WHAT IS WISDOM?
Wisdom means knowing what is true and right together with doing what is true and right. The Bible idea of Wisdom brings together a number of different ideas and we find them all here in Proverbs chapter 8.
Proverbs 8 Does not wisdom call out? Does not understanding raise her voice?
5 You who are simple, gain prudence; you who are foolish, gain understanding.

WISDOM the opposite of foolishness
UNDERSTANDING
PRUDENCE

6 Listen, for I have worthy things to say; I open my lips to speak what is right.
7 My mouth speaks what is true, for my lips detest wickedness.

RIGHTEOUSNESS – the opposite of wickedness
TRUTH

8 All the words of my mouth are just; none of them is crooked or perverse.

JUSTICE – the opposite of being crooked or perverse

9 To the discerning all of them are right; they are faultless to those who have knowledge.
10 Choose my instruction instead of silver, knowledge rather than choice gold,
12 “I, wisdom, dwell together with prudence; I possess knowledge and discretion.

DISCERNMENT
KNOWLEDGE
INSTRUCTION
DISCRETION

13 To fear the LORD is to hate evil; I hate pride and arrogance,
evil behaviour and perverse speech.
14 Counsel and sound judgment are mine; I have understanding and power.
15 By me kings reign and rulers make laws that are just;
16 by me princes govern, and all nobles who rule on earth

COUNSEL- good advice
SOUND JUDGMENT
JUST LAWS
Wisdom is all about knowing the right things to do – right for individuals and personal morality and right for society and the legal system – the opposite of evil behaviour or perverse speech. So wisdom brings together a whole cluster of concepts:
UNDERSTANDING, PRUDENCE, RIGHTEOUSNESS, TRUTH, JUSTICE,
DISCERNMENT, KNOWLEDGE, INSTRUCTION, DISCRETION, COUNSEL, SOUND JUDGMENT, JUST LAWS

For thousands of years human beings have valued wisdom and pursued wisdom. They have valued understanding and truth and knowledge and justice. But our world is changing in this post-modern generation in two important ways. The first way is that people are being told that the pursuit to wisdom is pointless – everybody can have their own wisdom. Knowledge and understanding and truth will be different for each person and we have to appreciate and even bow down to everybody else’s wisdom. It is politically incorrect to suggest that your own wisdom or understanding or knowledge or truth is better than anybody else’s!

So instead of pursuing wisdom, people are pursuing experience. Decartes said, “I think, therefore I am.” So many people today in this post-modern world believe instead, “I feel, therefore I am.” Even in church life many people aren’t so interested in knowing and understanding what is true any more – they just want the latest “experience.” People measure truth by experience – if something gives me a good experience it must be true. And if folk don’t find the experiences they are looking for they move on to somewhere else. There are football fans who transfers allegiance to whichever team is winning this season. They are very enthusiastic about “football” but don’t support any particular team. And this can happen in church life as much as in the world of entertainment or spectator sport.

So in this world obsessed with experiences, very many people have stopped even looking for wisdom or understanding or knowledge or truth. And then we live in a world of spin. Where appearance counts for everything and truth counts for nothing.

Groucho Marx expressed the attitude of many people very well when he said,
“The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing..if you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”

People are so easily fooled – because they no longer care about what is really true – only about what seems to be true – about what appears plausible. Which is very sad, because as the Bible makes clear in so many places that wisdom is what we really need!

THE BLESSINGS WISDOM BRINGS
Proverbs 8

Wisdom is PRECIOUS
10 Choose my instruction instead of silver, knowledge rather than choice gold,
11 for wisdom is more precious than rubies, and nothing you desire can compare with her.

Wisdom brings WEALTH AND PROSPERITY
18 With me are riches and honour, enduring wealth and prosperity.
19 My fruit is better than fine gold; what I yield surpasses choice silver.
20 I walk in the way of righteousness, along the paths of justice,
21 bestowing wealth on those who love me and making their treasuries full.

Wisdom brings BLESSEDNESS

32 “Now then, my sons, listen to me; blessed are those who keep my ways.
33 Listen to my instruction and be wise; do not ignore it.
34 Blessed is the man who listens to me, watching daily at my doors, waiting at my doorway.,

Wisdom really is A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH
35 For whoever finds me finds life and receives favour from the LORD.
36 But whoever fails to find me harms himself; all who hate me love death.”

Wisdom brings so many blessings! Proverbs is one of the Books of the Old Testament which is described as Wisdom Literature. In our Protestant Bibles the other Wisdom Books are Job, Psalms, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs.In the Roman Catholic Bible and in what we call the Apocrypha there are two more books called the Wisdom of Solomon and Ecclesiasticus.

