04 Turn or Burn (Proverbs 1:20-33)
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Starting in verse 20, moving away from the voice of the world to the voice of wisdom, Solomon writes (Proverbs 1:20-33):
‘Wisdom cries aloud in the street, in the markets she raises her voice; 21 at the head of the noisy streets she cries out; at the entrance of the city gates she speaks: 22 “How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge? 23 If you turn at my reproof, behold, I will pour out my spirit to you; I will make my words known to you. 24 Because I have called and you refused to listen, have stretched out my hand and no one has heeded, 25 because you have ignored all my counsel and would have none of my reproof, 26 I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when terror strikes you, 27 when terror strikes you like a storm and your calamity comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you. 28 Then they will call upon me, but I will not answer; they will seek me diligently but will not find me. 29 Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord, 30 would have none of my counsel and despised all my reproof, 31 therefore they shall eat the fruit of their way, and have their fill of their own devices. 32 For the simple are killed by their turning away, and the complacency of fools destroys them; 33 but whoever listens to me will dwell secure and will be at ease, without dread of disaster’.
Exhale. What a passage oh babyyyyyy!
This passage is really interesting and incredible for so many reasons as we’re about to see, but similar to verse 7, which we talked about two weeks ago, this passage is another one that is essential to rightly understanding the whole book of Proverbs. And the reason why is because it reveals to us the accurate biblical concept of wisdom, which is that ultimately that wisdom is not a set of tips and tricks but rather a person, the person of Christ.
Today’s passage further shows us, as one commentator puts it, that Christ is ‘the embodiment & fulfillment of Proverbs in the same way that He is the embodiment and fulfillment of the Word itself’.
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We’re going to break this passage down into four parts:
The cry of wisdom (verses 20-22)
What happens if we rightly respond to the cry (verse 23)
What happens if we don’t (verses 24-31)
We’ll see a summary of the passage (verses 32-33)
So… you ready? I hope so. Starting in v20, Solomon introduces to us the cry of wisdom…He says
‘Wisdom cries aloud in the street, in the markets she raises her voice; 21 at the head of the noisy streets she cries out; at the entrance of the city gates she speaks: 22 “How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge?’
Now if you’re like me or if you are like my brothers in the ‘BMOG’, becoming men of God bible study, s/o to you guys btw, the first thing or one of the first things you noticed in those verses is the gender of wisdom.
You’re probably thinking, ‘Luke, you have been adamant over and over again in this series that wisdom is a person and that person is Jesus! And now here we are seeing wisdom as a woman…uhhhhh what gives?’ You’re probably thinking like, ‘I know Jesus isn’t a woman, so what’s going on here?’
Listen, that's real. Very real. So let’s first explain why wisdom here is personified as a woman…
First of all, that’s just it. Personification. Solomon is symbolically talking about his wise teaching through the use of personification to get the reader's attention.
Second, the Hebrew noun for wisdom is feminine, so that is why the personification that Solomon employs takes on feminine characteristics. As Bruce Waltke put it in his commentary, he said Hebrew, like Spanish or French, has gender identities for its nouns; so when there is a metaphor, it takes on that identity.
And then last but certainly not least, let's not forget Solomon is writing to his son, a young man at the time, and he knows that his son will be drawn to an attractive woman. So in order to get his son to listen to his teaching, Solomon personifies wisdom as a beautiful woman who he wants his son to marry and have a relationship with.
And on the one hand that’s amazing parenting advice, and on the other it’s also very real. Like I’ll say for me man I hated ECON 410 here at Chapel Hill. It was the hardest class I’ve ever taken in my life. Like finding the first, second, and third derivatives in these long equations that took up a whole page was just not something I was good at or had any desire to be good at.
But had my professor presented derivatives to me as Betsy, the beautiful, intelligent, athletic, funny, personable, intentional woman…then man shoot! I would have been all ears! Like what’s up Betsy? How you doing? Goodness gracious I must be in a museum because you a work of art girl!!!!
Anyways that’s exactly what Solomon is doing here by personifying wisdom as a woman. He is showing his son that the wisdom he is sharing in Proverbs is as exciting, invigorating, and enjoyable as pursuing a beautiful, intelligent, athletic, WOG (WOG standing for woman of God). So, hope that clears up the gender confusion that could be present in the first verses of our passage. Wisdom is Jesus and Jesus is wisdom. And Jesus is not a woman…Okay?
