Proverbs 1:20-33
Let’s give our attention to God’s
word. Proverbs chapter one, beginning at verse 20, it says, wisdom
cries aloud in the street, in the markets, she raises her voice. At the head of the noisy streets,
she cries out. At the entrance of the city gates,
she speaks. How long, O simple ones, will
you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight
in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge? If you turn at my
reproof, behold, I will pour out my spirit to you. I will
make my words known to you because I have called and you refuse
to listen, stretched out my hand and no one has heeded because
you have ignored all my counsel and would have none of my reproof.
I also will laugh at your calamity. I will mock when terror strikes
you. When terror strikes you like a storm and your calamity
like a whirlwind, When distress and anguish come upon you, then
they will call upon me, but I will not answer. They will seek me
diligently, but will not find me. Because they hated knowledge
and did not choose the fear of the Lord, would have none of
my counsel. They despised all my reproof.
Therefore they shall eat the fruit of their way and have their
fill of their own devices. For the simple are killed by
their turning away and the complacency of fools destroys them. But,
Whoever listens to me will dwell secure and be at ease without
dread of disaster. Y’all know from maybe reading
some old literature what the town the town crier is, the person
that would walk through the town, you know, hear ye, hear ye, and
they would make a proclamation. And if they were especially good
town crier, they would wear the sandwich board with the message
on the front and probably the message on the back. That’s a
little bit of what we ought to picture in our minds tonight
with wisdom crying aloud in the streets. And you’re gonna see
this pattern probably through the next eight or nine chapters
of Proverbs. There’s gonna be a sharp contrast
between Lady Wisdom and Lady Folly. Lady Wisdom and Dame Folly. Lady Wisdom calls for the young
and the simple and the unwise to get wise and live. But Dame Folly, who is largely
portrayed as an adulteress, calls out for the young and the simple
and the foolish to come to their death. So tonight we have the
first of the cause of wisdom. And you understand personification,
right? It’s the attributing of personal
qualities to something that does not have any. And so wisdom is
personified here in the book of Proverbs as a lady and as
a lady wisdom. We live in a world that competes
for our attention, right? Our allegiance. I think we just
sang it here in Jesus Calls Us. I’d like to take the credit and
say I picked the hymn because it had it in there. But verse
three says, Jesus calls us from the worship of the vain world’s
golden store, from each idol that would keep us, saying, Christian,
love me more. And that’s exactly what we want
to think about tonight. is the call on everyone to either
be wise or to be foolish, to love the world or to love Christ,
to love the kingdom of this earth or the kingdom that is not of
this world, but last into eternity. And we’re going to see over time
in the next several chapters in Proverbs, there’s the call
of wisdom, which leads to life. There’s the call of foolishness,
which leads to death. And so you’ll see very often
in the Proverbs, the compare, the contrast of wisdom and folly. So tonight we’ll pick apart verses
20 to 33 in three sections. The first section is the call
of wisdom, and you’ll see that in verses 20 to 23. Wisdom cries
aloud in the street. She cries aloud in the markets,
raises her voice at the head of noisy streets. She cries out
at the entrance of the city gates. She speaks, how long of simple
ones will you love being simple? How long will you scoffers delight
in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge? If you would turn
at my reproof, behold, I would pour out my spirit to you and
I will make my words known to you. So there’s the call of wisdom.
And you notice how it’s universal. It’s everywhere and it is to
all. In Chapel Hill at the University
of North Carolina, do y’all know what the pit is? Sounds like
one of their restaurants on Franklin Street. But there’s the pit. It’s kind of the commons area
where anybody and everybody can come and they can speak up about
whatever. And I was speaking to someone last week goes and
preaches at the pit and Someone this is a pastor and a young
fella is coming to that church now where this pastor preaches
because of his street preaching at the pit And so I was thinking
of that as I was preparing for this little lesson, thinking
there’s still the need for us to go cry aloud in the street
to the fools and say there is a way of salvation. We sort of
scoff at times, don’t we, when we see street preachers? We say,
man, they’re just asking for it, aren’t they? But maybe there
is something biblical, something faithful to that. But the call
of wisdom is everywhere and to all, but do all listen. And I
think we can say, just from looking around, an absolute no. Not all
listen. But where does the call of wisdom
go out from? It goes out from the streets.
It goes out from the marketplaces. It goes out from the gates. And
if this were written in more modern times, these are the ancient
Near Eastern public places. We might say wisdom goes out
in the schools. It goes out in the courthouses.