Throughout all these Books of wisdom we find quite a remarkable thing. The people of Israel saw wisdom as so vitally important that at times they even began to give wisdom a personality of its own. And we see that here in Proverbs 8.
V4 To you, O men I call out, I raise my voice to all mankind.
V6 I open my lips to speak what is right, my mouth speaks what is true.
V12 I wisdom, dwell together with prudence, I possess knowledge and discretion.
V17 I love those who love me.
20 I walk in the way of righteousness.
Wisdom calling out, having a lips and mouth, loving, walking. Wisdom a person!

But then listen to this quite remarkable passage:
WISDOM IN CREATION
Proverbs 8 22 “The LORD brought me forth as the first of his works, before his deeds of old;
23 I was appointed from eternity, from the beginning, before the world began.
24 When there were no oceans, I was given birth, when there were no springs abounding with water;
25 before the mountains were settled in place, before the hills, I was given birth,
26 before he made the earth or its fields or any of the dust of the world.
27 I was there when he set the heavens in place, when he marked out the horizon on the face of the deep,
28 when he established the clouds above and fixed securely the fountains of the deep,
29 when he gave the sea its boundary so that the waters would not overstep his command,
and when he marked out the foundations of the earth.
30Then I was the craftsman at his side. I was filled with delight day after day, rejoicing always in his presence, 31 rejoicing in his whole world and delighting in mankind..”

The writer there speaking about wisdom as if it had personality! It is as if Wisdom was a person who actually played a part alongside God in the work of creation!
He does the same in Proverbs 1 and also later in these words in Proverbs 3.
3:19 By wisdom the LORD laid the earth’s foundations, by understanding he set the heavens in place;
3:20 by his knowledge the deeps were divided, and the clouds let drop the dew.

In the same way the Books in the Apocrypha, the Wisdom of Solomon chapter 7 and Ecclesiasticus chapter 24 present Wisdom as a person. All of this helps us to understand some words of Paul to the Corinthians.
1:18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written:“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”20 Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. 22 Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling-block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24 but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25
PAUL GOES ON TO SAY…..30 It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.
Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Paul was drawing on that picture in the Wisdom literature of wisdom as a person to say – Christ is the fulfilment of wisdom personified. Christ is wisdom born as a man.

Remember what the New Testament says about the part Christ played in creation.
JOHN 1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.
Colossians 1:15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
Hebrews 1:1 In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. 3 The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.
Now hear again the words of Proverbs 8 – speaking remember about wisdom
Proverbs 8 22 “The LORD brought me forth as the first of his works, before his deeds of old;
23 I was appointed from eternity, from the beginning, before the world began.
27 I was there when he set the heavens in place, when he marked out the horizon on the face of the deep,
30Then I was the craftsman at his side. I was filled with delight day after day, rejoicing always in his presence, 31 rejoicing in his whole world and delighting in mankind..”
Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Since Christ is the Wisdom of God, the things we have said about wisdom are true of him.
Wisdom is about UNDERSTANDING, PRUDENCE, RIGHTEOUSNESS, TRUTH, JUSTICE, DISCERNMENT, KNOWLEDGE, INSTRUCTION, DISCRETION, COUNSEL, SOUND JUDGMENT, JUST LAWS. If we are looking for these things we will only find them in Jesus Christ, who said “I am the way the truth and the life.” Jesus who said, “you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.”

And all the blessings we spoke of which wisdom brings come to us through Christ – the Wisdom of God
Wisdom is PRECIOUS – Christ is precious
10 Choose my instruction instead of silver, knowledge rather than choice gold,
11 for wisdom is more precious than rubies, and nothing you desire can compare with her.

Wisdom brings WEALTH AND PROSPERITY – Christ gives us everything we need in this world and the next!
18 With me are riches and honour, enduring wealth and prosperity.
19 My fruit is better than fine gold; what I yield surpasses choice silver.
20 I walk in the way of righteousness, along the paths of justice,
21 bestowing wealth on those who love me and making their treasuries full.

Wisdom brings BLESSEDNESS – in Christ we are truly blessed!
32 “Now then, my sons, listen to me; blessed are those who keep my ways.
33 Listen to my instruction and be wise; do not ignore it.
34 Blessed is the man who listens to me, watching daily at my doors, waiting at my doorway.,

Wisdom really is A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH – knowing Christ is that matter of life and death!
35 For whoever finds me finds life and receives favour from the LORD.
36 But whoever fails to find me harms himself; all who hate me love death.”

Wisdom personified – foreshadowed the Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Corinthians 1:13
23 but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling-block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24 but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25
IMMORTAL, INVISIBLE, God only wise,
In light inaccessible hid from our eyes,
Most blessèd, most glorious, the Ancient of Days,
Almighty, victorious, Thy great name we praise.

“Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” Bow down and worship – for this is your God!

Many people suffer from “foot in mouth disease” – every time I open my mouth I put my foot in it!
We can use these verses from the book of Proverbs to reflect and medidate on how we speak.

