We are still in Proverbs. getting close. We're going to look at chapters 1 to 9, so we're starting on chapter 8. We'll be looking at verses 1 to 21 here this evening. So hopefully everyone here knows that Not everything on the internet and social apps and things is true. I hope everyone knows that. Not everything there is true. And if you don't, I think there's an Abraham Lincoln quote or something about that that'll help you remember. But no, not everything online is true. And that's one of our main sources of information today. Now, over the last few years, there's been quite a push about the need for fact checkers, because too much unreliable information on the internet. I think we can say that's mainly been disastrous, those efforts, and I've even heard some things here lately that they're starting to try to walk some of that back, some of these big, corporations and things, trying to walk back some of that fact checking online and things. Well, at one time or another, most of us have probably watched a video, read an article, something that was supposed to give us some kind of information that we wanted. You know, we did a search, we're looking for something. And we've done that to only realize that this video, this article, it didn't deliver on the promise. It didn't tell us what we thought, you know, that it was going to tell us. Or sometimes, you know, they just get it wrong. I've watched videos before sometimes on maybe repairing something or whatever and noticed, like, this isn't right. And, you know, so imagine that, something on the internet that's wrong. But there's also good stuff on there. I mean that is certainly true. There's good teaching on the internet, good resources for different things. Now back, this is going back quite a way, before I became a poor preacher, I was just poor. And so I was using the internet a lot for resources, study resources and things like that. Spurgeon.org was a site that I used a lot and just read whole, I mean, they were putting on, Phil Johnson curated that site and he was putting Spurgeon's sermons on there out of all of his volumes and whole books and all these kind of things and I was just reading and reading and reading and reading on that site and I was on that site all the time. There were some other online study sites, nothing as sophisticated and things as you have now, nothing as slick and functional, but it was there and you could read it, so there's good stuff there. I even heard some reports of people sometimes getting out of cultic groups like Mormons and various others due to being able to find information. Sometimes they find information about their own group that they didn't even know. They find out things they didn't even know was true, and they find out truth of Scripture, and some people have come out of those things. That's one of the ways that they have. So there's good and there's bad there, but the truth is that the world is unfiltered. The older that you get as young people, and our young people are a little thin, so I'm going to have to include Steve, the older you get as young people, the more that that unfiltered world is going to reach you. And we do the best we can as we are bringing up our children and we want to filter that world and bring them along, teach them, train them, hopefully prepare them to be able to deal with the things that they're going to encounter. Because like I said, there's just no filter in the world. And so the older that you get, the more that's going to reach you. And that's all the more reason why that you need wisdom, I need wisdom, we all need wisdom today. Now, chapters five to seven that we've looked at in Proverbs already to this point, and these addresses to young people. Chapters five to seven have given repeated warnings about traps and pitfalls, and really, generalized to say listening to the wrong voices. In fact, in chapter one, it even starts out that way. So chapters 5 to 7, though, spoke especially about the flattering voice of the strange woman, the offers and the temptations there. And so that's leading us now into chapter 8. And in chapter 8, Solomon is recommending lady wisdom. We have wisdom here personified as a very noble woman. And so Chapter 8 then is going to ultimately prepare us for this face-off between Lady Wisdom and Lady Folly, I guess you could call her, in Chapter 9, which is where we'll wrap up this particular study. But tonight we're starting here in chapter number eight. And so when you look at the description, I think that we're supposed to do a compare and contrast. So we've seen the strange woman and we've seen the things that's been said about her and associations and the way she's described. And then when we read about wisdom, again, as a noble woman, we should see the descriptions about her. Everything that is noble and good and virtuous, and in fact, you get that culmination of the virtuous woman at the end of Proverbs in Proverbs 31. So that's where we're going to look at here in chapter number eight. And we'll start out with the first Five verses where wisdom is presented once again as being accessible. Does not wisdom cry and understanding put forth her voice? And you see that right there, put forth her voice. So again, wisdom is being personified as a woman. The word for cry here essentially is to call out to. It's not just sort of a random sort of cry, but it's a call out to someone and reinforced here with the idea of being put forth, making known. Wisdom is crying out and is making her voice known. We've noticed, I've made mention of it several times, we've talked about the noise that we have in the world today. And there's a lot of voices. They come to us in all kinds of ways, from the people that we meet and that we're around, people in public places, people online, and various things. All these voices, it's a clamor, and it's a noise. and wisdom is calling out. In other words, you get the idea that this is a crowded