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The Old Testament scholar, Umrad,
has said that the wisdom of the wisdom literature can be defined
by saying that man, through knowledge of the Lord, must learn to become
competent with regard to the realities of life. Wisdom is
concerned with practical life. It's grounded in the covenant
of God. And it's under the priority of
obedience to the word of God, but wisdom takes us out into
the street, not into the temple, as Derek Kidner says in his excellent
introduction to the book of Proverbs. The wise man is the knowledgeable
man. He's the man who understands
how life should be lived and also reflects on what life means. Wisdom, then, is concerned with
the active direction of man's daily life before God. It is part of man's covenantal
obedience. It is man's response to the Word
of God. The wisdom by which men walk
is distinct from the Word of God, but it is built upon the
Word of God. And in Proverbs, we have reflection,
too, of the law of God, those who forsake the law praise the
wicked, Proverbs 28, 4 tells us. And in Psalm 119, we have
a psalm that has the form of a wisdom psalm. You know, it's
built in the form of an acrostic with eight verses for each letter
of the Hebrew alphabet, and yet that entire psalm centers upon
the Word of God. It is an affirmation of the importance
of the Word of God for all of our life and all of our obedience. The wisdom literature is reflective
then on life and directs life, and like the Psalms it is reflective. You see, there are two streams
of meditation. to be found in scripture. One
stream is the stream of meditational devotion, which characterizes
the Psalms. The other is the stream of meditational
wisdom directed toward practical life, and you find that in the
wisdom literature. And it's not surprising then
that the Book of Proverbs also is composed in a way that has
many similarities to the Psalms in terms of the structure, the
strophic structure of the Proverbs, the balance, the structure, the
way in which you have parallels and sometimes an inversion of
the parallels in the way in which the Proverbs are put together.
It is distinct from praise because praise is the immediate response
to the presence of God, but wisdom is nevertheless a response to
God's presence because it is the desire to direct our steps
in active obedience to God's commands. Wisdom is given to
us from God. And the greatest thing that could
be said of a wise man is that to inquire of him is like seeking
counsel from God himself. You will remember that that comment
is made about the wise man Ahithophel, who had his place in the court
of David. The spirit of man is the lamp
of the Lord, searching all his inmost parts. Wisdom, then, is
concerned with active direction of our daily walk before God. It is also concerned with a reflective
understanding of our relationships, of our relationships to the world
and to the works of God in nature and in history. The works of
the Lord are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure
therein. That statement is in Psalm 111,
which is a wisdom psalm, and which concludes with the golden
text of all the wisdom literature, that the fear of the Lord is
the beginning of wisdom. Psalm 111 is another acrostic
psalm, and the statement is that we seek out the works of the
Lord. We seek out that which God has
done. We reflect on his works. And we think not only of the
situations in the world in which we live, but also of men and
of society. Wisdom in the Old Testament is
particularly related to counsel that is to be offered in king's
courts. I mentioned a moment ago the
name of Ahithophel, and you will remember that Ahithophel was
a wise man in the court of David, but he was loyal not to David,
but rather he joined forces with David's rebellious son Absalom. And when David went into exile,
another one of his counselors, Hushai, came with him into exile. But David said to Hushai, you're
not of much assistance to me here in the wilderness. where
we need fighting men more than wise men, but you're very much
needed back in the court of Absalom, because unless the council of
Ahithophel can be overthrown, everything is lost. So Hushai
went back and feigned loyalty to Absalom in order to have an
opportunity to overthrow the council of Ahithophel. And you
remember the story The question was, what was the next move for
Absalom to make? Should he at once pursue David
and try to kill him, or should he wait and get a larger army
together? And of course, Ahithophel gave
very sage advice. He said, go and strike at once. Don't give your father any opportunity
to gather an army, but pursue him immediately. And he's in
flight now. You can catch him while he's
fleeing. You can kill him, and then the
kingdom's yours." Well, the advice sounded very good to Absalom
and to the young men that were with him. But then he said, let's
hear the counsel of Hushai as well. Remember how Hushai played
on both Absalom's fear and also his vanity. He said to Absalom,
well now, if you pursue David just now, that is not altogether
a safe course, because David, after all, isn't alone. He has
those mighty men with him, and they're well-known warriors.
they'll be now like a bear robbed of her whelps. They're not going
to be a pushover. It's going to be very difficult
to fight David. And what if you should send an
expedition after David, and they should suffer some initial reverse? Suppose they would be defeated.
Well, it would only be a minor skirmish, but think of the impact. Then people would say, ah, David
has defeated Absalom, and your whole cause would be in jeopardy.