It goes out in the institutions of this world. where people gather
and people listen. And what does wisdom say when
it calls out, well, in verse 22, how long, O simple ones,
will you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight
in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge? Wisdom calls out to
the simple, calls out to the fool, and offers them knowledge
and even life. And notice the parallel of phrases. The call of wisdom is to turn
or repent. The call of wisdom is I will
pour out my spirit to you, that’s in verse 23. And then the call
of wisdom is also I will make my words known to you. And so
do you see that gospel pattern there a little bit? Turn or repent,
let me pour out my spirit on you, my spirit of wisdom or spirit
of knowledge, as the Holy Spirit may be, and then I will give
you, I will make my words, or you could say I will make the
scriptures or the gospel, or the way of salvation known to
you. There’s reproof. There’s the gospel call. And isn’t that
our task as Christians to proclaim the goodness of God to the watching
world? We’ve got all these voices coming
into our ears, all these things tagging after our allegiance.
And there’s very little gospel call. In fact, if you look at
the modern American church, what is the gospel message of the
modern American church? It’s come to our fun time. Come
feel good. Come learn how to be good or
be better. My favorite phrase now is when
you hear people say, I just want to be the best version of myself.
You hear it on the sidelines at ball games. You hear that
from people. It’s the self-help lingo. I just
want to be the best I can be. And so what is even the church
offering today? It’s offering things that won’t
last either. But we need to make sure the
call of the gospel goes out to young and to old. One thing to
notice before we move on to the next section is notice the call
of wisdom is a plea. What does that say to us about
the need to catch the people of this age? Should we just say
I’m a Christian, come to Jesus, all your problems will go away.
Or should we plead with people to flee their sin, to flee the
wrath that is to come, to flee a life of futility? There ought
to be a bit of urgency in our voices and in our call to others. So there’s the call to wisdom.
Look now at the warning of wisdom. And this is a long stretch, it’s
in verses 24, to 31, because I have called and you have refused
to listen, I’ve stretched out my hand and no one has heeded.
Because you have ignored all my counsel and would have none
of my reproof, I will laugh at your calamity. I will mock when
terror strikes you. When terror strikes you like
a storm and your calamity comes like a whirlwind, when distress
and anguish come upon you, they’ll call upon me, but I will not
answer. They’ll seek me diligently. but
they’ll not find me because they hated knowledge and did not choose
the fear of the Lord. They would have none of my counsel.
They despised my reproof. Therefore, they shall eat the
fruit of their way and have their fill of their own devices. That’s a bit of tough love there,
isn’t it? What’s the message of wisdom?
If you listen to wisdom, if you listen to your parents, how will
it go for children or young people? It will go well, right? It’s
the commandment with a promise to honor your parents so that
you may live long. But if we don’t listen, it will not go
well. And what does it say of this
generation in Proverbs 1 here? It says, they refused, they did
not heed, they ignored, they would have none of the reproof
or the pleas for wisdom. And that brings up the subject
of the condition of men and women and boys and girls. Are we born
with soft hearts so that when we’re one and two years old,
We just love to share toys. We just love to obey our parents.
And as we grow up, we just love authority, right? We say, fun
the police, right? We say, yay school, all the rest. No, that’s not the way it is.
We are born with sinful hearts. We are born simple. We are born
scorners. We are born fools. And unless
parents intervene, you know, And then ultimately God in Christ
through the Holy Spirit changes dead hearts and hard hearts into
soft hearts that love him. We’re gonna see a generation
that’s just like all the Bible stories tell us. What was the
history of Israel? Did they always love God, worship
God, follow his ways, keep his commandments? No, for most of
their generations, they had hard hearts. They went after other
gods and they rejected the prophets and even killed them including
Jesus. That’s the record, and it’s not
a good one. And so the warning of wisdom
is, look, don’t let the laugh be on you, right? What does the
wisdom caller say here in our passage? I will laugh at your
calamity. I will mock when terror strikes.
