Word of Salvation – January 2025

 

AGEING WELL GOD’S WAY (3): WISDOM (The Proverbs)

 

Sermon by Rev. Steve Voorwinde on Prov.8:1-11

Scripture Readings:

                  Proverbs 8:1-11;  1 Corinthians 1:18-25

 

Introduction

Today we live in a society where people want to be smart. So, they have their smart phones, their smart watches, and their smart TV’s. There are some people who are even looking forward to a day when they will be driving their smart cars. And when people get to work, they are meant to work smarter, not harder. Well, I don’t know about you, but that leaves a person like me not feeling very smart at all. I don’t have a paying job anymore, and I don’t own many of those smart gadgets that are all the rage these days.

Now I’m not here to talk down on technology and the latest human inventions. Most of them make life easier for millions and millions of people. But I will say this, the 21^st century may turn out to be an age where everyone wants to be smart, but only a few will remember what it is to be wise. And let’s face it, for most of life’s big decisions we all need wisdom. At times like that, having smarts just doesn’t cut it anymore. When you think about it, we all need wisdom at every stage of life.

• When we are young, we need wisdom for some of the biggest decisions we will ever make: What career do I go into? Who do I marry? What do I really believe?
• And then when you have a family, you need even more wisdom. How do we raise our children? Should I take that promotion, or will it bring too much disruption to our family life?
• And then when all your children have left home, you still need wisdom. When do I retire? When is it time to sell the family home?
• And when you are retired, you will need wisdom again. Has my health or my spouse’s health come to the point where we need to move to a retirement village or nursing home? And if we do move, how is all that going to be paid for?

So, at every stage of life – from being young, to be being middle-aged, and into our senior years – we all need wisdom, and lots of it! And because wisdom is so important, the Bible devotes a whole book to it – the Book of Proverbs, from which we have just read. There it says that “wisdom is more precious than rubies, and nothing you desire can compare with her” (Prov 8:11). But if wisdom is that important and that valuable, what is it exactly, and how do you get it?

Let’s see what the Book of Proverbs says about wisdom and how to get it. It says a lot, of course, but let me give you the five basics: discipline, understanding, skill, shrewdness, and knowledge. That produces the anagram DUSSK. I know that’s not how you spell the word ‘dusk’. But as those of us who are older are now in the dusk of our lives, it’s good to know these five basics about wisdom: discipline, understanding, skill, shrewdness, and knowledge.

1. So, we begin with the letter D: Wisdom involves discipline.

 

That discipline comes by way of instruction or training. That discipline may come from other human beings, or it may even come directly from God himself.

 

• Human discipline is meant to start with the parents. So, Proverbs gives them some timely advice:

• “Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; the rod of discipline will remove it far from him” (Prov 22:15). You see the implications here. By nature, little kids are generally not very wise, because ‘foolishness’ or the love of sin is bound up in their hearts. All you have to do is think of toddlers and the “terrible two’s” to know that this true. Before a child can become wise, the foolishness has to be driven out first.

• And then when you read on in Proverbs, this instruction to parents becomes even more confronting: “Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you punish him with the rod, he will not die. Punish him with the rod and save his soul from death” (Prov 23:13-14). When you are punishing the child, he may act as though he’s dying, but he’ll survive. The rod may even save his soul from death.

• For me these verses certainly bring back some memories. In the kitchen my mother always had a wooden spoon hidden away in the back of a drawer. I don’t remember her ever using it for cooking, but she sure used it on me! I once heard of another Christian mother who didn’t keep the wooden spoon in a drawer. She hung it up on the wall for all to see, and under that wooden spoon she had written the words of a well-known hymn, “I need thee every hour.” No doubt, all of you have similar memories. Our parents disciplined us physically. It didn’t do us any harm and in the end we respected them for it.