THE BLESSINGS OF WISE SPEECH
10:11 The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life
10:20 The tongue of the righteous is choice silver
10:21 The lips of the righteous nourish many
13:2 From the fruit of his lips a man enjoys good things,
18:4 The words of a man’s mouth are deep waters,
but the fountain of wisdom is a bubbling brook.
18:20 From the fruit of his mouth a man’s stomach is filled; with the harvest from his lips he is satisfied.
20:15 Gold there is, and rubies in abundance,
but lips that speak knowledge are a rare jewel.
25:11 A word aptly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.
16:24 Pleasant words are a honeycomb,
sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.

TEACHING
16:21 The wise in heart are called discerning,
and pleasant words promote instruction.
16:23 A wise man’s heart guides his mouth,
and his lips promote instruction.
15:7 The lips of the wise spread knowledge;
not so the hearts of fools.

HONESTY
12:17 A truthful witness gives honest testimony,
but a false witness tells lies.
12:19 Truthful lips endure for ever,
but a lying tongue lasts only a moment.
16:13 Kings take pleasure in honest lips;
they value a man who speaks the truth.
14:25 A truthful witness saves lives,
but a false witness is deceitful.
24:26 An honest answer is like a kiss on the lips.

ADVICE
12:15 The way of a fool seems right to him,
but a wise man listens to advice.
11:14 For lack of guidance a nation falls,
but many advisers make victory sure.
15:22 Plans fail for lack of counsel,
but with many advisers they succeed.

KINDNESS AND GENTLENESS
1:25 An anxious heart weighs a man down,
but a kind word cheers him up.
15:1 A gentle answer turns away wrath,
but a harsh word stirs up anger.
15:23 A man finds joy in giving an apt reply—
and how good is a timely word!

STAYING SILENT
11:12 A man who lacks judgment derides his neighbour,
but a man of understanding holds his tongue.
13:3 He who guards his lips guards his life,
but he who speaks rashly will come to ruin.
10:19 When words are many, sin is not absent,
but he who holds his tongue is wise.
17:27 A man of knowledge uses words with restraint,
and a man of understanding is even-tempered.
17:28 Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent,
and discerning if he holds his tongue.
27:14 If a man loudly blesses his neighbour in the morning, it will be taken to be a curse!

THE DANGERS OF FOOLISH TALK
12:13 An evil man is trapped by his sinful talk,
but a righteous man escapes trouble.
12:18 Reckless words pierce like a sword,
but the tongue of the wise brings healing.
15:2 The tongue of the wise commends knowledge,
but the mouth of the fool gushes folly.
10:8 The wise in heart accept commands,
but a chattering fool comes to ruin.
10:10 He who winks maliciously causes grief,
and a chattering fool comes to ruin.

EVIL TALK
6:16 There are six things the Lord hates,
seven that are detestable to him:
16:17 haughty eyes, a lying tongue,
hands that shed innocent blood,
16:18 a heart that devises wicked schemes,
feet that are quick to rush into evil,
16:19 a false witness who pours out lies
and a man who stirs up dissension among brothers.

GOSSIP AND IDLE TALK
11:13 A gossip betrays a confidence,
but a trustworthy man keeps a secret.
17:9 He who covers over an offence promotes love,
but whoever repeats the matter separates close friends.
18:2 A fool finds no pleasure in understanding
but delights in airing his own opinions.
20:19 A gossip betrays a confidence;
so avoid a man who talks too much.
26:20 Without wood a fire goes out;
without gossip a quarrel dies down.
14:23 All hard work brings a profit,
but mere talk leads only to poverty.

MOCKING
9:7 Whoever corrects a mocker invites insult;
whoever rebukes a wicked man incurs abuse.
9:8 Do not rebuke a mocker or he will hate you;
rebuke a wise man and he will love you.
9:12 If you are wise, your wisdom will reward you;
if you are a mocker, you alone will suffer.

QUARRELING
17:1 Better a dry crust with peace and quiet
than a house full of feasting, with strife.
20:3 It is to a man’s honour to avoid strife,
but every fool is quick to quarrel.
16:28 A perverse man stirs up dissension,
and a gossip separates close friends.
17:14 Starting a quarrel is like breaching a dam;
so drop the matter before a dispute breaks out.
26:21 As charcoal to embers and as wood to fire,
so is a quarrelsome man for kindling strife.
16:18 A hot-tempered man stirs up dissension,
but a patient man calms a quarrel.

LYING AND FALSE WITNESS
12:22 The Lord detests lying lips,
but he delights in men who are truthful.
14:5 A truthful witness does not deceive,
but a false witness pours out lies.
21:28 A false witness will perish,
and whoever listens to him will be destroyed for ever.
25:18 Like a club or a sword or a sharp arrow
is the man who gives false testimony against his neighbour.
26:28 A lying tongue hates those it hurts,
and a flattering mouth works ruin.

SPEAKING IN HASTE
18:13 He who answers before listening—
that is his folly and his shame.
12:23 A prudent man keeps his knowledge to himself, but the heart of fools blurts out folly.
12:16 A fool shows his annoyance at once,
but a prudent man overlooks an insult.

