Covenant Presbyterian Church

1    My son, if thou wilt receive my words, and hide my commandments with thee;
2    So that thou incline thine ear unto wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding;  
3    Yea, if thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding;
4    If thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures;  
5    Then shalt thou understand the fear of the LORD, and find the knowledge of God.  
6    For the LORD giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding.  
7    He layeth up sound wisdom for the righteous: he is a buckler to them that walk uprightly.  
8    He keepeth the paths of judgment, and preserveth the way of his saints.  
9    Then shalt thou understand righteousness, and judgment, and equity; yea, every good path.

In these rich and striking lines, Solomon’s second lesson presses upon his son the importance of seeking wisdom. The variety of verbs – receive, hide, incline, apply, cry, lift up, seek, search – emphasizes the tremendous energy required to acquire understanding. The chief reward of this pursuit is God himself, for if we have his word in our heart and prayerfully seek understanding from him, he will reveal himself to us. He is the only fountain of wisdom, as well as its vigilant custodian. Only in fellowship with him can we possess wisdom and be rescued from our foolishness so that we might walk on the secure path of righteousness. The chapter concludes with three special blessings our gracious Father gives to us if we seek wisdom from him: deliverance from evil men (vv. 12-15, deliverance from the sexual temptress (vv. 16-19), and the privilege of walking with godly men (vv. 20-22). This lesson remains compelling. Our age celebrates folly; wrecked lives – intellectual blindness, emotional sterility, spiritual death, personal irresponsibility – are the bitter fruits. Even among many young people, the reigning fads are a certain kind of cool ignorance, the appearance of sophistication through technology but which is really a veil hiding empty souls, and open sensuality. Few, even in the church, heed our Father’s high and glorious call to a different life, a purposeful life of seeking him, walking in wisdom, and intelligent service to him. Sadly, the barbarism of our age – no respect for authority, no fear even of “God in general,” and moral, fiscal, and family chaos – shows no sign of relenting, and it may well be that the Lord has given the West over to that dreaded “reprobate mind,” which Paul warns is the deadly consequence of “not liking to retain God in their mind” (Rom. 1:28). But there is light in Zion, brilliantly shining, sufficient wisdom, God’s own word and the revelation of his mercy, grace, and truth in Jesus Christ, who is the church’s living and precious cornerstone. The hope of our time, of better days ahead, of a strengthened church and a saved world, lies nowhere else than in God’s people, young and old, heeding wisdom’s cry, turning from the world, and devoting ourselves to the pursuit of understanding. You will never be disappointed that you turned from folly and submitted yourself to your Maker and Redeemer, the living God who loves us and understands our true need far better than we do. The old paths are still the best; may the Lord make them new again in our hearts by pouring out his Spirit upon us and helping us to believe and experience their vital connection to Jesus Christ, our life.

Solomon Urges His Son to Seek Wisdom (vv. 1-4)

Like so many alluring sirens, the world calls us to take the wide path of rebellion against God. The options on this path are many; each pleasing to the flesh in its own way, each providing much jovial company for us, most seeming not immediately dangerous to our soul. Nothing seems more foolish to our sin-clouded hearts than to deny ourselves these pleasures. “Look at those who are not serious about religion and do their own thing; they seem to be quite happy, attractive, even contented.” We must plug up our ears against these lies of Satan with the impenetrable rock of God’s holy word. There is only one path to wisdom: we must “receive God’s words and hide his commandments with us” (v. 1). Since this is the godly father speaking, the son has the duty to memorize his father’s commands. No egalitarian or pluralistic objections hold any weight before God. When he mercifully provides godly parents and teachers for us, we must receive their words as God’s, think upon their precepts, and give ourselves to them. This is the authority chain of wisdom and safety he has ordained in the world: the living God   parents  children. Solomon’s assumption is that God-fearing parents have received God’s word into their hearts, so much so that it shapes the way they think, guides their responses and discipline, and governs their instruction. The world does everything possible to attack and undermine this chain of command, and its most successful methods have been compulsory government education, cultural movements that intentionally separate parents and children, and a constant barrage of mocking criticism against the Scriptures that set it forth. “But this is not fair to children; they have rights too; they must have space to express themselves freely and experiment.” Destroyers of society, of piety, and of the home have no better friends than those who seek to separate parents from children, congregations from faithful pastors, and men from steadfast confidence in God’s infallible word. That each of these is found in the church of our dear Savior should strike us with horror and lead us to seek God’s wisdom and guidance with even greater fervency.