Now turning back to the text itself, wisdom’s cry comes in verse 22, when she says,
22 “How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge?’
Now this is a plea and a rebuke of three different classes of people who have yet to make a decision about wisdom (Jesus)…
It’s a plea and rebuke of:
the simple
the scoffer
the fool
Now Solomon is not talking about deeds of man here but dispositions, and at one point or another every single one of us has shared in one of these three dispositions.
We’ve all been simple at heart, perishing for lack of knowledge as Hosea says in Hosea 4:6, unaware of the paths we should walk in and the voices we should listen to. We’ve also all shared the disposition of scoffer, pridefully thinking we can live independent from God, doing what is right in our own eyes, just like the Israelites believed time and again in Scripture. And we’ve certainly all shared the disposition of a fool, falling short of the glory of God, feeding our flesh, sinning against our Maker.
So wisdom here is calling us out, wisdom is crying out to us. And if we look back to the few verses prior to her cry in verse 22, we will see that she is not hiding from us as she does this. We see that wisdom is crying to us from a very public place.
Verses 20-21 says
‘Wisdom cries aloud in the street, in the markets she raises her voice; 21 at the head of the noisy streets she cries out; at the entrance of the city gates she speaks’
I love this because it reveals the stark contrast between the voice of the world and the voice of wisdom. Last week we talked shortly about how the voice of the world is secretive, saying in verse 11 hey, 'let's lie in wait for blood’ ‘lets ambush the innocent without reason’. The voice of the world is secretive, it's almost as if it’s a whisper, seeking to draw you into the shadows.
But not wisdom. Wisdom ain’t hiding. Wisdom is like that one kid that was 6’2 in middle school. You couldn’t miss him. Wisdom sticks out like that. Wisdom is ‘out in the street’, not hidden, ‘raising her voice’, not whispering; she’s at the head of the noisy streets, at the entrance of the gate, which means she’s at the heart of the action, not hidden in the shadows.
I think a good way to think about wisdom here is to see wisdom as a street preacher.
Think about it: Wisdom is out in public, calling out to any and all who would listen, and as we’re about to see in the next few verses, wisdom is calling people to repentance.
Wisdom is essentially saying ‘turn or burn’.
And that means there’s a deliberate choice we have to make here to the cry of wisdom. There is no sitting on the bench. You can’t choose not to respond. You will respond to wisdom one way or another, and simply doing nothing when God speaks is response enough, and is enough to bring destruction.
So on those lines, let's move to the next section of this passage, verse 23, where we see what happens if we rightly respond to the cry of wisdom.
Wisdom says in verse 23,
‘If you turn at my reproof, behold, I will pour out my spirit to you; I will make my words known to you.’
First, this is the hinge verse of our passage today; it is the most crucial verse. This is the only verse that reveals what happens if we rightly respond to wisdom, whereas there are eight verses that reveal what happens to us if we don’t. And I think that alludes to the magnitude of responding the wrong way, which we will get to here in a second.
But what verse 23 here is doing is it is passing from cry to earnest request…wisdom understands that it would be vain to awake and challenge someone’s way of life without offering something that makes better life possible. Now Jesus does the same thing as woman wisdom in the gospels. In Mark 1 his cry was to ‘repent and believe the gospel’. He calls people to repentance, and then charges them to follow Him.
Jesus, like woman wisdom here, provides a choice between two paths (wisdom or foolishness), which is ultimately a decision between two persons (Satan or Jesus), and two eternal destinations (life or death).
So what we’re seeing here is that divine wisdom, the person of Christ, comes with a rod of discipline, that is, the rod of repentance, but also with gifts. In other words, if the rod is kissed, if we choose to turn and repent, then we will possess the gifts.
And what are those gifts you might ask? Well there are two and they are right there in the verse.
The first is that wisdom will pour out her spirit to you. And by spirit we’re talking about the Holy Spirit. Now I think that’s incredible because it echoes Jesus’ words that He would send a Helper, and it echoes the sermon at Pentecost when Peter says God will pour out His spirit on all flesh. So if we choose to repent at wisdom’s rebuke, if we choose to turn from our sinful ways, the first gift we receive is the Holy Spirit. And that’s gift enough. But as they say in those infomercials, ‘but wait there’s more’…Wisdom provides one more gift.