ANGER
27:4 Anger is cruel and fury overwhelming,
but who can stand before jealousy?
29:22An angry man stirs up dissension,
and a hot-tempered one commits many sins.

NAGGING
21:9 and 25:24 Better to live on a corner of the roof
than share a house with a quarrelsome wife.
21:9 Better to live in a desert
than with a quarrelsome and ill-tempered wife.
19:13 A foolish son is his father’s ruin,
and a quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping.
27:15 A quarrelsome wife is like
a constant dripping on a rainy day;
27:16 restraining her is like restraining the wind
or grasping oil with the hand.

MORE BLESSINGS OF WISE SPEECH
12:14 From the fruit of his lips a man is filled with good things as surely as the work of his hands rewards him.
13:14 The teaching of the wise is a fountain of life, turning a man from the snares of death.
15:4 The tongue that brings healing is a tree of life,
18:21 The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.

Some sermons have three points. Some have four points. Some occasionally even have five points. I’ve heard some sermons which have had no point at all! Usually from me you get a three point sermon. Sometimes you get a ten point list. On day soon you’ll get what’s called in the trade a “starburst” sermon, which takes you rushing up to heaven and then gently glides back down to earth again. This morning was probably a hammer sermon, where you get the same point repeated again and again and again like hammering home a nail until eventually hopefully it sticks.

The one thing they teach you in sermon classes is that although all sermons should have a structure, that structure should be imperceptible to the hearers. The structure of a sermon is like the skeleton of a body. Every body needs a skeleton but nobody like to see bones sticking out all over the place. But tonight I am going to break all the rules of preaching and tell you the structure of this sermon before I begin. Because tonight without the aid of a safety net I am going to attempt something very difficult I have never attempted before. This is going to be a circular sermon. That is to say, where we end up is going to be exactly where we started. And hopefully by the end you will see why that is very important as we look at tonight’s text.

5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;
6 in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.
This are perhaps the most well known verses in the book of Proverbs. If you have ever committed Bible verses to memory it is probably one of the first texts you learned off by heart.
Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;
6 in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.
Trust in the LORD with all your heart

Scripture is not short of examples of what it means to trust in the Lord with all your heart. Noah building a great big boat in the middle of dry land when there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, despite all the ridicule of his neighbours, just because God said so. Abraham packing up everything and leaving his home land when he was 80 years old, because God told him too. The apostle Peter stepping out of the boat to walk towards Jesus who was walking on the water, because Jesus told him too. Ordinary Christians declaring “Jesus is Lord” in a Roman Empire which only recognized one Lord his name was Caesar.

Somebody has said, “Faith is spelled R-I-S-K”. Trusting in the Lord with all our hearts will sometimes mean going out on a limb for God.

Psalm 37:3 Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.
4 Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.
5 Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him and he will act:

Commit your way to the Lord – trust in him and he will act! The proof that we are trusting in God to act is that, if He doesn’t act, we will fall flat on our faces! What have you done in the last week, or last month, or last year, which has depended for success or failure on the intervention of Almighty God? What have you done where the outcome would have been different depending on whether God actually existed or not?

In fact most of the time we don’t need to rely on God for what we do. We rely on our human understanding. We rely on our natural abilities and our skills and all our experience. We rely on our bank accounts which are always there to fall back on if things don’t go as well as we planned.

Jeremiah 9: 23 This is what the LORD says:
“Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength
or the rich man boast of his riches,
24 but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me,
that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth,
for in these I delight,”

We are trusting God with all our hearts when the only thing we have to boast about is not our wisdom or our strength or our riches, but simply that we know God and He knows us! When we are delighting ourselves in the Lord and we receive the desires of our hearts because receiving his blessing and approval is absolutely the only thing in the world that matters to us.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart –
and lean not on your own understanding;

We can spend lots and lots of time and energy and thinking trying to work out what we should be doing in life – in our own lives and in the life of the church too. In relationships, or careers, or hobbies, or family life, we think about what we want and how we should get it. In church, what are our aims, what should our worship be like, what activities should we be running, how can we reach different kinds of people, how can we care for people?

In all these areas of life we need to learn how to let God guide us, and how not to lean on our own understanding.

God guides us in many different ways. In the Alpha Talk about Guidance, Nicky Gumbel gives us five ways God guides, in a double acrostic each beginning with the letters C and S.

1. Commanding Scripture – Objective Standard
Psa 119:105. Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.

2. Controlling Spirit – Subjective Witness
“My sheep know my voice” God speaks to us as we pray, in an inner voice and in spiritual gifts of prophecy, dreams and visions, words of knowledge and wisdom and discernment.

