinked in the end, so that you don't end up suffering for it. It is absolutely critical having this kind of insight, especially when choosing a spouse. Just like we saw in chapter one that greed for a quick buck might lead the son to listening to wicked men and sinning so that he out of his avarice for wanting more money. The same way lust, I think for men in particular, can lead them to ignoring a duplicitous character in a person, in a potential spouse. You guys know, you guys have had that friend. We were like, "Okay, why are you dating her? "Well, I don't understand. "Like, what is it?" And they're like, "Oh, she's hot." Like, you know she lies. But I think it works the other way too. And this is why I say, I think broadly, we can take a lot of these principles and apply it in the reverse. Even if we look at the context of seeking out a spouse, the same thing would be true for a woman seeking a man, that they too, the men too, can have smooth talk. And some of the outward things you see, like, "Ah, he's confident, he's kind, "he's all, all these things are great, they're on your list." But what you don't look through it, you stop there, 'cause you don't wanna dig any deeper, right? I don't wanna know what's in it. I don't wanna dig any deeper, 'cause this all seems so great. And so you stop short of looking to the character and you can end up in a load of trouble. And that's why Solomon is at pains here to the youth to say, "Be really careful here, "who you yoke yourself to for life." And this is one of the blessings of wisdom. We'll give you insight into seeing into how people are and so that you're not so easily blinded by your lust or by the deceptive speech you might hear from somebody. But would press on and say, "No, I need to make sure that there's more here." Because they're paying followers. I mean, we'll look at verse 16. So you'll be delivered from the adulterous smooth words, who forsakes the companion of her youth and forgets the covenant of God. The idea there is this talking about, if you go on to marry somebody, this person who forsakes the companion of your youth is going to cheat on you, who forgets the covenant of the God. I think that's actually referring to the marriage covenant there. They're saying, if you are not careful, if you don't apply wisdom to your relationships, you are going to face pain. So one of the blessings, to put it positively, the blessing of wisdom is it's gonna help you not to enter into those relationships that are ultimately going to be devastating to you. That really is the idea. It's one of the very practical effects of wisdom that God has for us. But even beneath this, I think one of the things that the wicked man and the wicked woman here, these two figures, having common is these are people that are unfaithful. In the wicked women case, she's gonna be unfaithful to you, but I think it's implied even the overture to the covenant of her God, that both these people, they're not faithful to God, and therefore they're not faithful to you. And this is one of the reasons, actually, in the Old Testament, Israel was warned again and again, not to intermarry with other nations. And people look at that today and you'll have people come out and say, oh, it's 'cause they're xenophobic, they're racist, all this different stuff. No, the point, actually, was because in those days, the nations all had different gods. And we're actually told, I'll read you a verse in a second here, but they're told explicitly, don't go and marry people from other countries because they have a different God, that's the point. And so that's why in the New Testament context, we're told the same thing, but more explicitly, don't be unequally docked. Don't get married to someone who doesn't share your values. No, it's more than that, who doesn't share your God. This is the key. And it explains beyond, I said this already, but it applies beyond marriage. I think there's a lot of wisdom to be gleaned here, too, in any kind of, in your relationships, your deep friendships. Of course, we should have friends who are not believers that we're reaching out to in evangelizing, but your deepest friendships, shouldn't they share the same belief? I think there might be wisdom, too, even in business partnerships. If I'm gonna enter an agreement, okay, it might be a great person, but I should be careful. And that's the idea here. It's not being exclusionary. He's saying, this is wisdom. It's gonna protect you from getting into a bad deal with people because you didn't look past the surface and see through to the heart using the wisdom this room above. The irony here, and we speak specifically about marriage, is that this is literally Solomon who wrote this. His downfall was not following the advice he gave. If you turn over to First Kings, chapter 11, he is even with how glorious we've heard all the different things the Lord did during Solomon's reign, the end of it did not end so well. And it's a warning to us that even the wisest man cannot take his own advice. First Kings, chapter 11, let's look at the first four verses here. Now, King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter Pharaoh. Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women. From the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the people of Israel, you shall not enter in a marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn your heart away after other gods. You notice that? The reason there is given, because they're gonna turn your heart away to other gods. Solomon clung to these in love. So these women, these 700 wives, it says in verse three, princesses and 300 concubines and his wives turned away his heart. So a lot of times we talk about, if you know the broad strokes of Solomon's life, we say, yeah, his problem was that he became a polygamist, which is a problem. But when you actually read what it says, the problem was that the deeper issue was this disobedience to the command to not intermarry with people who don't know your God. And what happened was it turned his heart away. That's the problem. And if you keep reading through chapter 11, you see all the bad stuff that followed from that. And so it's supposed to be a warning to us, a warning to us to be very, very careful. Because even, I love that even says there that he loved them. He loved them. It's, it can blind us, can't it? Personal law. And I've known people that have, they're Christians and they knew they shouldn't do. They ended up marrying someone that they knew wasn't a believer because they were blinded by love and they just, they thought, well, maybe I'm going to make it work out, you know? I'll miss, I'll missionary date them. And eventually they'll, you know, this is my method of evangelism and date people till they become Christians. And it didn't go well with them in the end because they don't know if that person will turn Christ. And so I spent a lot of time on that point, but that, that is a very serious, very practical, one of, of these blessings of wisdom is the deliver you from temptation. The wisdom itself will just back up more broadly, helps you to discern through temptation, whether it's for greed, whether it's out of lust, whatever it is, these temptations that come your way, you cut through them as you become more mature in the things of God. Makes sense, right? And so that's why this is all stated positively. This