What is wisdom? What is the most basic essence of wisdom? The real whatness of what it is? Without scripture, we have all kinds of ideas about wisdom. Even non-Christians who never read the Bible can tell us certain ideas about wisdom. We can describe without the Bible some of the traits of wisdom. Traits like knowledge, experience, skill in living, and these are things for example you can find in a dictionary, a secular dictionary, or on a psychological website. that raises the issue of wisdom, and they're not wrong. But if we really want to penetrate to the core of true wisdom, the distilled purity of what it really is, then we need to open our hearts to what the Bible says. And I'll tell you why. At the heart of this inquiry about wisdom, we suffer spiritual blindness. We have some peripheral vision about wisdom's attributes, but we have a blind spot precisely in the center when we try to look at it directly. Sin has made us blind about the essence of its true nature. And I mean this is true even with respect to very, very intelligent people and otherwise sagacious individuals known for their wisdom. Now I have found a verse that answers the question in that which is otherwise unseeable to us. That verse in the Bible is Job 28, 28. Job 28. And there God's word says this, And unto man he said, Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding. Amen. My plan for this sermon is first to offer a brief exposition of these words, then to state the doctrine in one very brief sentence, then to raise five truths about this wisdom, and finally to make several applications from these truths. So some of you may recognize that as a very traditional Puritan sermon structure, and indeed it is, except I only have five truths, not 25, and three applications, not 33 applications. So we begin then with the exposition. And the first thing we need to know about this verse, Job 28, 28, is the context. This particular verse is the climax of a beautiful poem, a poem which is the whole of Job chapter 28, a poem that celebrates wisdom. The search for wisdom is a major theme of the book of Job as it is of the whole Bible in both the Old Testament and the New Testament. That being the case, the search for wisdom being a major biblical theme, how important this verse is then. Because it tells us the essence of wisdom as I'll explain in a moment. There are countless verses in the Bible which are much less significant than this one. with minor details of geography and genealogy, for example. Now, I don't want to offend anybody. There's nothing in the Bible that is utterly trivial and we could do without. But some things are relatively trivial compared to this. So we, looking at the context, should have a greater appreciation for the huge significance in Job and in the whole Bible of this particular verse. Second, we should ask not only about the context, but the speaker. Who is the speaker in this verse? And I remind you the verse says, unto man he said. Who is the object of the pronoun he in the phrase he said well again it's not difficult to find out look at the context without a doubt he here refers to God mentioned in verse 23 the same pronoun he refers back to God when asserting in verse 23 that he knows the place of wisdom and he appears again in verse 24 when it says he beholds the world God beholds the world is the idea in verse 25 he that is God rules the wind and the waters in this passage It's God, referred to as He again in verse 26, who ordains both the rain and the lightning. And in verse 27, the poet tells us that He, namely God, understands perfectly about all these things. Verse 27. So this God is the one speaking the statement, Behold, the fear of the Lord that is wisdom in verse 28 and so forth when our text says unto man he said behold the fear of the Lord it means God said and then the statement behold the fear of the Lord that is wisdom so the speaker is without a doubt God in verse 28 The third thing to consider is who is being addressed. The text says that God said this unto man. And in the Hebrew language, the term used here is a gender neutral noun referring to humanity. In fact, it is the word Adam or Adam, which is the same as the name, of course, for the first man God made. But in some passages like this one, it is the most basic word for humanity in the Old Testament scriptures, Adam or Adama. God is, in other words, since we are human, all of us here are human, God is speaking to you and to me in this passage. and to any and all human beings who hear this text. A fourth feature of the text is a word in it which stresses the importance of the message. It contains the word behold, doesn't it? Behold the fear of the Lord that is wisdom. And the word behold means look at this! It's used so often in the scriptures as here as an attention getter. Now I can say for certain that nothing is more worthy of our attention than this. And nothing is more relevant to us than this. Now whether we really get this and embrace it is all that will matter to us a thousand years from now. because the truth implicit in this verse is the difference between