Proverbs 8:12-21

Good morning, good morning. It's so good to see you this morning. Thank you for joining us this morning for Coffee and Devotions. This is where every day we get together, we get into God's Word, we grow in our love for the Lord together. And this year, 2021, we'll make it through all the wisdom literature. We're at Proverbs chapter 8, verses 12 through 21 this morning. Why don't we go ahead and have some coffee, we'll pray, we'll get into God's Word.
Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for your word. We thank you for the blessing it is to hear from you, to see you. Lord, we pray that as we turn our ears to you now, Father, we would know you more and we would walk in your ways. In Jesus's name. Amen. All right. Here we go. Proverbs chapter eight, verses 12 through 21.
I, wisdom, dwell with prudence and find out knowledge and discretion. The fear of the Lord is to hate evil. Pride and arrogance are the evil way, and the perverse mouth I hate. Counsel is mine, and sound wisdom I am understanding. I have strength. By me kings reign, and rulers decree justice. By me princes rule, and nobles all the judges of the earth. I love those who love me, and those who seek me diligently will find me. Riches and honor are with me, enduring riches and righteousness. My fruit is better than gold, yes, than fine gold, and my revenue than choice silver. I traverse the way of righteousness in the midst of the paths of justice, that I may cause those who love me to inherit wealth, that I may fill their treasuries.
Well, we need to ask ourselves, A, what is this about? B, what's the best verse to summarize this? And C, what are we called to do in response to this? So what is wisdom? Again, this is a personification of wisdom. This is wisdom crying out. She stands at the city gate. She's talking to all the people there, the elders and those who are walking through the gates. And she's crying out for wisdom. She's crying out, giving instruction. And as Lady Wisdom is there, and obviously, again, this is the wisdom of God, it's saying, here's what I'm like, here's what I love. And I want to just be a little bit careful here, right? Because there are some things here that we can be careful about. But if we're a little bit too lax, we can get in trouble, right?
Jesus is the incarnate wisdom of God. And yet I want to be careful because much of this is true about Christ because he is the wisdom of God. And yet because this is anthropomorphic language, we just need to be careful. because it speaks of wisdom being created.
But we know that Jesus has no beginning and has no end. He was with the Father from the beginning and all things that are made were made through him and are sustained by him. And so just a little bit of theological clarity here. We just want to be careful with our theology when we come to Proverbs 8. This is speaking of wisdom and it's speaking in these beautiful poetic ways.
They're true of Christ in many ways. But we want to make sure that we don't say, oh yes, hold on, look, this is exactly talking about Jesus. There are images and shadows that are true of Jesus, but we just don't want to push too far. Okay, well, what is wisdom like? Well, wisdom dwells with prudence and finds out knowledge and discretion.
And then it immediately goes in verse 13, the fear of the Lord is to hate evil. Now, what is evil? If the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord, and the beginning of the fear of the Lord is to hate evil, what are the evil things? Well, verse 13 says, pride, arrogance, and a perverse mouth I hate. God hates pride. God hates arrogance. God hates a mouth that speaks evil, speaks bad things.
And so Jesus railed against this. When Jesus came on the scene, what did he say? that their mouths were full of poison, right? But it wasn't what was going into their mouths that were making unclean, it was what was coming out. Out of the overflow of the heart comes the words of the mouth. And so the fear of the Lord is to hate evil, and so hate pride, hate arrogance, hate the perverse mouth.
And then it speaks of wisdom in verses 14 and going on, that counsel is mine, sound wisdom is mine, understanding and strength. It's by wisdom that kings reign. It's by wisdom that rulers decree justice. Knowing the right thing to do and having the ability to do it. This is what we want our rulers to be able to do. We want them to have wisdom with their decisions. Wisdom with their rulings. By me, princes and nobles and judges of all the judges of the earth, I love those who love me and all those who seek me will diligently find me. Now I want to point out here, you must diligently seek out wisdom.
Sometimes we think that if I just live long enough, I'll become wise. No, there's a whole bunch of people who are 60, 70, 80, 90 years old who are unwise. There are people who I have met who are generations older than I am and I'm going to show them respect because they are older than me. and yet I would not make the same choices that they continue to make in their lives because they're not making decisions based upon the Word of God. They're not making wise decisions.
And so it's by seeking wisdom, going for her, riches and honor are with me, enduring riches and righteousness. If you seek after the fear of the Lord, if you desire his word, if you pour yourself over his word, if you go to him in prayer, you plead with him for wisdom, he will give you this and you will have an inheritance that no one can take away. My fruit is better than gold, yes, than fine gold, and my revenue than choice over. I traverse the way of righteousness in the midst of the paths of justice, that I may cause those who love me to inherit wealth, that I may fill their treasuries. It is, if we listen to wisdom, again, these are principles, not promises, but if we listen to wisdom, if we seek out wisdom, it will go well with you. it will go well with you now of course there's going to be exceptions to that norm and we don't want to fall into the pit of health wealth and prosperity gospel i love you too much to tell you that oh if you just do exactly what god says your life is going to be absolutely marvelous and wonderful well that wasn't the case for jesus it wasn't the case for his apostles and it's certainly not going to be the case for all of us but yet if we're storing up our riches and our treasures in heaven No one's going to take them away. And in this life, it will go well with us if we walk in wisdom.
So, best verse? I really, really like verse 13. What would you underline in your Bible? What would you underline as the best verse that gets at this? Maybe you would underline verse 15 about a king's reign and rulers decree justice. I'm interested to know. Feel free to let me know down in the comments. Calling? What are you called to do? Seek wisdom. Diligently search her out. Read the best books. Listen to the best preachers. Go to the best theology. Talk to the wise people in your life. Get counsel from people who you trust, who fear the Lord. Seek wisdom. Hear her out.
Know the right thing to do and plead with God that He will give you, by His Spirit, the ability to do it. Pray that God would conform you to the image of Jesus and by his spirit allow you to walk as he walked. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much that our King reigns, that Jesus Christ truly is the one by whom every ruler and principality has Lord, we pray for our leaders that you would give them wisdom. We pray that they would walk in righteousness. We pray that they would hate evil, that they would hate pride. We pray that they would not have perverse mouths. We pray these things for us, Lord.
And we pray that you might increase us in our fear of you, that we might love you, reverence you, and that you might be glorified in our lives. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, may the Lord bless you today. May you walk in the paths of Christ, and I'll see you tomorrow. Bye.