Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: Proverbs 1:8-33 | Date: April 19, 2020 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

I wrote to you an email and said that we’d be looking at Proverbs chapter 1 today. If you have your Bible, I would encourage you to have that in front of you and follow along. We’re going to have to move quickly through all of these verses, but I would like to cover verses 8 through 33 of Proverbs chapter 1 today. Proverbs 1, beginning with verse 8. The title of the passage I’ve given it is called “In Two Directions.”

Beginning with verse 8:

“Hear, my son, your father’s instruction, and forsake not your mother’s teaching, for they are a graceful garland to your head and pendants for your neck. My son, if sinners entice you, do not consent. If they say, ‘Come with us, let us lie in wait for blood; let us ambush the innocent without reason; like Sheol let us swallow them alive, and whole, like those who go down to the pit; we shall find all precious goods, we shall fill our houses with plunder; throw in your lot among us; we will all have one purse’—my son, do not walk in the way with them; hold back your foot from their paths, for their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed blood. For in vain a net is spread in the sight of any bird, but these men lie in wait for their own blood; they set an ambush for their own lives. Such are the ways of everyone who is greedy for unjust gain; it takes away the life of its possessors.

Wisdom cries aloud in the street, in the markets she raises her voice; at the head of the noisy streets she cries out; at the entrance of the city gates she speaks: ‘How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge? If you turn at my reproof, behold, I will pour out my spirit to you; I will make my words known to you. Because I have called and you refused to listen, have stretched out my hand and no one has heeded, because you have ignored all my counsel and would have none of my reproof, I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when terror strikes you, when terror strikes you like a storm and your calamity comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you. Then they will call upon me, but I will not answer; they will seek me diligently but will not find me. Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord, would have none of my counsel and despised all my reproof, therefore they shall eat the fruit of their way, and have their fill of their own choices. For the simple are killed by their turning away, and the complacency of fools destroys them; but whoever listens to me will dwell secure and will be at ease, without dread of disaster.'”

Children, it strikes me in this passage that this is what is going on: children have basically two ways to learn about life. They can listen and heed their parents’ instruction, or they can go it on their own and learn from their experience. To cast it in theological terms, they can learn by faith, or they can learn just by the hard experience of life. With most of it, it’s some combination of both, but you have to wonder how much grief could have been avoided if we had all just listened and taken heed rather than trying it out on our own.

So for example, a child is warned not to play with fire; it’s dangerous. He could have trusted his parents and learned the lesson by faith, but instead he learns the hard way, and hopefully he lives through it without getting maimed. He’s warned that sticking something into that electrical outlet will hurt him. And again, he could just take his parents at their word for that, or he could learn by hard experience. And again, you hope he lives through it. A teenager can be warned about the danger of alcohol or drugs—that only a fool would mess with that stuff. But he knows better until he finds out he doesn’t know better at all. And he could have taken his parents at their word, but no, he had to learn it by hard experience. Or a teenager is warned about hanging out with the wrong kinds of friends, but no, he had to learn the hard way. And the examples could go on and on.

Foolishness, we read in chapter 22, verse 15, the famous verse, “Foolishness is bound in the heart of the child.” And wise parents want desperately to disabuse their children of it. And it sometimes can seem like just an uphill struggle, but because we love our children, we don’t let up. We teach and we warn diligently, and we do it with prayers that God will use our efforts and spare our children a life of heartache.

Well, that is what Proverbs 1 to 9 is all about. As I’ve mentioned before, beginning with chapter one in verse eight, we have a series of lectures or admonitions that the father gives his son, exhorting him about both wisdom and folly. Pursue wisdom and you’ll find that it’s in your own best interests. Reject folly and spare yourself the regret. And that’s the essence of the lectures, except that throughout each of these admonitions, he gives specific scenarios.

Now each of the lectures of chapters one to nine begins, as I think I’ve mentioned, with a call to the son to get his attention. So here in chapter one in verse eight, you see it: “Hear, my son, your father’s instruction.” That’s the first lecture. If you jump down to chapter two, verse one, you see the next one: “My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments.” And then we see the next lecture. Chapter three, verse one: “My son, do not forget my teaching.” Chapter 4, verse 1: “Hear, O sons, a father’s instruction.” And on through these passages, each of the lectures is marked out by his father calling his son to get his attention.