From highest to lowest, we must all be students of God’s word. Yet, the young, due to their inexperience and gullibility, have a critical need to seek hearts submissive to God and his word. Thus, they must “incline,” or bend their hearts to the yoke of God’s wisdom and apply themselves to gaining it (v. 2). What a different view God has of children than do most men! Youth is not a time to lead a carefree, fun-seeking, self-referential life; these inevitably harden into love of ease, an inner hedonism and aversion to serious thought and reflection, as well as intense selfishness. The most important responsibility young people have is to learn God’s wisdom from parents and teachers.  In so doing, you lay a foundation for a life of submission to his authority, peace through righteousness, and security under his abundant blessings. But it is impossible for you to learn heavenly wisdom apart from prayer. A wise and godly father will encourage his children to “cry after knowledge and “lift up your voice for understanding” (v. 3). Understanding of things earthly may and should be learned from books; heavenly wisdom – self-understanding, the fear of the Lord, and submission to his word – can only be obtained through earnest prayer. Prayer does not preclude studying, but studying without prayer will never result in a heart subdued to the Lord. You must pray as well as dig, seek God as well as learn your lessons by rote. Thus, parents, you must show your children, and this applies also to the church’s pastors and teachers, by precept and example, the right way of prayer. All right prayer is born of a sense of need; do not give your children commands and assume they have the ability to keep them. No, you must point them heavenward, to our loving Father, who alone can assist us, subdue our hearts, and implant within our hearts a love for his truth. The Christian home is thus a praying home, for the duty and privilege of prayer flows from humility before God in recognition of our great weakness, a sense of his fatherly love and willingness to help us, and confidence that his word rightly directs our desires and petitions to things agreeable to his will. And right prayer leads us to Jesus Christ, not only as our sole Advocate before the Father (1 John 2:2) but also as the holder of the keys of wisdom and knowledge (Col. 2:3).

To come to mature understanding, which is nothing else than to be meekly led by God’s own hand, does not suddenly happen by mere process of aging. During your early years and into young adulthood, you must “seek her as silver and search for her as hid treasures” (v. 4). Seeking heavenly wisdom must not be hobby or an occasional pursuit when need or crisis demands, but your passion. During your tender years, you find out certain things about yourself: a propensity to sin in a given area, lack of virtue and holiness in another. What are you to do? Our culture makes excuses and blames others. Instead, you must pursue wisdom, which is to fear, love, and submit to the Lord (1:7), in exactly those areas in which see sin and weakness. Do not try to hide these things; they will come back to haunt you later. If you brush over them or passively receive parental rebukes without seeking for the Lord to correct your heart and lead you in the right path, you miss a golden opportunity to gain experience and deepen submission. The Holy Spirit’s assumption here is that covenant youth must and should want to learn to walk with God in obedience and humility. Serious lessons, then, are not simply for older people. Scripture, theology, listening and asking questions are not for nerds; they are for those who want to survive, overcome the world, and glorify God. It was the way our Savior lived as a young man (Luke 2:46). There is no other way. Yes, the Lord may choose to get your attention later, but do you think it will be without serious chastisement for throwing away your early opportunities and pursuing your own wayward desires? Thus, search for wisdom, a heart that loves God, a mind that understands the world and yourself from God’s perspective as you would dig up a secret treasure buried in your back yard: carefully, diligently, and energetically. Indeed, this is the spirit each one of us must bring to God’s word, else we shall not profit from it or be transformed from “glory to glory by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Cor. 3:18).