• And all this makes me wonder about some of the problems facing our society today. Where is all this youth crime coming from? First, we heard about it in the Northern Territory, then in Queensland, and now it’s in Melbourne. Here are kids under the age of 18 forming gangs, stabbing people, stealing cars, driving over the speed limit, killing other people and sometimes even killing themselves as well. And we may well wonder, when these kids were growing up, did they ever get a good hiding? Did anyone ever give them a decent spanking? Did anyone ever discipline them? Were they ever taught to live wisely?

• Now please don’t get me wrong. Discipline isn’t all about spankings and wooden spoons. It also comes with words – words of correction and words of rebuke. So, Proverbs also says, “A wise son accepts his father’s discipline, but a scoffer does not listen to rebuke” (Prov 13:1). And that continues into adult life, doesn’t it? If you are fortunate enough to have family and friends who are willing to correct you and even rebuke you, then it’s wise to take that on board. Rebuke a wise man and he will be even wiser.

• But when it comes to discipline, there is no one who does it as well and as perfectly as the Lord himself. “My son, do not despise the LORD’s discipline and do not resent his rebuke, because the LORD disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in” (Prov 3:11-12). And how does God do that? He also does it through words. Sometimes he does that through what we read in the Bible, in passages where he rebukes us. But he can also do it through the difficult experiences of life. There are times when we need some sense knocked into us and it can only come through the hard knocks of life. It seems to me that this often happens to young or new Christians. Let me give you some real-life examples:

• In one of the churches I served, I preached one Sunday on this very topic of the Lord’s discipline. One of the people who heard the message was a young trainee nurse. That evening it was a cold night. So, when she went home, she stood warming herself by a heater. But she got too close. Her skirt caught on fire. She had burns all over her body and spent months in hospital.

• In another congregation there was a middle-aged woman who had this wonderful conversion experience. As a new believer she was on cloud nine and over the moon. Two weeks later she was diagnosed with cancer.

• Another example is a man who became a Christian not so long ago. He was a changed man, and God had become very real to him. Soon afterwards he needed major brain surgery. As he went through that experience, he had an amazing sense of the love and presence of God. You see, “the Lord disciplines those he loves.”

• And as you look back on your life as a Christian, isn’t often in times of hardship that that you have experienced the greatest spiritual growth and gained the most wisdom? That’s God training you and putting you through your paces. That’s often God’s way of making you a wiser man, a wiser woman. Wisdom doesn’t come easily or cheaply. It’s often hard won, a quality of character as well as a quality of the mind. It takes hard training, like the training of an Olympic athlete. And God makes no apologies for being a tough trainer. Wisdom takes training and hard discipline.

2. This brings us to our second letter, which is the letter U. U stands for understanding.

 

In the Book of Proverbs, wisdom and understanding are like Siamese twins. They belong together and are found together. In the very first verse that we read from Proverbs 8, the two are found together: “Does not wisdom call out? Does not understanding raise her voice?”

But how are we to understand this word ‘understanding’? Think of it this way. How can I get to know you? And how do you get to know another person? Isn’t by listening to what they have to say? As we listen to another person, we get to know them better and better. We get to understand them better and better. The more we listen the better we understand.

And the same is true when it comes to God. The more we listen to him, the better we get to know him and the better we understand him. And that’s what understanding in the Book of Proverbs is all about. It’s about understanding God, and about understanding him more and more. And you do that by listening.

But how does God speak so that we can listen? God can speak in any number of ways. He can speak through the wonders of nature. He can speak to you through your conscience. He can speak to you through other people. But where he speaks most clearly is in the Bible. That’s why we call it the Word of God. That’s where he tells us what he is like. That’s where he tells us how to live our lives and how to live our best life. When we know who God is and how to live life in the light of who he is, that’s what the Book of Proverbs calls understanding. Understanding is knowing God and doing his will. The Bible helps us to understand the very mind of God.

So how important it is to know the Bible and to know it well! It is through the Bible that God gives us wisdom and understanding!