And then after that call to get his sons to listen, and before he gets into the body of the admonition itself, the father often inserts a kind of motivational clause. We saw that last time in verses 8 and 9. “Hear, my son, your father’s instruction, and forsake not your mother’s teaching,” and then the motivational clause, “for they are a graceful garland for your head and pendants for your neck.” That is, listen up. This is valuable counsel. You want this. It’ll be good for you.

Now, one way the sage prompts his son to think about life is by presenting to his son specific scenarios and leading his son to think them through, to consider the choices and the corresponding consequences. And that’s what he does in this first lecture. Here, the son is being called in two different directions.

The Call Of Sinners

Verses 10 to 19, the father exposes the call of sinners. So first, the call of sinners to join them in their sinning. Verse 10, the father begins with a brief summary of what he wants to say to his son. Here’s the point he wants to get across. Verse 10: “My son, if sinners entice you, do not consent.” That is to say, son, sinners will always want company. But when they entice you to join them in their sin, you must have your response speech already prepared. And it goes like this: “No.” “My son, if sinners entice you, do not consent.”

Some of you who are old enough will probably remember Nancy Reagan’s campaign against drugs. “Just Say No” was the slogan. I’m sure many of you remember that. And you also remember that the liberal media, of course, mocked her for being so simplistic. Well, that’s the counsel here. It’s that counsel here exactly. My son, when sinners entice you, do not consent. Just say no.

Simplistic or not, this is really very necessary counsel. When I was a young boy, very young, I think early grade school, my dad had my brother and me memorize this verse. He drilled us on it many times. He would have us recite it several times over. Many times, week after week, he’d have us recite it. And then he would explain it to us with specific case scenarios. In those days, it was the King James Version. I still remember it well. You might have noticed when I was reading the verse earlier, I stumbled over it. It’s because I memorized it so well in the King James; I can’t even read it in another version anymore. The King James Version is, “My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not.”

And I have to say, looking back, that that exercise that dad gave us—having us recite the verse, drilling it into us, giving the case scenarios—that exercise proved good for me. On many occasions at school, when I was pressured to do something wrong, that verse would pop into my mind: just say no. I’d been warned, or if you like, I’d been conditioned about just these kinds of situations. And so I wasn’t caught by surprise, and I wasn’t at a loss for a response. And you need to have this speech already prepared in your minds, lest you be caught off guard in the pressure of the moment. And this is not for children only. This is for all of us. “My son, if sinners entice you, do not consent.”

Now, of course, the verse, verse 10, is broad in its purview. If sinners entice you, well, that’s open to a lot of things. It’s a broad catch-all kind of reference. And it demands some kind of specific application. And that’s what the father provides in verses 11 to 14. So beginning at verse 11: “If they say, ‘Come with us, let us lie in wait for blood; let us ambush the innocent without reason; like Sheol, let us swallow them alive and whole like those who go down to the pit. We shall find all precious goods, and we shall fill our houses with plunder. Throw in your lot among us, and we will have one purse.'”

Well, here then, the father not only gives specific application, but he also exposes how the sinful mind works. And it’s the same old, same old: instant gratification, never mind the values. “This will be great. You’ll get a lot of stuff.” The specific situations are countless, but the principle is the same. “This is what I want, so let’s do it.”

And so in verse 15, the father repeats the exhortation of verse 10. It’s in different words, but it’s the same exhortation: “My son, do not walk in the way with them; hold back your foot from their paths.” Then now in verses 16 to 19, he explains just why his son should refuse to participate in sin. Notice the explanatory conjunctions at the beginning of verse 16 and beginning of verse 17, the word “for.” And don’t go with them, don’t walk in their paths, verse 16, “for” or because “their feet run to evil and they make haste to shed blood. For,” or because, “in vain a net is spread in sight of any bird, but these men lie in wait for their own blood; they set an ambush for their own lives. Such are the ways of everyone who is greedy for unjust gain; it takes away the life of its possessors.”