No, no, that's not the way to do it, Absalom. The way to do
it is to wait, because with your great popularity, you know, everybody
will flock to you. You can get all Israel together,
and you can descend on them like the dew on the mountainside,
and you can completely obliterate David without any risk whatever. That was Hushai's advice. You
will remember that Absalom took that advice to his own ruin. And when Hippophel heard that
the council of Hushai had been accepted, he went home and put
a few codicils on his will, straightened everything out, and went out
and hanged himself. He didn't have to wait to see
what would happen. He knew what would happen. I
reminded you of that little story because, you see, it's a beautiful
picture of how important counsel was in the courts of kings, and
things haven't changed much to this day. In the United States,
we're always a bit concerned, not just who might be in the
president's cabinet, or who might be secretary of state, but we're
always concerned of who is really the president's counselor, who
is he listening to. And it's very important, you
know, the kind of counsel that a ruler gets. And in the Old
Testament, this is stressed a great deal. The wise man, the counselor,
in the court of the king. So that wisdom isn't just a matter
of fathers giving instruction to their sons, nor a matter of
elders having wisdom for the government of a local village,
but it's a matter of the wisdom in kings' courts, the wisdom
of those who are the advisors to the kings. So whether it's
a question of individual behavior, or whether it's a question of
policymaking in king's courts, wisdom is what is needed. Notice,
too, that in that little story that I referred to, the matter
of timing is crucial. You see, Absalom is going to
have to fight with the men of David sooner or later, obviously,
but the question is when? And wisdom selects the right
time. There is a time to strike. There
is an opportunity to be seized. And if the timing is right, wisdom
is justified of her children, you see. But if the timing isn't
right, there can be disaster. element is later referred to
in a cynical way in the book of Ecclesiastes, where you have
this brought forward as a reputation of all wisdom, for if it's nothing
but timing, well then, there's a time to plant and a time to
pluck up that which is planted, there's a time to build and there's
a time to tear down that which is built, so if there's a time
for everything, Wisdom is rather self-refuting. You can always
say, well, the time's going to come around when the opposite
advice applies, so what's the use of having advice anyway?
That's the rather cynical comment that's being made in Ecclesiastes. But what it's talking about is
something that was vital to wisdom, the matter of being able to discern
the times and the seasons. Wisdom, then, is concerned with
the relation to the world, it is concerned with the relation
to man and to society, but wisdom is also concerned, naturally,
with the relation to God. And here we have the great mystery
of God's ways, and the struggle that men must have in understanding
the ways of the Lord. Here you have the problem of
Job. and the long controversy between
Job and his friends. How is Job's suffering to be
understood? How do you account for the suffering
of the righteous? And of course, Job's friends
have a very simple answer. Job suffers because he has sinned,
and he suffers in proportion to his sin. dreadfully afflicted,
therefore he must be a dreadful sinner. So he had better confess
his sin, and then things can be straightened out. But Job
realizes that this is a completely false description of the situation,
and so he cries out to God for understanding. He cries out for
the possibility of talking with God. of interceding with God,
of seeking from God some explanation of this mystery as to why he
should be visited with such dreadful affliction. But there's not only
the question of the dealing of God with individuals, the question
of why the righteous suffer, there's also the question of
the dealing of God with nations. Not only do righteous men suffer,
but wicked nations win. How can it be that great kingdoms
are set up and move forward to accomplish their designs, and
they worship their own dragnet, they adore their own military
might, and yet they continue to be successful? How can that
be? And so we have another form of
wisdom, where you find Daniel as a wise man in the court of
a Gentile ruler. And there you get the visions,
the apocalyptic element, the visions of the great future,
the answers that God will give to heathen might and heathen
power, the time when the kingdom of God will come as a stone cut
without hands and strike the great image that symbolizes the
power of heathen empires, and they all will be ultimately destroyed. So you see, wisdom in the Old
Testament has a very wide range indeed, going from folk proverbs,
the sort of thing that would be repeated day by day by people
in a village, to the wisdom of kings' courts, to the struggles
of the righteous as they faced suffering, and to the whole course
of human history and the development of empires. But the great center
of all the wisdom literature in the Old Testament is in the
conviction that wisdom begins with the fear of the Lord. In
Proverbs 2.5 we read, Then thou shalt understand the fear of
the Lord, and find the knowledge of God. The knowing, the understanding,
the reflecting that is prized in the wisdom literature of the
Old Testament is that which centers on the Lord Himself. And so we
have a theology of wisdom in the Old Testament, a theology
of wisdom which gives us both an objective and a subjective
principle. The theology of wisdom tells
us that God's wisdom is the standard and source of all wisdom. Wisdom must begin with God. He is the one who possesses wisdom
as his attribute. He knows all things, and in God
and in God alone can the ultimate secret of wisdom be found. There's
a beautiful description in the 28th chapter of the book of Job
of the search for jewels and for rubies and for precious stones. And Job tells us a bit about
how rubies and stones might be mined out. And he says, where
