Proverbs 9
Let’s give our attention now
to God’s word. Proverbs chapter nine, beginning at verse one.
It says, wisdom has built her house. She has hewn her seven
pillars. She has slaughtered her beast.
She has mixed her wine. She has also set her table. She
has sent out her young women to call from the highest places
in the town. Whoever is simple, let him turn
in here. To him who lacks sense, she says,
come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. Leave
your simple ways and live and walk in the way of insight. Whoever
corrects a scoffer gets himself abuse. And he who approves a
wicked man incurs injury. Do not reprove a scoffer or he
will hate you. Approve a wise man and he will
love you. Give instruction to a wise man and he will still
be wiser. Teach a righteous man and he
will increase in learning. The fear of the Lord is the beginning
of wisdom and the knowledge of a holy one is insight. For by
me, your days will be multiplied and years will be added to your
life. If you are wise, you are wise for yourself. If you scoff,
you alone will bear it. The woman folly is loud. She
is seductive and knows nothing. She sits at the door of her house.
She takes a seat on the highest places of the town, calling to
those who pass by, who are going straight on their way. Whoever
is simple, let him turn and hear. And to him who lacks sense, she
says, stolen water is sweet, and bread eaten in secret is
pleasant. But he does not know that the
dead are there, and her guests are in the depths of Sheol. Amen. This is the word of the
living God. Well, here’s a dinner invitation
for you. Pick one or the other. You can
go to the Biltmore House, decorated at Christmas, and you can sit
in that dining room with that grand table. You just get to
go. Or you can go to Taco Bell. Which
would you choose? That’s a bad choice tonight,
because you’re going to see the moral of the story. Which would
you choose? There could be no greater contrast
than a dinner on an estate A dinner on an estate where the food is
raised there, the wine is made there, the chefs, the kitchen
prepares such a meal. Or you can go through the drive-through
and you can get something that was, well, freeze-dried or however,
whatever. The contrast couldn’t be greater.
But you get a dinner invitation and you say two things usually,
who’s there and what’s cooking? Right? Dinner invitation. Who’s
there and what’s cooking? That’s what we want to know from
our passage tonight. Well, maybe there’s a more important
question. After accepting the invitation and going, at the
end of the night, will I live or will I die? And not from the
culinary experience, though that could be a problem, but really
from the spiritual realities of what takes place. at these
two women’s dinners that you are receiving the invitation
to tonight. Well, as we look at this passage
this evening, we want to remember before diving in the wisdom we
have heard thus far. Chapter nine is the end of the
introduction to wisdom. So nine chapters out of 31. are
taken up in introduction. We’ve seen two main ways that
wisdom is imparted. The first main way is a father
to his children. My son, listen, my son this,
my son that. And then we’ve also seen, this
is not the first time it has occurred, wisdom and folly personified
as a lady. So we have the father to his
children, but also the two options, Lady Wisdom and Dame Folly. Well, let’s look at the first
invitation tonight. You find it in the first six
verses. And then there’s a little break,
verses seven through 12, Compare and Contrast the Wicked and the
Righteous. And then, verses 13 through 18, you have the invitation
of Lady Folly. Let’s look first at this invitation
from Lady Wisdom. It says, Wisdom has built her
house. She has hewn her seven pillars. She slaughtered her
beast. She’s mixed her wine. She’s also set her table. Then
she sends out her young women, her maidens, to call from the
highest places in town. Whoever’s simple, come in here.
To him who lacks sense, come, eat of my bread. Drink of the
wine I have mixed. Leave your simple ways and live.
Walk in the way of insight. Notice her meal. What’s the question? Who’s gonna be there and what’s
cooking? Well, what’s cooking? She’s got meat. She’s got wine. And in a sense, you could say
the meat and the wine are wisdom. It’s food for the journey of
life. You eat a good meal, you can
work, right? You eat a good meal, you can
exercise or do what is strenuous in your life. And the same with
meat and wine for strength. The same is true for insight.
and life-giving wisdom. Who does she invite to her table?