3. Common Sense
BUT God’s heavenly plan doesn’t always make earthly sense. Charles R. Swindoll

4. Counsel of the Saints
“The wise man listens to advice” (Proverbs 12: 15) “Plans fail for lack of counsel but with many advisors they succeed” (Proverbs 15: 22) “Make plans by seeking advice” (Proverbs 20: 18)
“Men give advice; God gives guidance.” Leonard Ravenhill (1867–1942)

5. Circumstantial Signs – Divine Providence
In his heart, a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps” (Proverbs 16: 9)
Sometimes God closes doors (Acts 16: 7) Sometimes God opens doors (1 Cor 16: 9)

There are so many ways that God guides us. So when did you last do something which was totally contrary to what you would have naturally thought to do anyway, because God guided you to do it? For so much of our lives we don’t expect God to guide us. In practice we just lean on our own understanding. When was the last time you did something which would prove me wrong in that? Something which came out of trusting in God and went against human wisdom? God wants to guide us in every step of our lives – but we just don’t ask Him to!

“He does not lead me year by year, Not even day by day
But step by step my path unfolds; My Lord directs my way.
Tomorrows plans I do not know, I only know this minute;
But He will say, “This is the way; By faith now go walk in it.”
And I am glad that it is so, Todays enough to bear;
And when tomorrow comes, His grace shall far exceed its care.
What need to worry then or fret? The God who gave His Son
Holds all my moments in His Hand And gives them one by one.”

We need to ask God to guide us – not just go on doing what seems best in our own eyes!

The words of David to Solomon, who God had chosen to build a Temple to the Lord..
1 Chronicles 28:8 “So now I charge you in the sight of all Israel and of the assembly of the LORD, and in the hearing of our God: Be careful to follow all the commands of the LORD your God, that you may possess this good land and pass it on as an inheritance to your descendants for ever.
9 “And you, my son Solomon, acknowledge the God of your father, and serve him with wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind, for the LORD searches every heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts. If you seek him, he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will reject you for ever.

Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;

6 in all your ways acknowledge him

We acknowledge God publicly by speaking up for him! By letting people know we are Christians and letting people know how important God is in our lives.
Luke 9:23 Then he said to them all: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. 24 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. 25 What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self? 26 If anyone is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.

We acknowledge God privately by praying. Prayer is at the heart of our relationship with God. And prayer is the ultimate expression of our dependence on God. If we think we can do things by ourselves, in our own strength, we don’t need to pray. But if we acknowledge that without God we can do nothing, then we will show that acknowledgment and dependence by praying.
Praying As individuals
Praying As a church
George Washington wrote about the “due sense of the dependence we ought to place in that all wise and powerful being on whom alone our success depends.”
We acknowledge God by praying to Him!
Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;
6 in all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make your paths straight.

How do we know if God is making our paths straight? How will we be sure that God is directing our lives and that we are really doing what He wants us to do?
In the world around, people judge the rightness or wrongness of their actions by criteria of success. If what we are doing is successful, or popular, or goes well, then it must have been the right thing to do. If things are unsuccessful, if things go wrong, then we must have made the wrong choices.
It may appear that some verses of Proverbs teach this very thing. Here in chapter 3:
3 My son, do not forget my teaching, but keep my commands in your heart,
2 for they will prolong your life many years and bring you prosperity.

16:3 Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and your plans will succeed.
But other verses and the Bible in general make it clear that it usually not the righteous but rather the wicked who are successful and popular in human terms, and believers have no guarantee of success!
Proverbs 23: 17 Do not let your heart envy sinners, but always be zealous for the fear of the Lord.

24:19 Do not fret because of evil men or be envious of the wicked,
20 for the evil man has no future hope, and the lamp of the wicked will be snuffed out.

Great King David makes the same point in Psalm 37
1 Do not fret because of evil menor be envious of those who do wrong;
2 for like the grass they will soon wither, like green plants they will soon die away.
7 Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him; do not fret when men succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes.

I like the story of the Atheist farmer who often ridiculed people who believed in God and wrote a letter to the local newspaper: “I plowed on Sunday, planted on Sunday, cultivated on Sunday, and hauled in my crops on Sunday; but I never went to church on Sunday. Yet I harvested more bushels per acre than anyone else, even those who are God-fearing and never miss a service.” The editor printed the man’s letter and then added this simple comment: “God doesn’t always settle His accounts in October.” As believers we should be looking beyond this world and this life to the world to come and the age to come. We should not be looking for treasures on earth, but for treasures in heaven.