She says at the end of verse 23 ‘I will make my words known to you’...in other words, wisdom through the Holy Spirit will illuminate the word of God so that you can walk in obedience! Isn’t that just incredible?!
If we choose to turn and repent at wisdom’s rebuke, if we choose to repent and believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ, we will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit will illuminate the Word to you, it will remove the scales from your eyes, so that you can understand it and walk in obedience.
I just think that’s awesome. I really do.
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What’s not awesome, however, is what happens to those who choose not to turn at wisdom’s cry, who choose not to rightly respond to her rebuke.
Woman wisdom says in verse 24,
‘Because I have called and you refused to listen, have stretched out my hand and no one has heeded, 25 because you have ignored all my counsel and would have none of my reproof, 26 I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when terror strikes you, 27 when terror strikes you like a storm and your calamity comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you. 28 Then they will call upon me, but I will not answer; they will seek me diligently but will not find me. 29 Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord, 30 would have none of my counsel and despised all my reproof, 31 therefore they shall eat the fruit of their way, and have their fill of their own devices.’
Phew. Strong words here.
Wisdom is telling us plainly here that rejecting wisdom is the same thing as rejecting the Lord.
We serve a God who has, as Paul says in Romans 9, ‘endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction’. And I’m thankful for that. But there will come a day, as Charles Bridges says, when God, when ‘our Lord Jesus Christ, who once yearned and wept and prayed and died, will have no more pity; when he shall be as if he laughed and mocked at your calamity as woman wisdom does here; when he shall disdain your cry; when he shall delight in his exercise of his sovereign justice over you’.
In other words, wisdom is saying in our text here that there is a final judgment, that there will be a payday someday, and wisdom is saying it will not be a fun day for those who reject her cry.
Wisdom is saying you would not listen to my warnings, so I will not listen to your cries.
You didn’t seek me, so now I won’t reveal myself to you.
You laughed, mocked, and rejected me, so now I will laugh, mock, and reject you.
And that’s scary. Very scary. It is scary to think that by choosing not to turn at wisdom’s reproof, we will have God’s countenance, not only turned from us, but turned AGAINST us. MAN. It’s scary to think the wrath of God will be upon those who don’t turn, and that they will burn.
Turn or burn. That’s wisdom’s cry.
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Now some of you may be thinking…well doesn’t this crazy scary wrath seem inconsistent with a God of love? Like how could a God who loves me and cares so much about me laugh and mock at me and bring terror upon me?
Well……..is not God a God who delights in justice? And think of His Word - instead of being a delight - being despised; think of the fear of Him that we talked about in verse 7 not chosen. Think of His gracious counsel being disregarded and his reproof disdained.
Think about it.
Should the person, the sinner, the one absolutely persistent in the choice of his own way; should he not eat the fruit of it?
What this is is simply the sinner reaping what he has sown. As wisdom says of these people in verse 31, ‘therefore they shall eat the fruit of their way, and have their fill of their own devices’. Wisdom is saying those who reject the Lord will eat of its fruits, and the fruit is destruction.
They will be filled with it to the ends of eternity.
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There’s a quote from CS Lewis that I think sums up this passage as a whole well, summing up the cry of wisdom and the responses we may have. He says there are two types of people in this world:
Those who say to God, ‘thy will be done’ and those to whom God finally says ‘thy will be done’.
And that leads us to how wisdom closes this passage and this chapter in verses 32-33. She says,
‘For the simple are killed by their turning away, and the complacency of fools destroys them; 33 but whoever listens to me will dwell secure and will be at ease, without dread of disaster.’
We’re presented here with a summary of what we’ve talked about today and honestly for all of chapter 1. Those who listen to & follow wisdom, those who listen and follow Jesus, will dwell secure. They will be at ease, without dread of disaster. So if you are in Christ, that is you. You have no need to fear verses 24-31 but rather you get to enjoy the gifts found in verse 23.
But if that is not you, if you are not in Christ, you are like the simple, who are killed by their turning away from God, and like the complacent fool, who is destroyed by their complacency. Which, of note, quick twitter thought, complacency is a scary thing. We can be easily lulled into thinking that everything is fine, that we’re a good person and we’ve done good things and we’re not as bad as others and we don’t need saving because our life is working out fine…it is so so easy to get complacent. But that line of thinking will destroy you.
If you think you don’t need Jesus you better think again. Turn or burn. That’s wisdom’s cry.
I love all you guys!
God bless :)