can wisdom be found? You can dig down through the
ground under the foot of man where the The bird has never
flown by and you can dig up rubies, but where are you going to dig
out wisdom? What mining expedition will ever
produce wisdom? And at the end of that beautiful
passage, which describes, the whole chapter describes the search
for jewels on the part of miners who are digging out precious
stones, but he comes to the very end And he says in verse 23,
God understands the way thereof, and he knows the place thereof. And then verse 28, and unto man,
God says, behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and
to depart from evil is understanding. So the search for wisdom can
lead at last only to one, that is, to God himself. God who possesses
all wisdom, and God who is able to make wisdom known. In Psalm
147, the psalmist is reflecting on this, and we read in verse
5, Great is our Lord, and mighty in power. His understanding is
infinite. There is no bound to the wisdom,
to the knowledge of God. The attribute of God is wisdom. And then we have that passage
that is so often referred to in the eighth chapter of the
Book of Proverbs, where wisdom is personified, spoken of as
a woman. There is a contrast, you know,
between the woman of the streets who calls men to follow her to
their destruction and the wisdom that is the wisdom of God, the
wisdom of God's attribute, dame wisdom, lady wisdom, you might
say, who calls men to follow her. And in the eighth chapter
we have wisdom crying in the streets and putting forth her
voice, calling men not to sin and to destruction, but calling
men to the Lord and to the understanding of his ways. And we read in verse
22, ìThe Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before
his works of old. I was set up from everlasting,
from the beginning, before the earth was, when there were no
depths I was brought forth. when there were no fountains
abounding with water, before the mountains were settled, before
the hills was I brought forth." A beautiful description of wisdom. Verse 30, "...then I was by him
as a master workman, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing
always before him." So that wisdom that God possesses is personified,
seen as a companion to God, rejoicing in all of his works. everything
that God has done has been done in wisdom. And God, of course,
who possesses all wisdom, also gives wisdom. He does so in his
works of creation. He has made the world, and the
world shows forth his praise. world declares the glory of God
and utters forth the reality of His wisdom because of the
beauty and power of His works. As you know, Psalm 19 speaks
first of the wisdom and glory of God seen in His creation in
the world, and then the wisdom and glory of God seen in His
work. The heavens declare the glory of God, the firmament showeth
His handiwork. day and today utter a speech
and night and tonight shall acknowledge. The wisdom of God is declared
in his revelation in that which he has made. But God speaks to
us and he reveals to us his wisdom in his word. Not only is the
work of God in nature, the evidence of his understanding, but also
the words spoken gives us his truth and his wisdom. Proverbs 30 verse 5, every word
of God is tried. He is a shield unto them that
take refuge in him. I referred a little earlier to
Psalm 119 and the way in which that psalm reflects on the wisdom
of God in his word. Psalm 119 has that form of meditation
that would be called in the East the lotus form of meditation. That is, as a lotus petal starts
at the center and goes out and comes back to the center and
out and back and out and back and out and back. Well, that's
what that form of meditation is like in Psalm 119. It's not
designed for speed reading. It's designed for reflection.
But you see, you take the thought of the Word of God, and then
you see how all of life relates to that Word, how all of the
ways of a young man are in the Word of God, and how all the
darkness that covers our path is illumined by the Word of God
that's a light and a lamp to our feet. And so the psalmist
goes on and on, thinking of the different aspects of life and
bringing them always back to the revelation of God in His
Word. And of course, God not only gives
us his wisdom in the world that he has made and in the word that
he has spoken, but God also illumines our mind to give us understanding. The 23rd verse of Proverbs 1,
turn you at my reproof. Behold, I will pour out my spirit
upon you. I will make known my words unto
you. God calls to us to receive his
word and to understand by the power of his spirit. There is
a reference in connection with the building of the tabernacle
to men who were filled with the Holy Spirit and given wisdom
as skilled craftsmen in the construction of the tabernacle. We have that
referred to in the thirty-fifth chapter of Exodus. is found with God, God has it,
he has the understanding and the knowledge, and all truth
is his, so that his knowledge is comprehensive, infinite, all-inclusive,
penetrating to every aspect of created reality, since all of
created reality has been formed by God himself. If then all wisdom
comes from God, and he's the only source of it, and it's his
attribute, then obviously our possession of wisdom must be
a relationship to God, so that the fear of the Lord must be
the beginning of wisdom. Without the fear of the Lord,
there can be no wisdom at all. That is to say, the fear of the
Lord must be the foundation of our thinking. Human reason is
not autonomous. Our minds are in subjection to
our Creator. They are subordinate to the Lord. We are not God. We do not have
understanding. We cannot in ourselves comprehend
any of the mysteries of life, or for that matter, understand
or write anything about life. In the third chapter of the Book
of Proverbs, we read, Trust in the Lord with all thy heart,
and lean not upon thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him,
and he will direct thy paths. Without knowing the Lord, it
is impossible to gain wisdom, because our knowledge is not
original. Our knowledge is derived. Our