So how do we know that the Lord is making our paths straight? It is very important as Christians that we do not get sucked into wrong ways of looking at life. Because following Christ is not a recipe for success in worldly terms at all. It is instead the pathway to suffering and opposition. We follow the servant King, the suffering servant, whose greatest triumph only came through his ultimate sacrifice. We have seen in our sermons on 2 Corinthians and 1 Peter that the true marks of ministry and faithful Christian witness are not success but suffering.
We chatted about this at a Minister’s meeting a while ago. How do we judge whether as ministers or as churches we are doing the right thing, in the right place? Then I found myself discussing the same thing with a missionary. How do missionaries know they are in the right place, doing what God wants us to be doing? What we were talking about applies to every Christian in every walk of life, in our ordinary day jobs as well as our church activities. It is so important that we don’t go fall into the trap of measuring the rightness of what we are doing by the level of success we seem to be experiencing.
The truth is that even when a minister or a missionary or a church, or any Christian does make all the right choices and does do all the right things, there is no guarantee that “success” however you seeks to define it will follow. Sometimes things do go wrong because we mess up, and sometimes things do succeed when we do the right thing. But we must never assume that when things do not turn out right it is because we have done something wrong. That is “the fallacy of the excluded middle.” The reality is that things can and do go less than perfectly even when we do everything right, sometimes because of satanic opposition, sometimes because we live in a fallen world, sometimes because the church is made up of fallible human beings, but mostly because we follow the Servant King whose victory and glory came through submission and suffering and sacrifice and powerlessness. For Christians, relying on levels of success as a measure of whether we are doing the right thing or not is inevitably a recipe for discouragement, depression and disaster!

So how do we know that the Lord is making our paths straight? This is where this circular sermon brings us right back to where we started. By faith. Simply by faith. Only by faith. We have done our best, relying on God’s grace, to trust in God with all our hearts. We have done our best not to rely on our own understanding but to rely on God and on his grace. We have done our best to acknowledge God in everything we have said and done. And then all we can do is trust that God has made our paths straight. We just have to have faith that the situation we are in is the place that God has brought us to and wants us to be in. And whether things seem to be going well or badly, we just have to trust that Jesus is Lord of all, and that God is in control of his world and of our lives. We just have to have faith.
The great missionary Hudson Taylor put it this way.
Let us give up our work, our plans, ourselves, our lives, our loved ones, our influence, our all, right into God’s hand; and then, when we have given all to Him, there will be nothing left for us to be troubled about. — Hudson Taylor
How do we know that the Lord has made our paths straight. Through faith! Just faith.
Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;
6 in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.

Here are two of the most familiar and also the most important verses in the book of Proverbs. You may like to learn them off by heart. Maybe you might like to try using them in a particular way in the week ahead. Try using these verses for a couple of minutes every day as a framework for reflection. At the end of each day think back to the events of the day and consider what Proverbs 3:5-6 has to say about your day. Then use the verses to think about what tomorrow holds.

CONCLUSION – let’s use these verses in reflection right now!

5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart
What specific things do I need to do tomorrow to express the fact that I am trusting in God?
and lean not on your own understanding;
What will I do differently tomorrow if I am relying on God and not on my own understanding?
6 in all your ways acknowledge him,
What will I do tomorrow to inwardly and publicly acknowledge God and His Lordship over my life?
and he will make your paths straight.
In what ways will I expect God to make my paths straight tomorrow?

When I was a school teacher, there was one question my pupils asked me more than any other. It wasn’t about chemistry or computers. Nor sadly was it how to find the way of salvation in Christ. The most common question was, “Sir, why do all your ties have owls on?”!

And indeed in those days all my ties did have owls on. Because they were ties from my old school, The school emblem was an owl. And the emblem was an owl because the School Motto was “sapere aude” “Dare to be wise”. Not dare to be clever. Not Dare to be intelligent. Not Dare to think a lot. Not Dare to understand. But dare to be wise. Aspire to wisdom.

And that could be the motto of the Book of Proverbs. “Dare to be wise.” Aspire to wisdom.
1 The proverbs of Solomon son of David, king of Israel:
2 for attaining wisdom and discipline; for understanding words of insight;
3 for acquiring a disciplined and prudent life, doing what is right and just and fair;
4 for giving prudence to the simple, knowledge and discretion to the young—
5 let the wise listen and add to their learning, and let the discerning get guidance—
6 for understanding proverbs and parables, the sayings and riddles of the wise.

Wisdom, understanding, insight, discernment, prudence, learning. “Dare to be wise.”
Wisdom is about two things. It is about ORTHODOXY – saying the right things, believing the right things and understanding the world properly. Wisdom is also about ORTHOPRAXIS – doing the right things! Knowing the truth and living the truth. And what is the secret of right thinking and of right living?
1:7 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge,

The fear of the Lord. GNB = Reverence for God. New Century Bible = Respect for the Lord. That is the beginning of wisdom
The fear of the Lord brings wisdom

We live in a world that rejects and ignores God. The best known proverb is probably “The fool says in his heart there is no God.” That is in fact not found in the book of Proverbs at all but in the Psalms, Psalm 14:1 and in the very similar Psalm 53:1. “The fool says in his heart there is no God.” In Bible times the fool only dared say such things in his heart, to himself. Nowadays when the modern fool says “there is no God” he’s quite likely to get a book deal, or even a television series!