is, this is, he's saying this is a blessing you will enjoy. If you keep finding yourself running yourself a ground on all these different temptation, all these different stuff, what you need is to go on to maturity, what you need is to attend more to the wisdom that's from above. Okay, let's turn to the fifth and the final blessing or consequence of a life of wisdom and this is verses 20 through 22. And it's eternal life. So we said the title of this message is the end of wisdom. So along the path of wisdom, we've looked at all these different blessings that attend it, that it is the best way to live. It's not always the easiest way to live, walking with the Lord, amen? But it is the best way to live. It is the best way. And ultimately that path leads on to eternal life. That's the ultimate culmination of this path. That's where we're going. Look at verse 20. So you will walk in the way of the good and keep to the paths of righteousness. Let me just stop there. The certainty, isn't that interesting? He started all this with a condition. He says, if you do these things, if you've done this, you'll mature, God will protect you. You'll be delivering from temptation, all these different things. But he says that, again, there's a father talking to his son is what's pictured here. He goes, so you'll walk in the way of the good and keep to the paths of righteousness, you'll do that. Such confidence, such confidence. And I think we see here, a parallel of the confidence we enjoy in Christ Jesus, in our own walk with him. As we've been studying this and looking through, okay, you're saying that I get on the path of wisdom through faith in Jesus Christ, but then I have to stay on the path. Are you saying I have to, I have to, all these works are contributing to my salvation somehow? No, that's not the idea. The idea is what we would call, ideology, the perseverance of the saints. That he who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it. That if you enter the path of wisdom, it's sincerity and true. If you're the good soil, talk about Matthew, if you have true saving faith, it is not always easy and you may vary time and again from the path, but the Lord is the one who draws you back to it, who keeps you on the path, who will hold you fast till the very end. So there's a confidence we can enjoy as believers. And that is not, and I think sometimes we try to separate these two, we say, well, if we're saying it's all grace that God saves us, then how is there's these things about, well, don't apostize, don't walk away, what about effort and all of that? They're not opposed to each other. They're not opposed to each other. It is God who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. You will, you work, but you don't get the credit for it. And so all of these warnings are sincere. They're not just, and even in the New Testament, these warnings about a positive, walking away from faith, it's not that they're meaningless. They say, well, that doesn't apply to me because I'm a Christian. It's that you still have to apply yourself to seeking the Lord, but you have to recognize that the whole time it is the Lord who is supernaturally sustaining your faith and holding you to the path. It's a mystery. I'm not saying I understand how it all works, but I think if we can accept those things, it helps us make a lot more sense of these warnings that are made to believers to not walk away. But we can have confidence that ultimately, he will hold us fast. And so let's go on to verse 21. 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. And so here's this contrast talking about the land. Now, in the Old Testament, we look at the Torah and stuff. Lawfulness talking about the land, it's talking about the promised land, but also frequent throughout the Old Testament, speaks of land in terms of blessing. We'll talk about the fatness of the land, the blessing of the land. Of course, in the agrarian society, the land is the blessing. But one of the themes you see running from Genesis to Revelation is that ultimately, these things point to, well, Jesus said it best, Matthew 5.5, that the meek shall inherit the earth, literally. When we read back in Genesis, there's probably way too much to get into at the very end here, I'll try to think this. When we read back in Genesis, that God set man over the garden, that we're set up to see his vice regents to rule over the physical world, and then sin enters, right? And then God sets upon this plan of reconciliation to him, which ultimately culminates in Jesus Christ. We also learn that our future, you read this in 1 Corinthians 15, is a bodily resurrection. But that's what we look forward to, those who are in Christ, our bodies rise again. And then we speak of heaven, but there's also a new earth. And that the ultimate destination for believers is to live on this earth perfected and renewed. That's exciting, that's exciting. And so I think this points to that, that there is an ultimate eternal inheritance of a renewed earth under the kingship of Jesus as he rules from his throne in Jerusalem, literally on earth, that we get to join in that and be here, and I think even here in this shadowy form, even in the Old Testament, we have this pointed to, the upright will inhabit the land. Those who walk in integrity will remain in it, but the wicked will be cut off from the land, the treacherous will be ruled out. There is coming a day when all will be set right. And those who have walked with Jesus Christ, those who are saved by him will forever dwell in peace and security and abundance in a new earth under his rule and reign forever. I look forward to that day, don't you? And if you don't know him, get on the path. Start at the beginning of the wisdom. Listen to the call, wisdom's crying aloud, come, come, come to Jesus Christ, the way you're going, it ends only in pain. And if you're on the path, my encouragement to you and the encouragement from the scriptures is, stay on the path, keep walking. Put in the effort to grow into more and more maturity 'cause it is worth it, treasure it, treasure the words of God. You will grow and you will be blessing there. Let's pray. Father, it is unbelievable the grace you've poured out on us, that we are so undeserving, rebels to your will, sinners against you. And yet you and your grace sent your own son to die for our sins, for our waywardness to that path of wisdom, that path of righteousness, that he walked it perfectly for us in advance. And that he died for the punishment that we deserve and that by faith in him, we can have salvation. I pray, Lord, for those who don't know you, that you would convict them by your spirit, even today, that they need the Lord Jesus Christ, that the way they're going and only in pain. And for those who are on the path, those who are in Christ Jesus, I pray, Lord, that you'd help us to press on to more maturity. It's so easy to get distracted by this world, to loosen our grip on the things of the Lord and think, oh, these pleasant pleasures, they're just so valuable right now and to forget and wrongly appraise your word, which leads us on further to so much blessing, so much maturity, and eternal life. Teach us, Lord, only you can do it. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. If you want any more information about our church, you can visit our website, harvestsattroitwest.org. [MUSIC PLAYING]