thinking is not sovereign. Only God's thinking is sovereign. We must think God's thoughts
after him, and only as we do that do we think rightly. Only then do we have understanding. It's significant that in our
day there is so much talk of information and so little talk
of wisdom. We seek to reduce all knowledge
and all understanding to plus and minuses in a computerized
program. And we even seek to reduce all
human understanding to nothing but information storage and information
retrieval. And we think of ourselves as
rather remarkable data banks and are both amazed and chagrined
by the operation of the computer that has been installed between
our ears. And of course, from the account
of contemporary science, it's really rather remarkable how
the thing ever got there by process of evolution over all these centuries,
but somehow it did. And then you can trace the nerve
patterns, you know, and make studies of the synapses as they
go popping away inside there. But you see, it's all reduced
to a matter of how many plus charges and how many minus or
lack of plus charges there are, whether the little jolts come
through or whether they don't come through. And that is knowledge. Well, it isn't the Old Testament
conception of knowledge, you see. Wisdom includes not just
data storage. Wisdom includes a mysterious
further step that's described as understanding or reflection
or seeing in its setting that which we are considering. Well,
for that matter, even physiologists in brain studies tell us there's
a difference between the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere
of the brain. And one is more concerned with
the matter of logical thought, and the other more concerned
with intuitive perception. And so we're beginning to recognize
that there is such a thing as intuition. It's necessary for
understanding. and that that intuitive understanding
is somehow remarkably general. It puts things in perspective. It doesn't just analyze, it puts
things together. So even in terms of brain function,
we have to think about putting things together as well as taking
them apart by analysis. But don't you see, there is even
more being said here. wisdom is truly to be found with
God, then we do not live in an empty universe. We do not live
in a universe where the greatest truth is abstract. We live in a universe in which
the truth is ultimately personal. When Jesus said, I am the way
and the truth and the life, We often think of that as being
really figurative language, that real truth can't be personal,
that only by a kind of figure of speech can truth be given
a personal name. But, you see, if as a matter
of fact we live in a world that has been created by the infinite,
eternal, and unchanging God, and if we have been formed by
his wisdom, And if our minds have been formed as well as our
brains created by the power of that infinite God, then to know
the Lord is the heart of all wisdom, of all understanding.
And if he's left out, whatever is left is necessarily distorted
and is at last nothing but foolishness. You cannot leave God out. You cannot have wisdom without
God. And you don't really understand
anything apart from God, because you haven't put that thing into
its perspective. Without God, knowledge is not
only partial. Without God, knowledge is misconceived. Because wisdom cannot be simply
reduced to pluses and minuses. that are right or wrong, whether
or not God exists. Wisdom for us as preachers, made
in the image of God, is not knee-jerk responses. Wisdom is understanding
the situation in perspective. So, the fear of the Lord is the
beginning of wisdom. It's the beginning of all the
understanding that we may possess. And so, of course, it is also
the reason for the fruitfulness of thought. We have all sorts
of discussions these days about the whole matter of theory and
praxis. Karl Marx, of course, has called
attention to this, saying that praxis comes first, and theory
is developed as ideology, and that people defend their practice
by their ideological extrapolations, and there's a great deal of discussion
as to how one relates theory to practice. teaching as I do
in a theological seminary. I'm in an environment where that
question comes up every day. We are studying theory, in a
sense, as we study theological truth. At least, I'm afraid we
often turn it into theory. But you see, theology is to be
practiced before God, isn't it? And understanding involves practice. It's not just abstract conceptualizing
that is a real grasp of theological truth because of the character
of theological truth. because God is truth, because
we are related to him. So you see, the practice of theology
and the understanding of theology go together. Without the practice,
you won't really have the understanding, and without the understanding,
you won't have the practice. So in the picture of wisdom that
you have in the Bible, theory and practice are fused together
in a way that is quite different. from the problem that men have
who cannot relate knowledge to the presence of the living God. For you see, if God isn't there,
then we really have no way to join theory and practice. If
God isn't there, then there is no absolute truth. So then truth
is always an extrapolation of whatever we like to do. And then
truth does become a kind of rationalizing, the way in which we convert into
abstract concepts our own preferences of behavior. But if God is there,
and if truth is there, and if reality is there, then there's
a completely different situation. Then the abstractions have their
meaning only in the context of their application, because truth
at last is personal, not abstract. The ultimate is not being with
a capital B in which God happens to participate. The ultimate
is the person of the living God. And it isn't that God is defined
by being, it is that being is defined by God. And you see,
that carries all the way in the universe that God has made. That
has implications for everything. It means we don't think out in
the blue. We think before God. We don't
theorize without reference to life. But all theorizing has
to be responsible theorizing. You see, Marx, in a sense, blew
the whistle on a lot of irresponsible theorizing that didn't take account