Wisdom’s Glorious Rewards (vv. 5-9)

Now, the promised reward of seeking wisdom will mean nothing to the worldling; indeed, since “God is not in all his thoughts” (Ps. 10:4), the very idea of having and understanding God is either unimportant or loathsome to him. But for those whom he has enlightened by his Spirit, there can be no higher or more precious reward than “to understand the fear of the Lord.” This is nothing less than to have knowledge, deep, personal experience, and pleasure in God, to be dominated by him and filled with his fullness through Jesus Christ. It is to embrace the very purpose of our creation, the highest privilege of our redemption: to know that we have full and eternal life in him, to revel in his walking with us in mercy, love, and fellowship (2 Cor. 6:17-18), to have the power to lay aside the self-oriented and narcissistic life so that Christ himself may live in us (Gal. 2:20), to belong to him and feel ourselves his, and to find our pleasure in obeying him. This is the knowledge of God that is eternal life (John 17:3) – already possessed now by faith and enjoyed now through submission to his word. We can know a great deal about God, like Samuel, who knew all about the workings of the tabernacle and the divine service of the Lord, but did not yet know him in such a way that he saw his life as nothing but a delighting in God, obeying his word, and serving him with his whole being (1 Sam. 3:7). This, whether you are a young or an older believer, makes the pursuit of wisdom – with all its crying, self-denial, pleading of God’s promises, and rejecting the world – more than worth the effort, indeed, to be no sacrifice at all – to know, have, hold, serve, and enjoy God himself. There is no higher privilege or pleasure for us; indeed, this is the way his image begins to be restored in us and will one day reach its consummation in the new heavens and earth – when God is not simply all in all in that he is the Alpha and the Omega, “he who was, is, and is to come” (Rev. 1:8; 4:8), but that he is our all in all, forever.

And thus we must seek wisdom from the Lord, for he alone gives it; he alone possesses wisdom (v. 6). “There is no wisdom nor understanding nor counsel against the Lord” (Prov. 21:30). This is true not only because his wisdom cannot be withstood but also in that apart from him, there is nothing but impotent, blind, deadly foolishness. Thus, neither wisdom nor understanding can be seized on our terms or obtained by our strength. It is bestowed as his free gift of grace, as it was to Solomon. It is ours only through union with Jesus Christ and a drawing from his infinite storehouse of wisdom. This is the reason it is said: “If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally” (James 1:5). We must come before him feeling and confessing our foolishness and repenting of our sinfulness. From his fullness, we must ask him to supply the understanding we in our poverty lack. This may well be the deepest truth about wisdom and its pursuit. As long as we attempt to live apart from God’s wisdom, we shall be foolish and make a mess of everything we touch. Thinking our own thoughts and going to the world yield the same results – God has made foolish the wisdom of this world. He would have us come to him as humble learners. And you must notice, young people, that he is addressing this to you. Yes, we must all be God’s scholars, but the coming and seeking must begin young, before foolishness casts its net around your soul and sinks it poisonous roots into every corner of your life.
Moreover, lest we think wisdom will simply falls from the sky, it is the fruit of a righteous life (v. 7). Here is a truth completely lost upon most of us. We wonder at our foolish decisions, our inability to understand and respond biblically to our times, at the condition of our homes and churches. Are we obeying God in what he has revealed to us and already written upon our hearts? What about the Ten Commandments, loving God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind? What of our Savior’s “simple” declaration: “If you love me, keep my commandments.” Yet, we would rather walk around in the haze of our foolishness than admit that the reason we lack wisdom in many important areas is that we are not obeying God. He stores up wisdom for the righteous, and shields the upright from foolishness. There is much we do not know, of course, many areas in which he has not given us the light or strength to be as faithful as we should be. What are we to do? “For if there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not” (2 Cor. 8:12). “Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this to you” (Phil. 3:15). Many areas of blindness and ignorance plague us, most of all our needy condition. But this does not prevent righteousness and uprightness if we are faithful to what God has made known to us. Then, hungering and thirsting after righteousness, which assumes that we shall never be perfect in this life, he will carry us from “strength to strength” and “glory to glory.” He will give us additional wisdom as we pant after him to be our guide and teacher (Ps. 25:9). His treasuries of wisdom are more than sufficient for our need, his power sufficient to shield us from the world’s attacks and our own foolishness, if we cast ourselves upon his promises and commit ourselves into his safekeeping.