And then what does it say is the nature of the fool once they
see they were stupid or foolish. Oh, they say, oh, I’m so sorry,
so sorry, so sorry. I want your wisdom now. I want
your ways now. And it’s a little bit of a reminder,
isn’t it, of the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. Remember,
the rich man had everything he wanted and Lazarus was outside
his door waiting to eat the crumbs that were fed to the dogs. And
Lazarus dies and goes to heaven. He’s reclining at the table with
Abraham and the other patriarchs. And there’s the rich man in hell
suffering torment. And what does that rich man now
want? He wants to make sure that his
brothers and his family don’t end up like him. And so we got
to remember there are no second chances. We have one chance to
hear the call and to respond to it. And then it will be too
late. But don’t let the laugh be on you, is what this section
warns us. And then the end of wisdom or
the goal of wisdom is the last section of this passage. You’ve
got the call of wisdom, the warning of wisdom, and now the end of
wisdom. And it’s in the last two verses. Verse 32 says, the
simple are killed by their turning away and the complacency of fools
destroys them. But whoever listens to me will
dwell secure and will be at ease without the dread of disaster. I don’t know if it’s the same
now, but at least it used to be that a kid or a young person
could grow up with the influence of their parents, their grandparents,
their neighbors and their teachers and other assorted people who
are around them. You grew up more generationally,
you grew up more close to your extended family. You minded the
school teacher, you listened to your Sunday school workers,
you in general didn’t have a rebellious spirit and try to go about looking
for trouble. I don’t think that’s the case
any longer. But what is the hope that we
have for the young generation? We hope that they will hear and
be blessed the first time around and not have to go through, what
do we call it, the school of hard knocks. It’s one thing to
tell young people, you can do this, or you can do that. You
can do this and be blessed, or you can do that and not be blessed.
But some people are such knuckleheads, they just have to do it the hard
way. And they seem to have to do that over and over and over. But our hope is that young folks
will hear and be blessed the first time around. And so wisdom
calls and we hope that young people will seek that wisdom. One of the interesting things
I think in this chapter is it puts a stark warning. Look, you’re
gonna have your chance. and you’re gonna blow it. And
you’re gonna come knocking again saying, I want the good stuff
now. And it may not be available.
That’s the great warning. And so the end of wisdom is to
tell and proclaim the goodness of God in Christ, the way of
life and not death from the beginning. But what does it say of the fool
in verse 32? They are killed by their turning
away. They’re killed by their complacency.
It destroys them. But there’s a contrast in verse
33. Whoever listens to me will dwell
secure. Whoever listens to me will be
at ease without dread of disaster. Now does that mean your life
will be perfect? No, there’ll still be hardships. There’ll
still be losses and crosses because we live life in a fallen world.
But life gets so much better when we follow the Lord. Now,
what are we to think of this call of wisdom? Well, it’s much
like the call. Think of John the Baptist. What
did John the Baptist come in the middle of Israel and say?
Repent. Flee from the wrath that is to
come. Turn from your sins and be baptized. And Jesus does the
same thing. Repent for the kingdom of heaven
is near. But we’re reminded also by Jesus
in his parable of the soils. There’s the seed, which is the
gospel, and it falls on the path, it falls among the rock, it falls
among the thorns, and then some of it falls on the good soil.
What falls on the path is snatched up by Satan, and the gospel never
takes. What falls upon the rocks grows up quickly, but is tested
by the heat of the sun, and it falls away because it cannot
endure. And then what falls among the
thorns is choked by the cares of this world and ends up not
following Christ. But what falls on the good soil
produces and grows by varying degrees. And so the challenge
with Lady Wisdom but also with John the Baptist and most of
all with Jesus is for the call of wisdom to not fall on deaf
ears or hard hearts, but to fall in fertile soil and to grow. Now, how about for us? You know,
we’re Christians, we’re justified by our faith, but we’re torn
sometimes, aren’t we? The call of the world, as we
sang in that song, Jesus Calls Us, the call of the world and
all its little golden stores, it comes at us, doesn’t it? We watch our TVs and television
commercials are very enticing. or we see images, we see offers
and opportunities, they all come our way. And so the constant
call for every quick Christian is to reject foolishness and
to follow the way of the world. And so just because we know the
Lord doesn’t mean we’re off the hook from the call of foolishness. We know plenty of Christians,
don’t we, who have fallen into the trap of foolishness. and
so we must all take heed. Let’s pause and pray together.
Lord, bless us as we walk in this world that is not wise.
Help us to be wise as serpents, to stay close to you and your
word, and to keep our eyes and take every thought captive to
make it obedient to the word of Jesus Christ. Help us as we
navigate this noisy world with all its clamor and all that it
offers. Help us to hear Most clearly
the voice of wisdom, the voice of Christ. We pray it in his
name. Amen.