our going to heaven or hell. This truth is key to our eternal bliss or everlasting misery. Now the fifth thing I would point out from the passage is the verses theme contained in two words used interchangeably in lines one and two. Wisdom and understanding. Now we know for sure as students of the passage that they are very close in meaning. Wisdom and understanding are very close in meaning because of how they are used in this couplet of Hebrew poetic parallelism. They're used one instead of the other, if you will, interchangeably. God here deliberately uses the word understanding as the functional equivalent of wisdom. Although, if you look up the terms in Hebrew lexicons, there is a shade of difference between the terms. And that brings us then, sixthly, to the main point made by this verse. And this is the point, I believe, which is very much stressed and emphasized. It pertains to the very essence of this wisdom or understanding which is in view. And I believe that essence is perfectly obvious from the two-fold statement. The fear of the Lord, that is wisdom. And to depart from evil is understanding. Two equivalent phrases epitomize what wisdom is then. The fear of the Lord and to depart from evil. And these two, of course, are conjoined. It is highly suggested by the statement. That is, where one is, so is the other. There is no fear of the Lord without departing from evil, and there is no departing from evil without the fear of the Lord. Now once we grasp what the Bible means by these phrases, the fear of the Lord, and departing from evil, then we will be able to know on the basis of divine revelation what the essence of wisdom is for sure. It's no longer a matter of speculation or human guesswork or surmising, but it is a matter of thus saith the Lord. Now obviously from what we've considered already. This verse sets forth wisdom as a religious and ethical matter. A religious and ethical matter. Wisdom, in other words, at its very core, in the essence of what it is, has to do with God and one's relationship to God. an attitude about God, believes about God, interactions with God, and it has to do with uprightness in character and conduct. That's the core of real wisdom. Now, I don't know if you knew this, but Jesus, in addition probably to having the Hebrew scriptures at his disposal to some extent, Jesus used an ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament called the Septuagint, which has a single word in the first phrase instead of the fear of the Lord as the essence of wisdom. Now here's an English translation of that Greek Old Testament. Listen. This is the English translation of the Greek Old Testament that Jesus used. Behold, godliness is wisdom, and to abstain from evil is understanding. Godliness is wisdom, Now here of course the term godliness in the Greek is Eusebia is used as a translation of the phrase in Hebrew the fear of the Lord. The original term for godliness means piety in the very best sense of the word. Piety and how do we describe what piety really is when when it's thought of as a good thing. Well piety is a devout religious belief and attitude which produces a devoutly religious and ethically upright lifestyle consistent with biblical truth. Piety or godliness is what it means to be deeply religious in the best sense of the term. to be dutiful in all one's responsibilities and careful every day to avoid sin in all of its various manifestations. Now, with all this exposition in place, we are prepared to state the doctrine of the text in one short sentence. And the sentence is this, and everybody can remember this if you try. The essence of wisdom is godliness. Isn't that simple? The essence of wisdom is godliness. There you have it, my friends. That is a fundamental truth of life and reality that even the most admired philosophers like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle never grasp to their dying day. If you study their writings on wisdom, you will never find that they defined wisdom primarily in religious terms or advocated that people should become godly with devotion to the God of the Bible, the Lord, here. And because of this, all three philosophers died as the worst kind of fools. Plato, Socrates, Aristotle. You don't want to be in their shoes now. I hope you can appreciate then something of how super valuable and indispensably vital this is. You cannot afford to live and die in ignorance of this truth. The essence of wisdom is godliness. You cannot afford to live and die without receiving this sincerely in your soul by faith. The very essence, the core, the deep down identity of the highest wisdom that anyone might have is godliness. Which is to say, fearing the Lord and departing from evil. That's the doctrine of the text. The essence of wisdom is godliness. Now I come to the main part of the sermon. And here I will rehearse five truths about wisdom which arise out of a thoughtful meditation on this verse in the light of all scripture. And I have studied brevity, believe me. I had seven points in my original conception and two of them were somewhat overlapping with two others