Let’s make one long but hopefully very clear philosophical point here. Some people confidently declare ‘‘there is no God’’ as if this were a proven fact. All anyone can reliably say is, ‘‘if there is a God I haven’t seen evidence of his existence yet’’. You simply cannot prove something doesn’t exist, at all, anywhere in the universe. People who say ‘‘God does not exist’’ are only expressing their personal belief. As a teenager I used to argue vigorously that God couldn’t exist. Then God proved me wrong.
Someone who declares that God cannot possibly exist is making the same mistake as someone who insists that Australia cannot possibly exist, just because they haven’t personally been there (yet). Or somebody who says “the Queen doesn’t exist” because he has never met Her Majesty, and refuses to believe the pictures or the people who claim they have met her!

The way we all see the world, our “world view”, depends on where we are standing, where we are coming from. Two people were walking along a river bank one day when they saw a man across the river. “How can we get across?” They shouted. “Why would you be wanting to do that then?” The man asked. “We want to get to the other side” they explained patiently. “Don’t be daft,” the man replied. “You’re already on the other side!”

The way we all see the world, our “world view”, depends on where we are standing, where we are coming from. Most people face this problem when they come to think about God. How we interpret stories, facts, events, evidence, is blinkered by our presuppositions. If a person starts off with the wrong assumptions, the same evidence can reinforce those wrong ideas!

That is the mistake at the heart of the popular view is that science has explained away everything supernatural. Science has explained away God, some people say. God couldn’t have made the world, God couldn’t answer prayers, God couldn’t speak through prophets, because science has explained away God. Of course this is a claim, an assertion and not an argument. The last quarter century has seen an immense backlash against the claims of science in the growing interest in the supernatural, the paranormal and the occult. Very many people do have an instinctive belief in the supernatural.

The reason science can appear to exclude the supernatural is that its underlying presuppositions exclude the supernatural. At deepest of levels Science presumes that the only things which exist are those which can be observed and touched and experimented on. That is an assumption, a presupposition. It’s a necessary assumption if you want to do work in science. But it’s a dangerously mistaken and limiting assumption if you want to live in the real world. Science is used to dealing with certain kinds of evidence – observations and measurements. The hardest thing I found in moving from studying science to studying theology was learning that there are different kinds of evidence as well as scientific experiments, the evidence of historical documents, or of personal testimony for example. These other kinds of evidence need different skills if you are to handle and interpret them properly. The world is overflowing with evidence for existence and activity of God – but sadly some scientists are so locked into their ways of handling evidence and their ways of looking at the world that they can’t accept the testimony of Christians about answers to prayer or god speaking in dreams and visions. They want to put the Bible under a microscope instead of letting its truth touch their hearts.

The same problem comes when some scientists think about miracles “Miracles can’t happen” they say. The underlying assumption in science is that the same things keep on happening in the world. If you do experiment today and get a certain result then if you do same experiment again tomorrow under same conditions you’ll get the same result. That’s how all “scientific laws” are worked out. If things didn’t happen the same day after day you couldn’t do any science at all!!! By definition a miracle is God breaking or suspending those scientific laws which He created and He sustains. God is Creator – He’s allowed to do that if He wants to. But science has problems with God breaking His own rules. Science has problems with anything happening today which won’t happen again tomorrow unless God does the same miracle again then. Science has problems with any events which can’t be experimented upon, anything where you can’t control all the factors and only vary what you want to investigate. So BAD science rejects reports of miracles because such reports can’t be handled in the ways science likes to.

To say “miracles don’t happen” is an assumption. The most any person should say is that “if miracles do happen I haven’t seen any”. That’s the limits of how far science should go. And many of us HAVE seen miracles – healings, answers to prayer. I have experienced miracles myself. So I believe in the God who works miracles! Good science should never reject evidence of miracles just because it doesn’t fit into its philosophy or conflicts with its presuppositions. Scientists should always reexamine their assumptions so they fit with the real world!

The great science fiction author Isaac Asimov made this same mistake as very many people make. He said, “I am an atheist, out and out. I don’t have the evidence to prove that God doesn’t exist, but I so strongly suspect he does not that I don’t want to waste my time.”
Asimov had closed his mind to the evidence for God’s existence – so in the end he could not see what many others can! But Christians HAVE seen that evidence. We have experienced the power of God and seen him at work! And scientists should NOT ignore that evidence, but rethink their scientific assumptions until their science fits with the real world!
It was ALBERT EINSTEIN who said, “Science without religion is blind. Religion without science is lame.” Louis Pasteur said, ““Posterity will some day laugh at the foolishness of our modern materialistic philosophy. The more I study nature the more I am amazed at the Creator.”

End of philosophy lesson. It is indeed the fool who says “there is no God”. Proving conclusively and exhaustively that something absolutely positively DOES NOT AND CANNOT exist is logically impossible. And certainly science has not and cannot prove that God does not exist! On the contrary, if we want to understand the world and how it works, we need God. If we want to know how best to live in this world and to be ready for the next, we need God. Here the Book of Proverbs is very clear.