3. This brings us to our third letter, which is the letter ‘S’. This stands for skill. So, wisdom comes firstly by discipline. Secondly, it means understanding. Now thirdly, it involves skill.

 

• “Do you see a man skilled in his work?” asks Proverbs.

“He will stand before kings;

He will not stand before obscure men” (Prov. 22:29).

When I read this verse, I am always reminded of my father. He was just a cabinet maker working in his little factory on the outskirts of Sydney. But he was very good at what he did. His customers came from higher and higher up the social ladder. He would deliver his work to some very fancy places around town. Finally, he was invited to make a piece of furniture for the Pope during the papal visit to Australia in 1966. A Catholic firm asked him to do the job, even though he wasn’t a Catholic. He got the job because he had a name for being skilled in his work.

You also see it in craftsmen who produce handmade musical instruments. Recently I was watching a documentary on Portugal, where they have highly skilled artisans who craft the most beautiful violins. Like my Dad, these people are skilled in their work. They are wise in the job they do.

• But the wisdom of Proverbs is more than someone doing their job skilfully and well. Wisdom is the skill or the art of living life well. This little series of messages I am giving is all about ageing well. So far we have seen that to age well you need faith like Abraham, you need a clear conscience like Samuel, and you also need the wisdom of Solomon. You will remember the story of the two mothers who came to Solomon with a dispute. They each had a baby and were sharing a room. During the night one of the babies died. Its mother then quietly took the dead baby and swapped it for the living baby. The next day the mothers brought the living baby to King Solomon. One of them said, “This baby is mine!” The other cried out and said, “No, he’s mine!” Solomon then asked a servant to bring him a sword and threatened to cut the baby in two. The mother of the dead baby said, “That’s fair.” But the mother of the living baby felt compassion for her son. She pleaded with the king: “Please, my lord, give her the living baby! Don’t kill him!” (1 Kings 3:26). Then Solomon knew right away who the real mother was. Now, that was wisdom!

4. The fourth letter is the second ‘S’, the one that makes us spell the word ‘dusk’ incorrectly. Wisdom is skill, but it also means being shrewd.

That may surprise us. We don’t always like shrewd people. We may think they are dishonest or underhanded, and maybe a bit dodgy, a little crafty. But that’s not the way Proverbs sees it.

• “A shrewd man sees danger and hides himself; but the simple go and suffer for it” (Prov 22:3). This man is just plain sensible. You could also say that he is prudent. That’s how we are to understand the next examples too.
• “A prudent man (or ‘a shrewd man’) keeps his knowledge to himself, but the heart of fools blurts out folly” (Prov 12:23). There are times when it’s shrewd not to say anything.
• “A simple man believes anything, but a prudent man gives thought to his steps” (Prov 14:15). To plan well, to think things through – that’s always a sensible and shrewd thing to do.

Jesus also tells us to be shrewd. “Be wise as serpents and harmless as doves,” he said (Matt 10:16). In other words, be as shrewd as snakes. In history, we see this in the political manoeuvrings of a man like William Wilberforce. He led the movement to abolish slavery in the British Empire and, in the process, he showed himself to be as shrewd as a snake and as harmless as a dove. Let me give you a couple of examples. He would invite the wives of parliamentarians to go on an afternoon cruise with refreshments provided. The cruise would make a point of going quite close to the docks where the slave ships would be moored. The foul stench coming from those vessels would be quite unbearable. These high-class ladies would be quite horrified at the inhumane conditions endured by the slaves. No doubt they would have words with their husbands about it when they got home. “How could a civilised society like Britain practice such barbarity!” they might say. Wilberforce had shrewd ways of getting his point across.

Or in parliament, he would shrewdly wait for a time when some of his strongest opponents would be away. He knew some of them were quite keen on horse-racing. So he made sure they would be at the race rather than in parliament. And when they were gone, he would propose an anti-slavery bill and have it passed by parliament. He was a great campaigner, and also a shrewd and savvy politician.