room. I guess one of the most prized things in today's world is attention, if you can get attention. That's what you're going for. And so all these online and all these things are all calling out for attention. And so wisdom is crying out and wisdom is making her voice known. In other words, wisdom is present. It's not far off and unreachable and aloof or anything like that. So wisdom is once again, I think we've said this before, but accessible. Wisdom is actively crying out. But we also know that on the other hand, only those who have ears to hear will hear. So really this is a reemphasizing of the point of the need to seek out and to listen, to actively listen to wisdom. She standeth in the top of the high places by the way in the place of the path. She crieth at the gate, at the entry of the city, at the coming in at the doors. So again, so this woman is wisdom personified as a woman, and she is seen here in different places where she is crying out. So high places would be elevated, vantage points of the city, visible places of the city, places where Wisdom would be visible, be accessible. Places of the paths is actually a reference to sort of intersections of travel routes and ways, intersections of places where people are walking and that sort of thing. So once again, we see wisdom is calling out, making her voice known, in public places where people are. Now, one of the contrasts that we see, if you think back in Chapter 7 that we just looked at a couple weeks ago, if you think back to Chapter 7, the strange woman, the adulterous woman there in Chapter 7, she was lurking around in dark places. She was under the cover of night when she caught the young simple man near to her house. There's even a contrast here. This woman, Wisdom, is in a very public place, a very visible place. She's there in the broad daylight. And she's also in places where she can reach out to the broadest audience. You could say that wisdom sort of mixes throughout the various strata of society, and it might be maybe a subtle point. But wisdom is accessible and relevant to all walks of life, you could say, from high to low, the high places to the intersections, the street corners. Crying at the gates and the coming in of the doors, this again is the entry of the city where people are, being accessible to those who seek, and she's crying out to them. Verse 4, "'Unto you, O men, I call, and my voice is to the sons of man.'" Now, the men here is in the plural. This is not, but this is Sons of Adam that is listed there. Some commentators think there's a distinction being played on here. I'm not convinced. It seems to be a sort of a comprehensive comprehensive call, that wisdom is calling out indiscriminately to all to bid them to hear. And that has obviously been emphasized in various ways. And this continues in verse 5, O ye simple, understand wisdom, and ye fools, be ye of an understanding heart. Well, we've encountered this word simple several times now. We can think of it as perhaps being naive. The simple person is is thoughtless and careless. It's not a maliciousness. It's not even a willfulness. It's, I don't know if I should call it an innocent ignorance, but it's just an ignorance, just a lack of knowledge and experience. I don't know if you've had the experience or not, but maybe sometimes maybe doing something and your parents were helping you even maybe when you started working a job and a person basically sets back and lets you make a mistake, lets you mess something up and maybe it gets you all dirty or whatever it is that happens and then they want to teach you the right way and they'll do that so that you remember the lesson. Well, you know, obviously you didn't set out to do it wrong. You didn't set out to make a mistake. But you just didn't have the knowledge and the experience to be able to do it right. And so you made a mistake. Well, that's simple. Fools, on the other hand, or a little further down the line. Fools, there's the idea of some obstinance with fools. There's some stubbornness there. And to be a fool in Proverbs doesn't have anything to do with a person's intellectual capacity. It has everything to do with their I guess you could say posture toward wisdom. Do they love wisdom? Do they eschew wisdom? Well, that would be a fool. So fools are obstinate, they're willful in their foolishness, they're not at the worst stage as that progresses on in Proverbs. seeking for them to understand wisdom and to be of an understanding heart." Well, wisdom here is Broad term for wisdom, you can think of it as maybe prudence, which has to do with discernment, being able to distinguish, and typically in Proverbs, very simply, we have two ways, oftentimes presented, and there's a way of wisdom and there's a way of folly, and being able to discern between those two, being able to distinguish between those two. So hearing voices, so think about the woman wisdom that's crying out, calling out to the simple and to the fools to understand wisdom, to have discernment, and to be of an understanding heart. And that word for understanding points to what we might just call having good sense, being sensible. And so that's the cry and the design of wisdom, which tells us if fools and the simple would listen, then the result would be understanding wisdom and having an understanding heart, if they would listen. Now, verses 1 to 5 give us basically in sort of an introduction to Lady Wisdom and what she has to say and then the rest of the chapter sort of goes through several different things that Lady Wisdom has to say and so verses 6 to 13 is another little group where we get Wisdom is accessible and we could say common, but not in the sense of being possessed by all or common unto all. So we get this instruction here to hear, which again means to listen intelligently, to listen actively. We've seen that a number of times in the addresses. Excellent things are noble things, princely things, things