So simply put then, he’s saying, “Don’t go along with them” because of two reasons. Number one, verse 16: it’s wrong. And number two, verse 17 and following: it’s foolish. So he’s saying, “Think this through. This won’t end well for you.” It’s just the message he presses all throughout Proverbs: it’s wise to be righteous; it’s foolish to be sinful. For your own good, don’t go along with them in their sin. Just say no.

So in verses eight to 19, the message is: if you are wise, you will reject the call of sinners. Again, if you’re wise, you’ll reject the call of sinners.

The Call Of Wisdom

Well, the message of verses 20 to 33 now is just the flip side of that. And that is: you’d be a fool to reject the call of wisdom. So verses 8 to 19, if you’re wise, you’ll reject the call of sinners. Verses 20 to 33, you’d be a fool to reject the call of wisdom.

So notice the call of wisdom in verse 20 and 21: “Wisdom cries aloud in the street. In the markets, she raises her voice. At the head of the noisy streets, she cries out. At the entrance of the city gates, she speaks.” Here, wisdom is personified as a street preacher. He’s in the marketplace, he’s in the mainstream of life, calling out, offering freely the wisdom to live.

I suspect that the personification here, wisdom crying in the streets, may not simply be poetic. Bruce Waltke suggests that the sage was a recognized office or a function in ancient Israel. For those of you who aren’t acquainted, Bruce Waltke is probably the leading expert on the book of Proverbs alive today. He’s an older man. He’s been studying Proverbs for a lot of years. I sometimes wonder if he might be one of the men who collected the Proverbs that we have today. He’s been around at it so long, but he suggests here that the sage in view, or wisdom being personified here, might be the office of a sage. And he gives for evidence for that, Jeremiah chapter 18 and verse 18. I’ll read it for you: “Then they said, ‘Come, let us make plots against Jeremiah. For the law shall not perish from the priest, nor the counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet.'” Notice you have those three specified offices: the priest, the prophet, and the wise, or the sage, as a street preacher.

Well, at any rate, the point here is that wisdom is readily available from God’s spokesman. And so verses 22 and 23, then, summarize wisdom’s invitation: “How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing, and fools hate knowledge? If you turn at my reproof, behold, I will pour out my spirit on you. I will make my words known to you.”

Now notice here in verse 22, the three classes of people that he summons. There’s the simple, the scoffer, and there’s the fool. Now, the simpleton, as we’ve seen, is the uncommitted. He’s open. He’s open to wisdom; he’s open to folly. He’s easily led; he’s easily misled. That’s the simple one. The scoffer, or the mocker, is the arrogant free-thinker. He’s the guy who thinks he has it all together himself. He doesn’t need to hear counsel from anyone else other than himself. And in fact, he’ll mock wisdom when it’s offered to him. He knows better. So we have the simpleton, we have the scoffer, and third, we have the fool. The fool has a settled antipathy to wisdom. And in Proverbs, in fact, we find that it’s a waste of time to counsel the fool. But here wisdom makes its offer nonetheless. “How long will you be foolish? Listen, I can show you how to live.”

But then you’ll see in verses 24 and 25, wisdom’s offer is rejected. “I’ve called and you’ve refused to listen.” And so in verses 26 to 28, wisdom expresses her response to that rejection: “Because I have called and you refuse to listen, have stretched out my hand and no one has heeded, because you have ignored all my counsel and would have none of my reproof, I also will laugh at your calamity. I will mock when terror strikes you. When terror strikes you like a storm and your calamity comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come on you, then they will call on me, but I will not answer. They will seek me diligently, but will not find me.”

Even though the language here of laughing and mocking at them and the consequences of their sin, the point here is not, I don’t think, that wisdom takes great delight in those unhappy outcomes for the foolish. After all, in verses 20 to 23, she makes her offer freely. The point is this: that if you reject the offer of wisdom, it is only right that you bear the consequences of it. There’s a moral order in the universe that’s built in by God himself, and wisdom is sympathetic with that in all of its outworkings. And so in verse 27, she warns that there will be an awful consequence of rejecting her offer. Ruin will come. And then, cry as you will, it’ll be too late.

And verses 29 to 31 then explain: “Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord, would have none of my counsel and despised all my reproof, therefore they shall eat the fruit of their way and have the fill of their own devices.” That is to say, you are responsible for the choices you make and you will be held accountable for them. Choose wisdom and you will have life. Choose folly and you’ll have judgment and ruin. It’s a kind of “you reap what you sow” warning.

