05 Mar 3/8/26 Proverbs 9 “That’s a Fact, Jack!”
3/8/26 Proverbs 9 “That’s a Fact, Jack!”
How many of you read the Bible on a regular basis? If you don’t, let me recommend a read through the Bible in a year like this one. The beauty of this is that you can start today, say March 8 and read until next March 8. Anyway I have been using one of these for years. A few years back, I decided that I would read something different than the Bible for a devotion. I went for about 10 days and found that I was missing something in life. I was missing my daily Bible reading. Let me warn you before you begin, Bible reading may be addicting. As a matter of fact, living in obedience to God can be addicting. Think about it. What better addiction could there be than following God and reading His Word? Anyway, Proverbs is one of my favorite books because of the unexpected. Solomon was sometimes very blunt. Every time I read 19:13b I laugh which says ‘a quarrelsome wife is like a constant drip.’ If Sharon is around, she will say something like, “You must be reading one of those wife Proverbs again.” Anyway, today we are going to look at wisdom and folly. If you know anything about Proverbs, then you know that Solomon talks a lot about wisdom and its relationship to fools and folly. Let’s see what it takes to be wise.
One thing that I wish is that all young people would read the book of Proverbs with the frame of mind that all of it is true. As we look at our culture, one of the worst sayings that we have is ‘let’s party.’ You can go into any high school or junior high and you will find many students ready to party. Unfortunately, this often means alcohol and drugs, not all the time but much of the time. God is dead serious when He talks about alcohol abuse. 20:1 says, “Wine is a mocker and beer is a brawler.” 23:21 says “for drunkards and gluttons become poor.” Alcohol abuse is a serious sin but we often encourage it by modeling alcohol behavior for our young ones. Years ago, when we lived in West Fargo, there were actually hockey parents who would sponsor drinking parties for the team. How sick is that? Anyway, there is a lot to be learned from Proverbs and every one of them is true, no exceptions. If you want a better life, then read and follow the Proverbs. It isn’t a mystery why I think new Christians should read the book of John and Proverbs first.
Before we begin I would like to clear the air so there is no misunderstanding. Both Wisdom and Folly in these verses are portrayed by women. There is no evil intent here to make women to be the perpetrators of folly. This is just how Solomon presented it. He could have just as well have chosen 2 men for characters. We had a whole class at Kansas City, a whole section of wasted time, about how women of the Bible were always portrayed in a bad light. I never saw the relevance of this class because if you are going to have examples, they either have to be male or female. I think there are far more examples of men being portrayed in a bad light and we don’t have men libbers holding classes about it. Plus wisdom is usually portrayed as a woman so I suppose Solomon just kept it equal. Anyway, I digress.
Today, I’m going to begin at the end and finish at the beginning. I do this because I want us to end with the Good News and not on a down note like how Solomon leaves this chapter. I think that Solomon did it right but I don’t think our audience today is in the same place as the ancient audience. Plus it just feels better for me to do it this way today so I will.
Solomon begins by calling Folly loud, undisciplined and without knowledge. It would almost seem that he was looking for a fight because if you called anyone that today, you would probably get a fight and fighting like this is bad. I once knew a person who was like this. They would try to be the loudest person at an event. They didn’t care where they were when they made a scene. Any time they were out someplace they would show to everyone around that they really didn’t have a clue as to how to behave or act. It was really embarrassing to be around this person. When I read this I can’t help but think of this person as Folly. I’m sure you know people like this also. The bottom line is that Folly isn’t a place where you want to be.
You will find Folly any place where she can attract the most people or is most likely to attract one particular person, you. She starts to call out to you before work in the morning. She tells you that you don’t have to work today because there are more fun things to do. She tells you that no one will really care. She calls out to you at noon to take an extra hour because it will take an extra hour to be mentally ready to go back to work. She tells you after work that you can stop for just one drink. Then she tells you that one more won’t hurt. When you do finally get home, she tells you that your family isn’t that important. After all, you have to have some ‘me’ time even if it’s every day when you get home. I think you that you can fill in your own blanks as we have all fallen victim to Folly. However, I think that we are letting Folly off too easy by not calling her Satan. This is Satan and he is always lurking in the shadows. He is always calling out to us to do the wrong thing. He likes it when we fail.