of Things of high repute, high esteem, high regard. You could say opposite to lowbrow things. Excellent things. Right things. Right things refers, the word right refers to straight or to level. And so when it's used in this sense, it would sort of have a moral uprightness to it. These are words that are noble and words that are upright, words that are righteous. And that is what wisdom speaks. That is the words of wisdom, things that are good and true and wholesome, righteous, noble, and so on. we get a contrast here with the strange woman, or the adulterous woman, like back in chapter seven, and her lips were smoother than oil, and she had great flattering words, and she said a lot of things that the young simple man, quite frankly, wanted to hear. And so he yielded to them, but wisdom, It is never going to be a voice that is in any way trending us toward wrong things. It's never going to be moving us away from truth. It's never going to be moving us away from goodness. It's never going to be moving us away from uprightness before God and His word. Wisdom is never going to be speaking those things. That is not the voice of wisdom if those are the things that are being spoken. Verse 7 says, For my mouth shall speak truth, and wickedness is an abomination to my lips. So, wisdom is continuing to explain why she has called for attention to her words. She said she's going to speak of excellent things, she's going to speak of right things, and she's going to speak truth. And this word for truth here has the idea of being reliable. And the word for speaking, actually, that's used here is different than the previous verse. And it has the idea of, let's say, meditative speech. In other words, It's thoughtful. It's not flippant. It's not hasty. And one of the things that goes along with the information overload that we have today would be the plummeting attention spans. And so we want everything in just a short, little clip, just a few words, just a short little thing. You want everything to be condensed and put down and to be very quick. And this word that wisdom speaks here is actually not that. It's thoughtful, it is pondered, would even be a good word to use there. It's pondered speech, speech that has been meditated on and such. So it's not rash, it's not flippant, it's not hasty. And notice this wickedness is an abomination to my lips." So, abomination would have to do with something that's detestable, something that's disgusting. And so, really, it's quite a picture when wisdom speaks of speaking, lips, and mouth, and then says wickedness is an abomination to my lips. In other words, Wisdom has no taste for that that is wicked. Wisdom has no taste for it. So in other words, if this is still part of the explanation, and it is, of why wisdom is crying out, well then it would be so that if we hear and heed wisdom, then we won't have that taste for anything wicked, perverse, corrupt, froward, and so on as the words continue to be used. So it's like something that you would put to your mouth and you find it disgusting. So you would spit it out and throw it from you. That's sort of the reaction. that would be had. All the words of my mouth are in righteousness. There's nothing froward or perverse in them." Now, froward and perverse are similar. Perverse has the idea of being crooked or bent. Sort of twisted. Very similar. They're sayings that bend away from truth and wisdom. They're crooked. They won't fit. They both describe speech. You put these things together and you can even think of it as being deceitful. deceitful speech, crafty speech, and righteousness means what is just and what is right. So the words of wisdom are truthful and reliable and there's no trickery in them. There's nothing perverse. And if you think back, we've encountered so many already, even starting in Proverbs 1 and coming through. We've seen so much deceitful speech. Back in Proverbs 1, if you remember, the deceitful speech was trying to get the young man to get in on the robbery and other things. And we've seen it again and again. We've seen it with the strange woman several times. this sort of deceitful speech, this sort of... tempting speech that would try to bring someone away from righteous and away from right. Well, Lady Wisdom says essentially that there is none of that in her speech. There's nothing twisted or bent or crooked. There's no trickery. There's no deceit. Her words are open and plain and they are truthful and they are reliable and they're good. She goes on, they are all plain to him that understandeth and right to them that findeth or that find knowledge. Plain has the idea of being clear. It's a term that could be used to describe like a road having a clear path to walk on or to drive on or whatever the case may be. It's clear. They're all made clear to him that understands. Wisdom is not is not hiding or covering, but it's plain. It's clear. Understanding, again, points to discernment. So those who truly seek wisdom, they find it. They're plain to him to understand. They're right to them that find knowledge. And right is similar to plain. as the idea of straight. And again, used in this sort of a context, it would be more of like morally straight being upright. So finding knowledge And we've seen several of those terms of finding and seeking and listening and searching and all those sort of things. But notice that these are clear rewards. In other words, wisdom does reward those who come to her, those who listen to her, those that receive her words. They are rewarded. Now this continues in verse 10, "...receive my instruction and not silver and knowledge rather than choice gold. For wisdom is better than rubies and all the things that may be desired are not to be compared to it." Instruction is a pretty broad term. including the idea of discipline and correction and teaching. Training would probably be a good way to think of it, training, training in wisdom. So we are