of the real needs of people. But if you just follow Marx,
then you end up without any absolute truth at all, and therefore with
the most callous kind of pragmatic manipulation of men and exploitation
of men. But the word of God comes at
this from a completely different perspective, because you have
the absolute truth of God. You have the living God as the
truth. You have men created in his image. and you have practice and theory
joined together in the scriptural conception of wisdom. To realize
the will of God in our lives becomes the calling of God to
us, and the focus of our understanding is in the knowledge of the Holy
One. What I have said is very imperfect,
but I do hope that you will continue to reflect on this. You know,
we can be so daunted by the pretensions of scientific thought in our
time. We can be so daunted by supposing
that because we are not eminent scientists, that we really must
wait on their word and be delivered to a tyranny of the experts in
all areas of life. But you see, the real expertise
for living, if I may put it that way, is something quite different. Yes, there is knowledge to be
gained by analyzing the world that God made, because God made
There is knowledge to be gained by reflecting on men and on situations. That's true. And in the book
of Proverbs, there are Proverbs very similar to Proverbs that
were in Egypt. That's right. But nevertheless,
really to perceive, really to understand, really to be able
to relate to the world that God has made requires of us that
we should know Him who is the maker. and that we should live
and walk in fellowship with him. Now, the wisdom literature of
the Old Testament, I've spoken of the theology of wisdom, the
objective principle and the subjective principle, but I want to add
at this point, a point that's not in the outlines that were
distributed, the redemptive context of wisdom. You see, wisdom is
not only to be put in the context of God as the creator, Wisdom
is put in the context of God as the Redeemer, and I want to
stress that point this morning. The wisdom literature blossoms
and blooms in the period of the Solomonic age in Israel, and
even the later wisdom looks back to the Solomonic period as the
great apogee of wisdom. Now, there's a rationale in that.
The rationale is what I was saying to you the other morning, that
God promised Israel that he would pour out his blessings upon Israel,
and he did. And those blessings were all
poured out and reached their fullness in the time of Solomon.
And Solomon, when he dedicated the temple, prayed and thanked
God that he had kept all his promises, that the blessings
had all been poured out. You have that in 1 Kings chapter
8. Solomon says, Lord, you kept
all your promises, all the things that you said you would do, you
have done. And Moses says, Bless, excuse
me, Solomon says, Blessed be the Lord that hath given rest
to his people, Israel, according to all that he promised. There
hath not failed one word of all his good promises, which he promised
by Moses, his servant. The Lord our God be with us as
he was with our fathers and so on. Now, at that point, when
God had kept all his promises, Israel was in the land. They
possessed the inheritance. The enemy had been driven out. The Philistines were defeated
by King David. The house of God was built. The
glory of God filled that house. And at that point in the history
of Israel, God gave to Israel a king who was blessed with wisdom. And so the nations of the earth
came to learn of the wisdom of Solomon, and that's described
in the fourth chapter of First Kings, and a remarkable passage
there. It surprises me that more attention
hasn't been given to this passage in our considerations of the
Old Testament. First Kings four verse twenty-nine
and God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding, exceeding much
and largeness of heart, even as the sand that is on the seashore. And Solomon's wisdom excelled
the wisdom of all the children of the East and all the wisdom
of Egypt. For he was wiser than all men,
and Ethan the Ezraite, and Heman, and Calchol, and Darda, and the
sons of Nahal, and his fame was in all the nations round about."
Now, we don't have any remaining traces of any of these wise men
of the East that are described here, but we're told that Solomon
was the wisest of them all. And he spake three thousand proverbs,
and his songs were a thousand and five, and he spake of trees
from the cedar that is in Lebanon, even under the hyssop that springeth
out of the wall. The flora of the area was well
catalogued by Solomon. He spake also of beasts and of
birds and of creeping things and of fishes. His biological
science was well developed. And there came of all peoples
to hear of the wisdom of Solomon from all the kings of the earth
who had heard of his wisdom. Now you see where wisdom fits
in. God blesses Israel, gives them peace, and gives to Israel's
king in particular, to the Lord's anointed, the great gift of wisdom. And that becomes like a magnet.
And the kings from all the earth come in to learn of the wisdom
of Solomon. They've got practical problems
too, you know. They need counselors, they've got to run things in
their courts, and Solomon knows how to do it. So, you come to
Solomon and you learn of him. The famous story of the Queen
of Sheba, which in the Hollywood version becomes, of course, a
little different. But the Queen of Sheba comes
in because she wants wisdom. It isn't that Solomon's handsome,
it's that he's wise. And she comes, and when she comes
and learns of the wisdom of Solomon, she's absolutely enthralled,
and she says that it's absolutely amazing. The half wasn't told
her. And she says, verse eight of
First Kings 10, happy are thy men, happy are these thy servants
that stand continually before thee, and that hear thy wisdom. Blessed be the Lord thy God,
who delighted in thee to set thee on the throne of Israel,
because the Lord loved Israel forever. Therefore, made he the
king to do righteousness and justice. Well, of course, this
opens all sorts of doors. Wisdom issues in justice. Wisdom issues in righteousness.