so I have boiled this down and I don't know how to say it any more briefly than this. Now we can't spend much time even on any one of the five in particular, but I trust our review of these five will richly edify you. All five points then begin with the word godliness, which is the essence of wisdom. Number one, godliness is the highest good and the greatest blessing. Do you believe that? I hope you do. But if not, I hope you will. Godliness is the highest good and the greatest blessing. Now, godliness, really? The highest good? Godliness? This seems incredible to us who imagine so many other things would be better for us to have and to attain than godliness, that so many other things would prove more enjoyable to us or promote our well-being more than this. Ask a thousand people what they want most in life and how many do you think would say godliness or something equivalent to that? How many do you think, man on the street interviews, what do you want most in life? I would be bowled over to find one person out of a thousand that would say godliness. Even among many who say they're Christians, I seriously doubt more than a very precious few would give the biblical answer. Because sin has made us so spiritually dull. We don't value godliness to the degree we ought. And so, in many passages of Scripture, God has emphasized, in extravagant language, the extreme value of godliness. And you find that even in this chapter of Job 28. Now listen to a little bit of this chapter from a modern translation. Listen. But where can wisdom be found? And where is understanding located? No man can know its value, since it cannot be found in the land of the living. The ocean depths say, it's not in me. while the sea declares, I don't have it. Gold cannot be exchanged for it. Silver cannot be weighed out for its price. Wisdom cannot be valued in the gold of Ophir, in precious onyx or sapphire. Gold and glass do not compare with it. and articles of fine gold cannot be exchanged for it. Coral and quartz not even worth mentioning. The price of wisdom is beyond pearls. Topaz from Kush cannot compare with it and it cannot be valued in pure gold. That's verses 12-19 in Job 28 from the Holman Christian Standard Bible. In other words, look, the most rich treasures in this world that kings hoard in their castles, they're worthless in comparison with wisdom. Proverbs exalts wisdom memorably also. The book of Proverbs says, Wisdom is the principal thing. Therefore, get wisdom, and with all thy getting, get understanding. Proverbs 4.7. And Proverbs 3.15 says, Wisdom is more precious than rubies. Listen, and all the things that you can desire are not to be compared to her. The New Testament completely agrees with this assessment. Listen, 1 Timothy 4.8, godliness or wisdom, as we know now, godliness is the essence of wisdom and vice versa. Godliness is beneficial in every way since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. I infer from these passages in the Bible that exalt wisdom this way, that a great part of our helping one another spiritually is teaching and persuading each other that godliness is supremely valuable. That godliness ought to be the main pursuit of our whole lives. and that nothing else we can imagine even comes close to godliness as worthy of our love and attention. And how do you invest your time and treasure? Is it in the pursuit of godliness? Listen, this is largely what's wrong with the world. people think they're under a satanic delusion and we have been too that there's some other things that are better but I'm telling you and not because I'm smart but because this is what scripture says I'm telling you in God's name that nothing compares to wisdom or godliness in value not fooling around not fame, not fortune, not even family can compare to the treasure which is wisdom or godliness. And a large part of our need is to appreciate that every day. Not to lose focus on what's most important in life. what's going to bring us the greatest lasting happiness and wholeness and that is godliness, whatever it costs us. So this is the first truth about wisdom. Namely, that godliness is the highest good and the greatest blessing. Secondly, godliness is first a matter of the heart. Godliness is first a matter of the heart. It is, to use the language of our text, the fear of the Lord. And that is something that either lives inside of you or it doesn't. The Bible says of people who are not believers, there is no fear of God before their eyes. And you can't tell that necessarily just by looking at them. You can't tell that by looking at them because The fear of the Lord is, first of all, invisible. It describes your core beliefs, attitudes, and feelings about the Lord. And the fear of the Lord and these invisible traits are not what you say they are, but what they really are. as only God can see them in you. In other words, it's one thing to say I have beliefs about the Lord, it's another thing for those beliefs to be alive and operating in your soul, in your speech, and your choices, and the look on your face. This fear of the Lord is an invisible recognition