Now in verse 32, we have a warning that’s given specifically to the simple: “The simple are killed by their turning away and the complacency of fools will destroy them.” The idea there is don’t be complacent like the fool, or like the fool, you’ll regret it. Or to put it another way, there is no true neutrality in this. You either commit yourself to wisdom or you’ll share in the fate of the fool.

And so in verse 33, the sage concludes the sermon with a final offer and an incentive. He says, “But whoever listens to me will dwell secure and will be at ease without dread of disaster.” That is, just as there are unhappy consequences to foolishness, so there is value and benefit to wisdom. Heed the call of wisdom and you will not be made to face the disaster of fools.

So there are two ways. There are two offers. There are two choices to make: folly and wisdom. And there are two corresponding outcomes. And you cannot remain neutral. Choose wisdom before it is too late. You can listen and learn by faith that it is wise to be righteous, or you can learn the same yourself the hard way. But know that wisdom’s counsel will prove true in either case.

A Model Of Parenting

Now, before we wrap this up, let’s reflect on it some more. First of all, a note to you parents with children at home. This is just a wonderful model of parenting. I don’t know where you’ll find a better model in all of the Bible. This is what you should be doing with your children. Present the two ways, present the two outcomes, explain them carefully, illustrate them, press the need for decision, press the need for resolve. Show your children the way of wisdom and warn them against the way of folly. Take the time, take the effort, work through it. Make them see that when sinners call, it is in their own best interest to refuse. And show them that only a fool would reject the call of wisdom.

And lead your children to think through both ways. Caution them that they can listen and learn it the easy way, or they can refuse your teaching and learn it the hard way. As you counsel them in that way, it just might spell the difference for them for life and even for eternity. But keep in mind that all of this is not for young children only. It’s for all of us. And we all must resolve in our hearts ahead of time that when sin presents itself, our response will be no. We have to condition our hearts with the conviction that it’s always wise to be righteous and it’s always foolish to sin. We must heed the call of wisdom.

The Bigger Picture

But then the bigger picture—and we can’t say all of this, I don’t think, if we’ve read our New Testaments at all—we can’t say all of this without thinking in terms of that bigger picture. We’ve seen already that this wisdom theme in scripture points us ultimately to the Lord Jesus Christ. We don’t want our children to follow just some general kind of wisdom. We want them to follow Christ. He is the ultimate expression of God’s wisdom and all the fullness of God’s wisdom is found only in him. We’ve seen that.

In fact, we’ve also seen that God’s wisdom is crystallized in that message of Christ crucified in place of sinners, 1 Corinthians 1. The simple fact is that you and I will never live wisely enough to earn God’s favor. It’s too late. We’ve already failed. But Jesus lived that life of wisdom and he lived it perfectly. And he went to the cross offering that perfect life and sacrifice to God in place of sinners. And it’s here and only here that we can achieve fellowship with God. And it’s only by our union with Christ that we can be enabled to live wisely to God’s honor.

And all this business that we read here in chapter one about wisdom crying in the streets and making herself available to everyone—if we have read our New Testament at all, I don’t think we can help but see that offer come to its climax in our Lord’s free gospel offer: “Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I’ll give you rest. Take my yoke on you and learn from me. I’m gentle and lowly in heart. You’ll find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

You may have lived like a fool, but our Lord says he can save you. He can rescue you from the consequences of your foolish sin, and he can change the whole direction of your life. His offer is not that you first must improve and then you can come. His offer is just come as you are, I’ll take care of everything. Come to Christ, acknowledge your lostness without him. Confess that he is your only hope of rescue. Own him as your redeemer. Bow before him as Lord. Submit to his yoke and go from there to experience the freedom of God’s children.

The offer is free and you are called to come. But note well, to refuse the offer will be to your eternal regret. To take him up on the offer and receive him will be to your eternal joy. If ever we display wisdom, it is in coming to Jesus Christ.

Now, as we’ve done before, I’d like to open it again for discussion on Proverbs chapter one—not discussion generally, but this. Perhaps Pastor Greg or Pastor Boyd would like to add something and perhaps questions.