If we require additional encouragement to pursue wisdom, we should settle the eye of our faith upon this wondrous truth: the living God, the fountain of wisdom, is guardian of the paths of justice (v. 8). If we as adults often tremble at the many enemies and obstacles we face in the pursuit of God’s eternal kingdom, how much more will younger citizens of Zion feel that they have been born in a very unfriendly world, with pitfalls and dangers all around them? Do you want safety and security? Walk upon the path of judgment. It is, indeed, a narrow road, requiring constant warfare against our sinful nature and the world, self-denial, and bearing of our Savior’s cross. Yet, we have God’s own promises that he walks upon this path, guarding us and it, making sure that we have wisdom for every new need, protection against every enemy, and hope even on the darkest parts of the path. Upon hearing this, who would not immediately abandon sin and the world? Who would not flock to his standard of wisdom and build upon the rock of his eternal word? If we choose this path – glory of glories, beyond all ability of man to conceive – he will preserve our way. He will keep our feet from slipping (1 Sam. 2:9).  He will order, establish the way of our goings, so that even if we fall seven times, he shall raise us up again (Ps. 37:23-24). Imagine: to have the God of the universe to pick us up when we stumble! And he does, for if we have gotten back up even once, it is because he lifted us by his power and preserved us because he is faithful. “The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms” (Deut. 33:27). And then, though we are weak and often trip up by our foolishness, our Savior’s power rests upon us exactly when, conscious of our weakness, we look to him alone as our support (2 Cor. 12:7-9). O sons of Zion – give yourselves to the pursuit of wisdom! Cry after wisdom! Walk upon the paths of righteousness! This is all your security, peace, and hope. It is wisdom’s own reward. Young brothers and sisters, choose this path early and cling to it tightly. If you will devote yourself to the pursuit of wisdom, God will walk beside you all your days, the Angel of his presence will guide you, and our Savior will finally bring you to his everlasting kingdom and crown you with life and joy unspeakable, and full of glory.

Wisdom then will come full circle in your life (1:3). Rather than being like those you hear of in the world whose foolish decisions ruin their lives, or at least bring so much heartache and difficulty that life is hardly worth living, you will “understand righteousness, and judgment, and equity; yea, every good path” (v. 9). In other words, the Lord himself will guide you into wise decisions that will bring tremendous blessing to you. You will choose a life mate who will compliment and support you, rather than one who plagues your heart out. You will make a good vocational decision, young brother, in which you will be happy and fulfilled, doing what you love and knowing the goodness of God in the doing of it. Far from working only to pay the bills, getting married only to satisfy sexual desires, you will find joy in walking upon the good path of obeying God and keeping his word. You will find delight in being a guardian of the home, young sister, rejoicing your husband’s heart and training your children in the paths of righteousness. When you face a fork in the path and are uncertain which way to choose, God himself will be your teacher and guide. When you face trials, sickness, or the death of a loved one, the Lord will not forsake you, leaving you to your own counsel. He will take you in hand and make even your troubles a blessing to you (Rom. 8:28). This is not wishful thinking; it is his sworn promise to those who make the pursuit of wisdom the passion of their lives.