exhorted to receive that, receive the training of wisdom. And, of course, that's really the sticking point for many. Why don't more people want wisdom? You think about it, you describe these things, you describe these benefits, these blessings, all things that come with wisdom, and, of course, you can't overlook the spiritual benefits, which is really the emphasis primarily on the spiritual benefits of wisdom. Why wouldn't someone want that? We're told in other places in Proverbs how the fools hate knowledge. And scorners despise correction and they despise reproof. And so we just have a natural tendency within us that we don't wanna be corrected. We don't wanna be reproved and rebuked and essentially told how that we're wrong and to be put right, to be put on a path that isn't the way that we wanna go. And so we don't tend to listen naturally. Knowledge, again, is that discernment that is to be sought. Notice this, above silver and above gold. So, essentially the training of wisdom is more valuable than money or fame or whatever it is that's highly prized among people, wisdom is far better. And the way that it is put in this verse is that you can't really pursue both the same way and at the same time. You can't really commit to wisdom and give yourself to the pursuit of silver and gold at the same time. Now, again, that's not saying that in order to have wisdom, you'll have to be poor and take a vow of poverty or something of that nature. But the point is what you are pursuing, what is it that you're seeking? What is it that you're searching after? If you're actually searching for silver and gold, you're not going to find wisdom. But you are to be searching and seeking after wisdom. And it's better than that. And it's better than rubies and and all the things that may be desired and notice how that Notice how that gets broadened. All the things that may be desired are not to be compared to it. So if it's silver or it's gold or it's some sort of precious stones, there's sort of an intrinsic value to those things. There's a quantifiable value that could be placed on those sort of things. And they're sort of the pinnacle of what is desired and sought after. But all things that may be desired is a little more subjective. It may be different, the things that one person desires as opposed to another person. So whatever it is that is prized, whatever it is, it may not be silver and gold. There may be something else that is prized more than that by a person. But whatever it is, anything that we could desire as a prize, You could also think of it as these are the things that men and women are willing to give their life in exchange for. They're willing to devote themselves to the pursuit and acquisition of these treasures, whatever that they may be. So all of that, whatever that it is, wisdom is more surpassingly valuable than anything that's highly prized by people. Well, that means then that men and women should search more diligently for wisdom than they do for these earthly desirables. It brings us to, beginning here in verse number 12, this is the last Part of this being 12 going down to 21, which is where we're going. So wisdom brings reward. Wisdom brings blessing. I, wisdom, dwell with prudence and find out knowledge of witty inventions. So wisdom dwells. with prudence is at home. Prudence has the idea of shrewdness, discretion, obviously positive in this context, witty inventions. That would just sort of be plans. plans in the sense of being able to plan, to form plans, to put things together, to be able to have some forethought and some foresight in that way. So that wisdom dwells with prudence means that wisdom is at home with prudence. Wisdom is wise, I guess you could say. Wisdom knows how to navigate life. And I'm stumbling all over this explanation, but I'm hoping to make this clear. I believe that this verse is getting at is that wisdom is not just some sort of abstract thought to dwell on, like what is the sound of one hand clapping, something like that. It's not some abstract thought. Wisdom is actually down-to-earth. In other words, wisdom is relevant and applicable every day in every life. It's not just sort of an academic pursuit or intellectual exercise. It's not lofty or detached or anything like that, but very, very practical. The fear of the Lord is to hate evil. pride and arrogancy and the evil way and the froward mouth do I hate?" Well, we know that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. There will be no wisdom apart from it, and this This fear of the Lord is something that's never outgrown. It's the beginning of wisdom, but that doesn't mean that it's the start, like it's preschool or something like that, and you get past those. kind of things. You know, later in life you don't sit down and write out full sheets of the alphabet and things like that. Oh, I've gotten past that. Well, the fear of the Lord is not that way, though it is the beginning of wisdom. You could say it is lesson number one. Pride and arrogancy would refer to essentially the ego of men and women to think themselves wise, to think themselves knowledgeable and skillful in all of these things. The evil way is the road or the path of the evil man. It's the way of life of one who is evil. And the froward mouth is speaking perverse things, not wise things. So this perverse speech shows that there's no wisdom there, and wisdom says that the fear of the Lord is to hate these things, and wisdom says these things essentially do I hate. That brings us back a little bit to the abominable things, to the lips, the detestable things, the things that they hate. No taste for these things. Now, as we're looking at further these rewards of wisdom, notice that there are physical and spiritual benefits that are given. Counsel is mine and sound wisdom. I am understanding. I have strength. A lot of this sounds very familiar until we get to that word strength. Understanding, of