1:7 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge,
but fools despise wisdom and discipline.
9:10 “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom,
and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

Not only the book of Proverbs, but the whole Bible is very clear on this point. If we really want knowledge, wisdom and understanding, our starting place should be the fear of the Lord, respect for God. We need to acknowledge our own limitations and open our hearts to what God can teach us.

15:33 The fear of the LORD teaches a man wisdom, and humility comes before honour.
James Packer, in his excellent book, Knowing God, writes: “Knowing about God is crucially important for the living of our lives. As it would be cruel to an Amazonian tribesman to fly him to London, put him down without explanation in Trafalgar Square and leave him, as one who knew nothing of English or England, to fend for himself, so we are cruel to ourselves if we try to live in this world without knowing about the God whose world it is and who runs it. The world becomes a strange, mad, painful place, and life with it a disappointing and unpleasant business, for those who do not know God. Disregard the study of God and you sentence yourself to stumble and blunder through life blindfolded, as it were, with no sense of direction and no understanding of what surrounds you. This way you can waste your life and lose your soul.”
2:1My son, if you accept my words
and store up my commands within you,
2 turning your ear to wisdom
and applying your heart to understanding,
3 and if you call out for insight
and cry aloud for understanding,
4 and if you look for it as for silver
and search for it as for hidden treasure,
5 then you will understand the fear of the LORD
and find the knowledge of God.
6 For the LORD gives wisdom,
and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.

If we want wisdom, knowledge, insight, understanding, then we need to start with “the fear of the Lord”. We need to begin with respect for God and reverence for God. Only when we allow for the possibility of God’s existence will we begin to understand the world He has created and our place in it. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

The fear of the Lord brings blessings

In daily life, we’re surrounded by advice. Advice from friends and neighbours, from professionals and teachers, from salesmen and advertisers. Television is packed whith whole channels of programmes of advice. Newspapers have their advice columns and horoscopes. Some of the advice we hear is good, some is bad. We need God’s wisdom to identify what’s wholesome and what’s rubbish.
9:10 “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom,
and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
11 For through me your days will be many,
and years will be added to your life.
In other words, the writer says, if you base your life on the fear of the Lord, you will be blessed. Wisdom and understanding will bring their own rewards. You will avoid the mistakes fools make and all kinds of good things will surely follow.

14:16 A wise man fears the LORD and shuns evil, but a fool is hotheaded and reckless.

In many places Proverbs makes clear that the foolish and wicked person will come to a sticky end. Even if they escape the consequences of their folly in this world they will face judgment in the end.
28:14 BLESSED IS THE MAN WHO ALWAYS FEARS THE LORD,but he who hardens his heart falls into trouble.

Hardening of the heart is even more serious than hardening of the arteries.

16 4 The LORD works out everything for his own ends—
even the wicked for a day of disaster.
5 The LORD detests all the proud of heart.
Be sure of this: They will not go unpunished.
6 Through love and faithfulness sin is atoned for;
through the fear of the LORD a man avoids evil.
By keeping men and women from evil, wisdom and the fear of the Lord bring blessings.

23:17 DO NOT LET YOUR HEART ENVY SINNERS, but always be zealous for the fear of the LORD.

14:27 The fear of the LORD is a fountain of life,
turning a man from the snares of death.
15:33 The fear of the LORD teaches a man wisdom,
and humility comes before honour.
16:20 Whoever gives heed to instruction prospers,
and blessed is he who trusts in the LORD.

So many blessings come to those who put their trust in God.

22:4 Humility and the fear of the Lord bring wealth and honour and life.

19:23 The fear of the Lord leads to life: Then one rests content, untouched by trouble.

What a lovely promise of contentment. Success is getting what you want; happiness is wanting what you get.

These blessings of fearing and trusting God come in one sense “automatically”. If a person chooses to do the wrong things, silly things, foolish things, the things God warns against, then they will face the inevitable unpleasant consequences of their folly. On the other hand, Proverbs teaches that if a person does the right things, the sensible things, the things God tells them to do, then the consequences will be good and their lives will be blessed.

More than that, finally the book of Proverbs also makes it clear that there are also special blessings for those who fear God and trust in God. God will act specifically to bring blessing into their lives.
The fear of the Lord brings God’s peace
2:6 For the LORD gives wisdom,
and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.
7 He holds victory in store for the upright,
he is a shield to those whose walk is blameless,
8 for he guards the course of the just and protects the way of his faithful ones.

God is on the side of those who fear him and put their trust in him. He will take care of them

305 “Every word of God is flawless; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him. 6
14:26 He who fears the LORD has a secure fortress, and for his children it will be a refuge.

1810 The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe.

29:25 Fear of man will prove to be a snare,but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe.

It is the fool who says in his heart, “There is no God.” “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Respect for God and reverence for God bring blessings – and God will act to care for those who fear him.
The invitation is there for us all. “Dare to be wise!”