Wisdom issues in a rule of a king that is a blessing to Israel. And the Queen of Sheba sees that,
and all nations hear about it, and people come in. So you see,
the blessing of God to Israel is culminated in the blessing
of wisdom given to Solomon. And so the setting of the wisdom
literature, ideally in the Old Testament, is in that period
where God has given Israel rest. Now that accounts in part for
the universalistic character of the wisdom literature. There
is here instruction for all peoples. manner to come and hear this
wisdom, which has its source in God. The fear of the Lord
is the beginning of wisdom, but which issues in very practical
maxims as to how to conduct daily life, how you go out in the street
to live each day. It's all summarized in this wisdom
that has its core in the fear of the Lord. But in that setting,
friends, wisdom also points to the promise. Wisdom also points
to the great future that has to come. Now, wisdom does that
in different ways. One way that wisdom does that
is in showing the unresolved issues that remain. Now, think
about that for a moment. Suppose all that God was going
to give to his people was peace in a little country under a wise
king. Would that be salvation? Think
about that, you see? All God's promises have been
kept in a certain perspective. He's done everything he said
he would do. Yes, he's given them the land, he's given them
peace, he's given them a king. He's done all that. If you follow me, now Israel
has it made, right? This is all the heart could desire,
right? Now you've got everything, right?
Life in the suburbs. The whole bit. But there are problems. There are problems. There's Job, you see. When you
think about him. And he had it all made. But then,
he lost it all. Nowhere was he. And what about
all the suffering that came on him? Then you have the book of
Ecclesiastes. And Ecclesiastes looks at death. What does it profit a man? Why
is the wise man better than the fool? They both die. Where does
it get you? The rain comes down, waters the
fields, fills the brooks, flows down into the ocean, then it
goes up as vapor, and fills the clouds, then it goes back, and
then it rains. It goes down, it goes up, and
goes over, and rains, and around, and around, and around. Vanity
of vanity, says the preacher, all is vanity. Where does it
get you? There's a time to plant and a
time to pluck up. In the 60s, that passage from
Cretaceous was in all the college dorms in the United States. I
think it was mostly because it has a statement. There's a time
to love and a time to hate. And at the college age, you know,
there's a lot of loving and hating that goes on there. love affairs
dissolve and pick up again and so on. I think that's really
why it got such a play. But nevertheless, there was that
thought, you see, that life goes around and around. And where
does it get you? Do you see how important it was
that the wisdom literature should show that? Should show that just the physical
blessings won't do it. Just being in the land won't
do it. Just having wealth and riches won't do it. Even peace
won't do it. There's got to be something more. For there's still the mystery
of suffering, and there's still the mystery of death. And how
is there going to be an answer to that if God's blessing is
at last to triumph? The wisdom literature confronts
us with that problem. Then, of course, not only the
personal problems that we have, but the political problems. Israel
sins. Israel is driven into captivity.
Israel goes off and is made captive in Mesopotamia. And then what
happens? Then Daniel sees the vision of
the stone cut without hands. Then we have the future of the
nations revealed to us. Ah yes, wisdom takes us into
the apocalyptic. Wisdom takes us into the fact
the kingdom of God has to come in a way that it hasn't come.
God has more in view. God will do more. God will come. The kingdom of God will come.
Yes, and that one likened to a son of man will come. And he
will be He will come in the clouds of heaven and sit in the right
hand of the Ancient of Days, and to Him will be given God's
kingdom." You see, the wisdom literature, too, leads us forward
into prophetic prophecy by way of the apocalyptic, but also
by way of showing us the problems that are unresolved. Yes, wisdom literature leads
us forward to Jesus Christ. Matthew, the eleventh chapter,
verse twenty-eight. Jesus says, Come unto me, all
you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly
in heart, and you shall find rest unto your souls, for my
yoke is easy and my burden is light. Here you hear the summons
of Jesus Christ, who is the Lord of wisdom. and his call is the
call of wisdom. Listen to these words from the
wisdom of the son of Sirach. This is the book of Ecclesiasticus,
the book written in the wisdom literature in between the Old
Testament and the New. Hear this word from the son of
Sirach. Draw near to me, you who are
untaught, and lodge in my school. Why do you say you are lacking
in these things, and why are your souls very thirsty? I opened
my mouth and said, Get these things for yourselves without
money. Put your neck under the yoke
and let your soul receive instruction, for it is to be found close by. See with your eyes that I have
labored little and found for myself much rest." Now you notice
the similarity in the vocabulary. A little labor, much rest. Take
the yoke upon you. There's also a notable difference.
The son of Sirach is calling men to take wisdom's yoke. Jesus is calling men to take
his yoke. The yoke of Jesus is the yoke
of wisdom, for Jesus is the Lord of wisdom. Now, how can Jesus
demand that we come to him and take his yoke as the yoke of
wisdom? Well, the answer is given in
the verses that precede. Jesus said, All things have been
delivered unto me and my Father, and no one knoweth the Son save
the Father. Neither doth any know the Father
save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal him."