course, discernment, wisdom, counsel. We pretty well get those words, but strength refers to power. And it's not something that's typically listed with wisdom, that wisdom has power or or might. Well, strength that comes from wisdom, it is what we could describe as the force of good actions. Because, again, wisdom is not just sort of an intellectual curiosity or something to just sort of occupy our minds, but it is something that actually directs our steps. It directs our steps in the way, it directs our hands, it directs our mouths. And so the blessing of wisdom is to give us this force, this motivator of good actions. You could probably... maybe contrast it with someone being uncertain, and so their steps are sort of stumbling, they're kind of fumbling around, they're not really sure where to go. But going in the way of wisdom is going with the strength of conviction. Verse 15, wisdom continues this description, By me kings reign. and princes decree justice." So we have to key on that word justice and what is just and what is right. So if ever a prince or a king rules or decrees justly or any righteousness that is done, It is by wisdom. Now, we're warned in other places of Proverbs that when wicked rulers and fools are in power, that the result is incompetence of government, oppression, tyranny, injustice abounding. We could go back to the pride and the arrogancy and the and the evil way having sway, but any good government and any good that comes, and again, government has been instituted by God, it's a part of the nations that God has made on the earth, and any good that comes from that comes by wisdom or comes from or through wisdom. by me, prince's rule, and nobles, even all the judges of the earth. So wisdom is the good of any good authority that's exercised on the earth. And essentially, wisdom is required in order to hold authority without abuse of that authority or without vainglory, which, you know, essentially seeking to exercise authority to prop up yourself. So wisdom is required. Wisdom will restrain unrighteousness, and it will teach the hatred of evil, and pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth that we saw in the previous verses. These sort of things, the arrogancy and all that, those are corruptions of power. Those are corruptions of authority. Those are abuses of authority, and they are contrary to wisdom. And these are all the things that afflict people when the wicked and the foolish are in places of authority over them, according to places like Proverbs 29, 2. Verse 17 says, I love them that love me and those that seek me early shall find me. So wisdom has been described with all of these great attributes, all these desirable qualities, but wisdom is not merely something to be beheld. It's not like going to see a good work of art, a painting or statue or even listening to true art in composition of music and instruments and things that you sort of just experience and enjoy, so to speak. Wisdom is not that way. Wisdom is lovely. Wisdom is noble. Wisdom is artful. Wisdom is graceful. All these great attributes that we could use and descriptors of wisdom, but it's not something to be merely admired. Wisdom is to be sought out and it's the possession of wisdom. Seeking early has the idea of diligent, a persistent and diligent search early in life as well as early in the day. Riches and honor are with me, yea, durable riches and righteousness. Riches and and honor, speak of glory, speak of abundance. Durable riches refers to ancient wealth, old wealth that has been treasured up. So in other words, it's enduring, it's not quickly It's not quickly fading. Riches that are passed from one hand to another and abundant. And of course, righteousness, the justice, the opposite of the bad rule that we talked about a few moments ago. Verse 19, "'My fruit is better than gold, yea, than fine gold, and my revenue than choice silver.'" Well, fruit is the produce. Fruit is what is produced. The produce of wisdom is better than gold. So the rewards, the results of wisdom is better than gaining gold, even fine gold or choice silver, which is, again, speaking of the rewards of wisdom. I lead in the way of righteousness in the midst of the paths of judgment that I may cause those that love me to inherit substance and I will feel their treasures. So wisdom's gifts have been described. They are benefits that are intended to be seen as spiritual as well as physical. They're valuable. They're durable. And so wisdom here explains that her gifts come in the way of righteousness and judgment. The gains of wisdom. are not by trickery or deceit or by ethical trimming and all of these sort of things. They're upright, the fruit of righteousness. This is the way that these rewards come. And to inherit is to possess. to acquire for possession. Those who love wisdom, those who walk in the way of wisdom, who heed the way of wisdom, gain possession for their treasures or their storehouses, and they will be filled, and that word has the idea of being holy filled or filled to the full. And so wisdom is delighting to dispense rich gifts, gifts that are more valuable than fine gold and choice silver. And of course, it sort of reminds me of, in the New Testament, where we're told how that God gives wisdom liberally in James chapter 1 and verse number 5. All right, so if you pay attention to the empty promises that are all around us, and there are empty promises all around us. We get mail, we get email, we see things online, there's ads that pop up, and they're all promising a brand new you in so many ways, and a million dollars ready to be deposited in your account, and all these kind of things, you see it all. All the time there's empty promises all around us. Solomon is instructing us to seek and to heed the goodness of divine wisdom and knowing that the promises of wisdom are never empty. They're real and they are secure. They are stable. They're reliable. They're never empty.