Who’s gonna be there? Well, she invites the simple,
she invites the gullible. One Old Testament commentator
thought, put it kind of funny, she invites the brainless, who would otherwise probably
hobnob with bad company. Many of y’all read the book that
came out maybe five, six years ago, Hillbilly Elegy. Some of y’all read it. Some of
y’all watched the Netflix. Just came out on Netflix. It’s
a good book, I think, worth reading. It was at, what’s that? Hillbilly
Elegy. It’s on Netflix, but the book
was at the place we stay at at the beach a couple years ago,
and I read it, but it was on Netflix, so I watched it the
other night. But in it, there’s a section where J.D. Vance, who’s
the main character, grows up in rough country Kentucky, Rust
Belt of Ohio, gets into all kinds of messes because of just the
family he has. But there’s a stretch of his
life that’s portrayed in the movie of the company he keeps.
They’re drinking beer, they’re smoking things, doing stupid
stuff. And that’s, in a sense, who the
wisdom lady is calling out to. Calling out, she says, to the
simple, to the gullible, to the brainless, who otherwise, if
you don’t heed my call, you’re gonna end up hobnobbing with
the rabble-rousers and with bad company. We had a whole nother
section of Proverbs, didn’t we, in weeks past where we saw how
that goes when we run with those whose feet run to evil. So, lady
wisdom invites you to a meal. What’s cooking? Good stuff, meat,
wine, wisdom, insight. Who’s gonna be there? Well, really
everyone who will come, even the simplest, the most gullible
and brainless. Now, the next couple verses,
7, 8, 9, and 10, well, 11 and 12 also, are a little interlude
before we get to the invitation from Lady Folly. And you could
look at this section in some way like this. Eat here and you’ll
look like this. You eat too much fast food, what
will you look like? Be easy to see. That’s a good
way to put it. My kids, we have a running joke. You eat too many
Little Debbies, what will you become? Big Debbie. That’s right. That’s our little joke. They love to raid their grandmother’s
pantry when we go to her house and she has lots of Little Debbies.
That’s my little joke. Too many Little Debbies will
make you Big Debbie. That’s right. So eat here, you’ll
look like this. So look at beginning at verse
seven, it says, whoever corrects a scoffer will get himself abuse. He who reproves a wicked man
incurs injury. So even a wicked person in their
wickedness, when given the grace of reproof, not only do they
reject it, they ridicule you for it. Don’t waste your breath.
Then it says, do not reprove a scoffer or he will hate you. But reprove a wise man, and he’ll
love you. Give instruction to a wise man,
he will be still wiser. Teach a righteous man, and he
will increase in learning. So different responses from the
wise and from the foolish. And then a verse we know very
well, verse 10. The fear of the Lord is the beginning
of wisdom. The knowledge of the Holy One is insight. You want
to live life to the fullest? You want to have that stretch
into eternity? Fear God, accept reproof, be
corrected, listen to instruction, whether it’s from Lady Wisdom
or from your parents, the preacher, whomever. And then it says in
verse 11, the blessing and the benefit. For by me, your days
will be multiplied. By me, your years will be added
to your life. If you are wise, you are wise
for yourself. If you scoff, you alone will
bear it. So eat here and you’ll look like
this. There is reward for eating at Lady Wisdom’s house, and there
is suffering, even death, for eating at the foolish woman’s
house. You’ve been to a meal, probably
a Christmas meal, you know, where you’re told, look under your
chair and there’s the little number, and you take your number
and you go pick a prize, right? What do all the prizes at the
foolish woman’s house get? You get shame, you get suffering,
right? You ultimately get death, but what are the prizes at the
house of the righteous? You get life, you get wisdom,
you get insight, you get great and precious things. Well, look
at verses 13 through 18, you’ll see the invitation. of the wicked
woman. It says in verse 13, the woman
folly is loud. She is seductive. She knows nothing.
She sits at the door of her house. She takes a seat on the highest
places of the town. She calls to those who pass by,
those who are going straight on their way. Whoever is simple,
let him turn in here. To him who lacks sense, she says,
stolen water is sweet and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.
But he does not know that the dead are there, and their guests
are in the depths of Sheol.” Think for just a moment about
lady folly, woman folly, before we look at what’s cooking and
who’s at the table. Look at verse 13, she is loud,
she is seductive, and she knows nothing. This is the kind of
person that we very often will say, they ought to be ashamed
of themselves. That’s how we say it in the South,
or what’s the real way we say it in the South? Bless her heart,
right? But really the truth is, she
ought to be ashamed of herself, but guess what? She isn’t. She lacks discretion, right? She is loud. She is not ladylike. She parties. She revels. She
doesn’t know what she doesn’t know, right? She has no clue
what she looks like from the outside. She’s loud, seductive,
and knows nothing. All right. What’s she cooking? What’s she cooking? Do you see
it? Verses 13 through 18? Or in 1980s speak, where’s the
beef? You remember that Wendy’s commercial?