If the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, Jesus Christ
is the only one who can teach us the fear of the Lord. He is
the only one who can reveal the Father. and he is the only one
who can be revealed by the Father, and therefore he has a monopoly
on wisdom. If you want to know wisdom, you
must take Christ's yoke, because he knows the Father as the Son. The only Son, the beloved Son,
the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he So Job's search for wisdom is
at an end. We come to him who is the Lagos,
the Alpha and the Omega, the Alpha light of the Father's knowledge
of the Son, the Omega light of the Son's knowledge of the Father.
And Jesus speaks the word that is full wisdom. He has that which
he's received of the Father. That passage, the tradition of
the Father given to Jesus. All things have been delivered
unto me of my Father. That's the word tradition. There's
the tradition of knowledge that we need. The tradition of the
knowledge given by the Father to the Son. and Jesus reveals
himself. Read the Gospel of John and look
at the message of Jesus in the Gospel of John, and you see that
Jesus's message is himself. Jesus presents himself. He is
the wisdom of God. He is made unto us wisdom and
sanctification and redemption. Oh yes, Jesus in his teaching
uses the means and the forms of wisdom Jesus uses beatitudes. He speaks of the scribe of the
kingdom. He expounds the law and wisdom. He engages in controversy like
a wise man. He speaks his parables, which
are the forms of wisdom. He speaks in terms of apocalyptic,
about the times and the seasons. Jesus picks up all the forms
of wisdom from the Old Testament, and his teaching is formed in
those categories of the wisdom form. But Jesus presents himself
as the royal counselor, the one who is wonderful. His name shall
be called the wonder of a counselor, wonderful counselor, the one
who has all wisdom, the very wisdom of God, and the one who
can reveal to us and who alone can reveal to us the word of
God. His example is in the meekness
of wisdom, in the gentleness of Christ. in that wisdom that
can be revealed unto babes, but the wisdom which is full of the
glory of God. You learn of Jesus, the lowly
Lord, the explanation of the mysteries, the mystery of suffering. Job cries out in his suffering,
but now the mystery of suffering will be revealed, for Jesus comes
as the suffering servant. And then you understand how it
is that the righteous can suffer. Then you understand that his
suffering as the righteous one is vicarious. He suffers in our
place. He suffers for us. He bears for
us. Then he calls us to take up our
cross and follow him. And after Jesus, the mystery
of suffering has a completely different cast, because now we
know that we suffer for him. We bear the sufferings of Christ,
that is to say, we suffer for his sake and for his name's sake. And although he has borne all
the wrath of God against sin so that we do not have to suffer
in a penal sense because of the fruit of our sins, he delivers
us from all of that. Yet he allows us to suffer, and
since he leaves us in the world where we do suffer, we suffer
in fellowship with him. and suffering is transformed,
and the disciples rejoice that they are counted worthy to suffer
shame for the name. Job's problem of suffering is
given a completely new perspective when we come to the fullness
of Jesus Christ. Oh yes, and then all the wisdom
of men is shown to be foolishness, but the wisdom of God is revealed. That which is foolishness to
men is the wisdom of God, the wisdom of the cross of Jesus
Christ. That God's victory should be
by defeat, that eternal life should come by death, that resurrection
should come through crucifixion. That all of these things should
happen makes no sense to the wisdom of man. No computer would
ever generate such a solution. This is the will of God. This
is the wisdom of God. This is the law of God. And that
which is foolishness to man is the knowledge of God. And God
gives that richly indwelling Word of Christ to you. And that
richly indwelling Word works wisdom. in you. You grow in wisdom
through the richly indwelling Word of Christ, and the Spirit
of Christ is the Spirit of wisdom. And in wisdom you are called
to walk, and in wisdom you are called to obey. not simply in
understanding the Proverbs like little bits and pieces of good
advice. The New Testament picks up the
Proverbs and uses the Proverbs. Paul uses them in his ethical
instruction. Peter uses them. The book of
Hebrews uses them. But now they're all put into
the structure of their real meaning, their true significance in the
fulfillment of redemptive history in Jesus Christ. And we are called
now to walk in wisdom by the power of the Holy Spirit and
to discern the things that differ. You see, we do not live carelessly
or thoughtlessly or unreflectively as Christians, but the Apostle
Paul says, verse 9 of Philippians 1, and this I pray, that your
love may abound yet more and more in all knowledge and all
discernment, so that you may approve the things that are excellent. Or that could be translated that
you may prove the things that differ. You see, what Paul is
praying for, that we have knowledge and discernment in order to judge
in situations what we ought to do. And you see, you learn in
the situation. You don't get it all in advance,
you learn it in the situation. You have to prove out the things
that differ. The wisdom of God given to us
by the power of the Holy Spirit is not a total action plan given
to us in advance. Many Christians feel that their
guidance has to come by some form of revelation that will
give them detailed instruction as to what they're supposed to
do every day. And they forget that the pattern
is wisdom, that you're to understand, you're to get a comprehension
of what God is doing in your life as you reflect on it and
as you work it out day by day seeking to obey Him. You don't
get it all in advance. You get it moment by moment,
day by day, as you prove and approve the things that are excellent,
as you make the discriminating decisions that help you to grow
in wisdom. Many Christians wish that we
still had the Urim and the Thummim. Now, that was very convenient.