that God is God and you are not God. But rather, you see yourself, if you fear the Lord, as His creature, His dependent. You see yourself as His servant. And you see that your whole life is in His hands to do with as He pleases, and your whole calling in life is to love Him and to keep His commandments. When you really fear God, you're gripped by a deep concern about your eternal destiny. Many people aren't. Many people either are totally apathetic about that or they're presumptuous about it. They're not gripped by deep concern about it. And this concern is more important to you than anything else in life. You can't think, when you fear the Lord, you can't think of anything better than to have fellowship with God. Nor anything worse than to be cut off from God and counted as His enemy. This fear the Lord radically alters your whole perspective about everything on the basis of what the Lord says in His Word, the Bible. If you fear the Lord, as you should, then you will be the first to admit with shame that you are nothing to God but an unprofitable servant. And even when you do what He tells you to do, you're not proud of yourself. You see it merely as your duty. And there's nothing that bothers you more than to provoke God's anger or disapproval through your sin. Godliness, you see, is more than religious sincerity, but it's certainly not less. Many people pretend to have godliness by doing good deeds outwardly for others to see, but Jesus said people like that are are comparable to whitewashed tombs full of old bones and all uncleanness." Matthew 23, 27. So this godliness in your soul, invisible to all but God Himself, is first of all a matter of the heart. And the essence of wisdom is this living, spiritual, life-directing godliness within a person who has it. Thirdly, the third truth about wisdom. Godliness is to know God as he really is. To know God as he really is. I'm finding in my own conversation and observation with others that many people are convinced they know God. But their thoughts about Him are very distorted. And they actually are worshipping a God created in their own image, which is the very grave sin of idolatry, strictly forbidden by the Ten Commandments. And I know this not merely from my own conversation with others and observation, but from the biblical teaching. In Psalm 50, to the wicked God says, you thought that I was one like yourself. You thought that I was one like you. And the psalm makes it clear, God is not one like us. See, this is the person who really doesn't know God in an intimate way. This is his or her colossal error. And it's an error that deeply offends God. To think that he is like us. is a popular notion and it is so wrong and so evil to think that way. To know God as he really is, is a part of what godliness is. And in order to know God as he really is, rather than after our own conceptions, we must accept by faith his disclosure of himself and his works. And God does that through all his creation. But especially we need to know God as he reveals himself in the Holy Scriptures. And all the godly do this. All the godly know God as he really is revealed in the Bible. And in some ways, we discover that we had some knowledge of God that was true and correct. You know, before we were Christians, many of us could appreciate, we had the conscious thought that God is the supreme being, the almighty, and sure enough, scripture affirms that. But in some ways, God is nothing like what we thought. To quote that excellent summary description in the Shorter Catechism, the godly know that God is a spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. And scripture backs up every single word of that wonderful statement. So the essence of wisdom, godliness, includes a true and biblical knowledge of God as he really is and to know him in this true sense is to love him. Fourth, fourth truth about wisdom. Godliness begins with repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. Look, this is politically incorrect to the extreme. But I'm not running for office. I'm a preacher of God's word. And I'm going to tell you the truth. No one in this world is born a godly person. Nor is godliness natural to us. Nor can it be cultivated by merely natural human means like education. We all come into this world as depraved, guilty sinners, and we continue in that condition, growing worse, unless God graciously saves us from our miserable trajectory further and further from Him. You know, the person who lives day after day, In unbelief, as an unconverted person, is growing harder and harder against God. They're moving in the direction of eternal banishment altogether from God in His favor. Godliness is always, only, and ever the fruit of God's grace towards us and in us. Godliness is not natural. Godliness takes root in us if and only if God is pleased to change us radically from the inside out by His Holy Spirit in a stupendous act of redeeming love. The scriptures teach that God has the power to save whomever He pleases, whenever He pleases, and He does it by forgiving our sins and renewing our hearts. These blessings of