Jesus even told the parable of the shrewd manager (Luke 16). Now this guy was dishonest as well. He told his master’s debtors to fudge the books. He would ask one of them, “How much do you owe my master?”

“Eight hundred gallons of olive oil,” came the reply.

“Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred,” said the manager.

Then he would ask a second debtor, “And how much do you owe?”

“A thousand bushels of wheat,” was the answer.

Then the shrewd manager replied, “Take your bill and make it eight hundred.”

And so it went. But here’s the twist. When his master discovered these antics, Jesus says that “the master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly.” All this monkey business is praised! But the master does not praise the steward for his dishonesty. He commends him for his shrewdness.

And then Jesus applies the parable to his listeners. Don’t be dishonest like this manager, but when it comes to money and worldly wealth, use it to make friends. Use it for kingdom purposes. Be an entrepreneur for God. Then when it runs out, as it always does when people die, “you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings” (Luke 16:9). Bank with the Bank of Heaven, says Jesus, and you will always be making shrewd investments. It’s a very wise thing to do.

5. So far, we have seen that wisdom involves discipline, understanding, skill, and shrewdness. To get the word ‘dussk’ (with a double ‘s’), we have just one letter to go, and that of course is the letter ‘K’. And this ‘K’ stands for ‘knowledge.’

 

But in the Book of Proverbs, what is meant by ‘knowledge’? How does it understand that term? Well, basically in three ways:

• There is knowledge of the facts. At the moment, my grandson is learning the capital city of every country in the world. When he has finished learning them, he may say, “Now I know all the world’s capitals.” But he has visited only a few of them. He doesn’t know their history. He doesn’t know their geography. He probably doesn’t even know what their population is. But he does know for a fact what city is the capital of which country. That’s one fact about each city that he will know. Now, Proverbs has a place for that kind of factual knowledge (Prov 10:14; 15:27; 18:15; 21:11). But that’s not the main game.
• There’s also the kind of knowledge that we would call ‘know-how.’ Here knowledge is a bit like a practical skill, the kind that we came across earlier. For example, one of the Proverbs reads like this:

“By wisdom a house is built,

And by understanding it is established;

And by knowledge the rooms are filled

With all precious and pleasant riches” (Prov 24:3-4).

So here we have someone who has the know-how to not only build a house but also to decorate its rooms with all kinds of precious and pleasant riches. Again, there’s a place in Proverbs for know-how, but once again, it’s not the main game.

• So, what is the main game? What is the best kind of knowledge there is? I think we would all agree that it is personal knowledge. There is no better kind of knowledge than knowing another person really well. If that is true, then knowledge in the highest sense is the knowledge of God. Knowing him surpasses any other kind of knowledge. And that’s what the Book of Proverbs is all about. Knowing God means obeying him, and that combination is called “the fear of the Lord”.  And that’s the key to everything else.

Near the beginning of the book, it says: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction” (Prov 1:7).

Then as you keep reading, you find a similar statement: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; and the wisdom of the Holy One is understanding” (Prov 9:10).

These verses bring it all together. The fear of the Lord is the foundation of everything else – knowledge, wisdom, instruction and understanding.

All this brings us back to the word ‘dussk’ with a double ‘s’: discipline, understanding, skill, shrewdness, and knowledge. Do you want to be wise? Then it will take discipline, understanding, skill, shrewdness, and knowledge.

Conclusion

But God not only tells us what wisdom is. He is so kind to us that he models it for us in the person of his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. He was not only the wisest person who ever lived, he is wisdom personified. We see the wisdom of God on full display throughout his life and especially in his death. As we read earlier in the words of the apostle Paul, it was Christ crucified who is “the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength” (1 Cor 1:24-25).

What a strange God this is who demonstrates his power and his wisdom, when his Son dies a slow, painful and agonising death on a Roman cross. To the world, this must seem like the height of foolishness. But to us who believe, Christ crucified is the secret to living life wisely and living it well to the very end of our days.