It was something in the breastplate of the high priest, but it worked
like a computer. It gave you yes or no answers. And David, when Biothar brought
the breastplate to him, he put it to use at once. He said, Now,
God had told him to go deliver a city from the Philistines,
and he had done it, so the city had good cause to be grateful
to David. So David knew Saul was chasing
him, and so he said to Abiathar, I need to check with Urim and
the Thummim. If I go to that city, will Saul
chase me there? And Abiathar checked with Urim
and the Thummim, and the answer was yes. And if I go to that
city and Saul chases me there, will the men of that city give
me up to Saul? Buyeth our checks, he rimmed
the thumb, and yes, takes care of that. David doesn't go anywhere
near that city, needless to say. Now, don't you wish you could
get one at the cross the street at the Church of Scotland bookstore?
Wouldn't that be handy? I mean, it would no doubt add
to the income of the establishment as well. And it could be done
up in Lucite, and you could hang it around your neck, you see.
It would be a lovely thing to have. You'd get your yes and
no answer right away. Wouldn't that be good? Why didn't
the Lord give us the urn and the thumb and nail? Isn't the
new revelation, new covenant, better than the old? Why don't
we have an orderment from it? Well, for a moment think. Here's
a little boy, he's three years old. Daddy, may I go out in the
garden and play? Father, well, it's a few minutes
before supper. All right, just stay in the garden. Twenty years go by. A phone call
comes from London, where he's in the university, and he says,
Daddy, may I go out and play? And you say, well, this young
man has a problem. He's obviously a bit retarded. We worry about him. Yes, well,
don't you see what I'm getting at? What's the Lord doing? He wants you to become mature.
He wants you to know what's pleasing in His sight. He wants you to
grow in wisdom. Did you ever stop to think if God kept giving
you yes and no answers, you wouldn't grow in wisdom at all? You'd
just be told, yes, do it. No, don't do it. You know, some
parents keep trying to do that to their children when they're
23 years old, and it's a disaster. You know, they still want to
give them oom-and-thum-um answers to all their problems, and it's
very tough on the young people. But an understanding parent wants
his child to grow in wisdom. So the boy, when he's 23, knows
what's pleasing to his father and what isn't, and he doesn't
have to call up to ask every moment in that sense, does he?
Ah, yes. The Lord wants us, filled with
the Holy Spirit, to grow in the mind of Christ, to know what
is pleasing to the Lord, that we may walk in that way. So don't try to force yes and
no answers out of God on the assumption that you have a right
to them on all occasions. God hasn't promised that. Some
Christians do it, you know. They don't have the Urim and
the Thummim, so they make their feelings to be the Urim and the
Thummim. And they say, now, should I do
this or not? Is this pleasing to God or not?
I'll start doing it. So they walk off and start doing
it. Then they do a quick spot check. How do I feel about it? And if I feel real good, then
obviously it's the will of the Lord. And they'll even say later,
the Lord told me to do it. But if they don't feel so good,
then it's obviously not the will of the Lord, and so they'll stop
doing it. Now, the remarkable thing about that is it usually
works. And the reason, I think there
are two reasons why it usually works. One is the wonderful goodness
of God. If we get mixed up ideas about
guidance, the Lord will sometimes, in his marvelous loving kindness,
guide us by our mixed up ideas of guidance. I think he really
does. But the other thing is it may
work because it's our conscience giving us the answers. We've
been rationalizing all the time, trying to persuade ourselves
it was really all right to do this. And yet when we start really
to do it, then our conscience hits us and we say, oh, no, that's
really wrong. And of course, it is wrong. But
you see, The Lord hasn't promised us infallible answers. He hasn't
given us the Urim and the Thummim. That isn't the wisdom of Christ. Wisdom is growing in understanding. Now, don't misunderstand me.
I'm not saying that God doesn't, in his providence, even give
us hunches sometimes, and we'd better pay attention even to
hunches. All right. But don't think they're infallible.
Don't class them with the urim and the thummim, please. But
realize that what God is after, as he works in your life and
heart, is for you to grow in the wisdom that is in Jesus Christ.
Christ in the Wisdom Literature
Series Rutherford House Lecture
How Jesus is seen in the Proverbs and Wisdom Literature, a lecture given at Rutherford House, UK
| Sermon ID | 928090131910 |
| Duration | 1:06:35 |
| Date | |
| Category | Special Meeting |
| Language | English |
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