Do you see anything she offers to eat? Not a thing. So she is cooking nothing. The
other lady, Lady Wisdom, she has prepared her beast. You can
just picture the estate. You know, it’s a working estate. They have raised the cattle.
They have raised the hogs. They have grown the food. They
have raised the grapes. They’ve harvested them. They’ve
made their wine. But here, nothing. No food. But she calls She calls,
who’s at the table? She calls to those who pass by,
those who are going straight or those who are unaware, maybe
those who are aimless in life. She calls to him who lacks sense. Come in here. Turn in here. Stolen water is sweet. Bread
eaten in secret is pleasant. What you have here is a copycat.
She’s copying wisdom. This is a little bit like Satan
in the garden. Remember, the serpent was more crafty than
any other beast of the field. Everything he offered was counterfeit. everything offered was counterfeit
to the goodness and graces of Almighty God. And we have here,
I think we ought to see, this is something we say very often
on Sunday, we come out of the world where many voices have
been calling to us and they have been competing for our love,
our attention, and our allegiance. And how often is it that we as
people of the flesh get into the week and we’ve forgotten
the word and the voice of the world, the voice of Lady Folly
sounds pretty good. Turn in here. It’ll be fun. It’ll be full of pleasure. It’ll
be good for you. Stolen water is sweet. Bread
eaten in secret is pleasant. She’s not offering wine. She’s
not even offering drive-through or takeout or microwave meals. What’s so wonderful about something
stolen? It’s just the fact that it’s stolen, right? I remember
St. Augustine in his confessions, why was it that he was so thrilled
to steal the pears? It was just the fact that they
were able to steal them and they fed them to the swine, they gave
them to the pigs. Simply because it’s stolen, it’s
sweet. Got it for free. This also is
a metaphor, though. I think you know this from other
places in Proverbs we’ve looked at and others we will look at.
This is a reference to sexual immorality. It’s committing adultery. It’s stealing what is not meant
to be for us. It has to be done in secret for
the eyes of the Lord. On that activity, do not give
blessing, but give disappointment, judgment, disapproval. What does verse 18 say? He does
not know that the dead are there, that her guests are in the depths
of Sheol. So where’s the beef? What’s cooking?
Not a thing at her house. You get lured into the house,
you get duped into coming, and you, well, probably by that point,
don’t care that there’s no food. If you get what I’m getting at,
you’re more worried about other things. There is no food. Who’s
at the table? A bunch of dead people. Maybe
not physically dead, but it won’t be long. He does not know the
dead are there. Her guests are in the depths
of Sheol. So another way to look at this passage, you have two
offers, one of wisdom, one of foolishness. Both seem to be
offering the same thing, one counterfeit. One is a banquet
of life and strength. but one is a banquet at the grave. One will give you life because
she gives you God’s ways and his wisdom. The other will steal
your life. And so maybe a practical way
to think about life’s choices. Well, one thing is, will it please
God or will it not please God? Another way is, is it right or
is it wrong? Another way to think about it,
and this is a good example, will it give me life or will it take
away my life? Then you might ask a question,
should I spend time around this person or these people or this
group or that group? Are they a life-giving people?
Or are they a life-stealing people? Good ways to contrast and consider
spiritual choices. Well, how do we think of this
passage in light of our obedience to the Lord Jesus? Well, I think
a helpful way is found in Mark’s gospel, I think it’s chapter
seven, and Jesus says, Something like this, I’m paraphrasing,
but he says, broad is the way and easy is the way that leads
to destruction. And those who enter by it are
many, but enter by the narrow gate. The narrow gate is the
hard way and few are those who find it. So this is a call for
us to follow Jesus. It’s hard. but it’ll lead to
life, even life eternal. Or we can follow the ways of
this world. It’s an easy way. It’s a fun way sometimes, but
it will steal your life, not only daily, but it’ll steal your
life forever. And there are many on that path.
So may God give us the grace. to choose the broad way, but
also to stay on it when many voices compete for our allegiance. Let’s pray together. Lord, bless
us with discernment to know what is good, right, and true, wise,
and life-giving. Help us to discern what is the
opposite, to reject it, to stay on the path, the narrow way.
We pray in Christ’s name, amen.