sovereign grace are called justification and regeneration. But we have a spiritual and moral responsibility to turn to God from idols and to trust in God's Son Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. Paul summarized his gospel preaching ministry as, and I quote, testifying of repentance towards God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. Acts 20 verse 21. Testifying about repentance towards God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. That repentance and faith which are associated together in a true conversion are really two sides of the same coin. A sinner cannot and does not truly repent from sin toward God without faith in Jesus as the Christ. It's impossible. And genuinely turning to God through Christ necessarily involves a radically different mindset and the spiritual direction of one's life. Again, the Shorter Catechism gives us an excellent summary of both of these spiritual graces. Faith, it says, in Jesus Christ is a saving grace, whereby we receive and rest upon him alone for salvation as he is offered to us in the gospel. And the Shorter Catechism helps us with a description of repentance, too. It says repentance unto life is also a saving grace whereby a sinner out of a true sense of his sin and apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ does with grief and hatred of his sin turn from it unto God with full purpose of and endeavor after new obedience. According to the teaching of Scripture, only those who are real Christians, that is, real repenters toward God and real believers in Christ, are godly. Which is to say, only they are truly wise. Not the intelligentsia of the universities, unless they have faith in Jesus. Not the cultural leaders, writing best-selling books, not the celebrities, unless, again, any of them have faith in Jesus. But those who are repenting of their sins toward God and trusting in the mercy of God through Jesus Christ, they alone are the wise ones of the earth, because they are the godly. Now, fifth and finally, godliness necessarily includes a righteous life. Godliness necessarily includes a righteous life. Wisdom or godliness is not a momentary thing but a new manner or habit of thinking and living which is the inevitable consequence of this new spiritual life in the soul that comes from God. This also comes out clearly in our text verse Job 28. Because remember the verse says to depart from evil is understanding. That is wisdom or godliness. To depart from evil. Well that is a beautiful and typical way of Old Testament language to describe something good. To depart from evil. It's very graphic. To leave it. To leave the evil. It means to turn away from all that is spiritually and morally bad. And another way to put it more abstractly is to avoid doing evil things. Don't do what's evil. And the converse is implied. Practice what is good, what is upright, what love requires. This is what it means to be in the fear of the Lord all day long. To be shunning the morally evil and embracing and living out the morally good by the standard of God's holy moral law. Godliness in the heart without righteousness in the life is a delusion. Godliness in the heart without righteous living is an oxymoron. It's impossible. Where the tree is good, its fruit will also be good. We might stand and laugh at the fool that tells us that's an apple tree when there are vitally connected oranges hanging on the branches. And so might we laugh at the person who imagines anyone is godly when there is no fruit of godliness in their mouth and in their life. Ephesians 5.15 plainly connects spiritual wisdom with a lifestyle of integrity when it says this, See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise. See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise. Now fools here means the wicked and clearly the suggestion is that fools do not walk circumspectly. Fools, wicked people, are not being careful day after day to consider their ways in the light of God's revealed will with deliberate intention and follow through to frame their whole inner and outer life so that it becomes conformed to God's holy being and his precepts. But Christians are exhorted to do just this very thing. And if we are genuinely godly, we do it with some measure of success by the grace of God. I could point to many biblical examples of wise men and women who exhibited the sincerity of their faith by their careful attention to strive for conformity to God's written codes of conduct in the Bible. But one that comes to mind is Zacharias and Elizabeth. I love this commendation of that elderly godly couple. The Holy Spirit says about Zacharias and Elizabeth through Luke's pen, listen, and they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless. Luke 1.6. They were both righteous before God. and walking in all the commandments and ordinance of the Lord blameless. Don't tell me it cannot be done. It cannot be done by human effort alone. But it can be done through grace. So let's review. what we have considered today so far about wisdom. In Job 28, Scripture says, And unto man, he said, Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding. Now after a brief reflection on these words and their relationships to each other and to the immediate and larger context, we deduced a supremely important doctrine missed by the greatest of worldly philosophers, and it's this. The essence of wisdom is godliness. And I stated and explained five basic truths about wisdom. Namely, I'll just run over them quickly. Godliness is the highest good and the greatest blessing. Godliness is first a matter of the heart. Godliness is to know God as He really is. Godliness begins with repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. Godliness necessarily involves a righteous life. Now I want to draw the sermon to a quick close by answering one more question. So what? So what? What difference does it make to anyone here that these things are true? Now without boasting of anything in myself, I can say without a doubt, on the authority of God's word, that these are extremely important things for us all to know. But if all this sermon does for you, is to increase your stocking of religious information while leaving you unchanged, it will not benefit you at all. It would be like attending a lecture on good health without making any changes to your lifestyle. Except the stakes here are much, much higher with this than, you know, dying in poor health. Jesus says about His own teaching, which I have given you, If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them. John 13, 17. You're only pronounced happy, that is blessed, if you do what you know. And we have this promise in James 1. Whoever looks into the perfect law of liberty, as in a mirror, and continues in it, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed." So, what are you going to do about this? Is what I ask you. What are you going to do about it? Differently than what you have been doing up to this point. Well, let me offer three lines of application. I think these words, these truths are useful to us potentially in three ways. First of all, for examination. Secondly, for exhortation. And thirdly, for expectancy. First, examine yourselves in the light of this teaching about wisdom. So the essence of wisdom is godliness. and that should make it more apparent to you whether you are a fundamentally wise or a foolish person. Do you care deeply about these things? If not, you're foolish and lost in your sins. Do you see the evidences in your heart and life of godliness through grace? If not, you're also lost even if you are very concerned about yourself. If God has graciously turned your heart toward him, let me ask you this, how persistent and earnest is your pursuit of wisdom? Is your zeal in any way comparable to the greatness of the good to be obtained? Or have you become spiritually complacent and lazy in some degree as a Christian? Second, let me exhort you. No matter what answers you had to give to the first questions I asked, I urge you all now to lay hold of Christ by faith. In the sweet biblical gospel, Christ summons you to himself as your king. and he offers himself to you as a suitor for spiritual marriage with you. Drop everything now and obey his call by faith. Humble yourself and obey him. Believe the good news and rejoice in him. And as a believer, listen, my dear brethren, make everything else in your life, take a backseat to the pursuit of wisdom or godliness. Your number one priority. with all these things being true should be to seek wisdom from God with the enthusiasm of a gold miner in the 19th century California gold rush. Let the pursuit of godliness be your all-consuming passion every single day of your life until you see the Lord or die, whichever comes first. That is the way of safety and blessedness, friends. And remain persistent in your heart work, in your ethical conduct, in all your religious duties as laid out by God's Word. Keep praying. Keep reading your Bible. Keep hearing sermons. Keep conversing with other godly people in private and in small groups. Keep repenting of your sins. Keep resisting temptation. Keep confessing your moral falls when they happen. As embarrassing as that is. Keep denying yourself. Keep doing right. Keep helping others to know God and many other things that could be mentioned. Persist in these things. That's my word of exhortation. And third and finally, a word of expectation. Be expectant or hopeful in all this. And I speak to you who are by grace wise people, who are godly people. Know for sure that Christ welcomes and keeps you. who have come to him this way. He says, whoever comes to me, I will never drive away. John 6, 37. And know this for sure too, all who are deaf to wisdom's call and who persist as fools will perish. And they will be accountable on judgment day for the light God has given and has been rejected. All who are not in Christ will perish, even if they never heard of Jesus Christ. But the most severe punishments are reserved for some people. You know who those some people are? Those who have heard this glorious gospel again and again and persist in refusing it. The Lord save us all from that unspeakable end. Amen.