Satan calls out to us, “Let all who are simple come to me. You, who lack judgment, come to me.” When we read this casually, we think that this person who is simple is someone else. It’s not me. However, when we compare ourselves to Satan we are all simple. The same can be said when we compare ourselves to God. We lack good judgment. When we come to God, He will help us in these areas but when we come to Satan, he will try to destroy us.
They don’t call it temptation because it is easy to resist. It’s hard! Stolen water is sweet. Food eaten in secret is delicious. When someone is telling you that you can hide some of your taxable income, it is hard to resist his sales pitch. After a long hot day of working outside, it is hard to resist the cool, dark arena of the local bar. Just a sidebar, have you ever wondered why bars are dark? Satan is working every day in your life to try to get you to do the wrong thing. You know you are sunk when you start to believe that something you believed to be outrageously wrong 5 years ago, is now ok.
These types of things are the work of the devil and no one else. It is your decision to make but remember this. When you start to do these bad things, you are walking into the den of the dead. Once you follow Satan, you are dead to the world only you don’t realize it. You still think that things are great on the outside. But you will never find peace. You will never find happiness. There will be no joy for you. You will only find more turmoil. It’s like Tom Brady said after winning his 2nd Super Bowl, “What’s next?” It’s like the gangster who had everything money could buy and he said, “Why am I not satisfied? What am I missing?” People, Satan will never bring you satisfaction or joy. It’s totally impossible.
Have you ever noticed that if you try to correct a mocker or a fool, you are inviting insult? When I stand here or anywhere else and proclaim the things of the Bible to be true, people mock me and insult me. But I will stand on the Bible until I die because I know that it is 100% right. If I try to rebuke one of these mockers or fools for disagreeing with me, I invite abuse from them and they will hate me. All you have to do is read the newspapers to see this. Anyone who believes in God is portrayed as some sort of simple being. We have no brains.
People, don’t let the fool discourage you. There are many, many people who need and want help of some sort. When you find out someone is a fool, then move on to someone else and be happy you might have planted a seed in them. Either it will grow and be harvested later or the fool will spend eternity in hell. Don’t waste your breath on these people when they turn on you. But know that there might be a very needy person listening in to the conversation.
On the other hand if you help a wise man, you will add to his learning and to his wisdom. When we help people of God, then good things happen. They happen for the person you are helping as well as yourself. It is a total win-win situation. And the reason for this is that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom which we talked about 2 weeks ago. Do you begin to see how all this fits together and suddenly we have the book of all these separate proverbs linked together? God does this in a truly masterful way.
I think that you know I don’t like to repeat stories or stats. Sometimes I do and there is a reason for it so here goes a repeat. But don’t you repeat this one because Satan definitely doesn’t want this to get out and he has done a pretty good job suppressing it up to now. Statistics tell us that if you are a Christian and have a personal relationship with Jesus, you will live longer. You will make more money in your lifetime and be more successful. You will have better relationships like marriage. And best of all, you will be a happier person because you can have the joy of God that the non-Christian will never taste. Joy only comes through God.
The reason I repeat this is found in the last part of verse 11. “And years will be added to your life.” Here we find this stuff right in our Bibles and our modern science bears it out. You will live longer with Jesus. I can stand up here and talk until I’m blue in the face and many will walk away unchanged saying it was a good sermon. Outside, it’s back to normal. People, besides the Bible telling us; science also agrees. You will be far better off following Jesus than not. I don’t understand why we don’t have people flocking to know Him. We have churches like this all over the country where we can gather with fellow believers. There is no reason why people should ever leave here without a little joy. Personally, I think that the reason that our churches aren’t full is that we have so many pastors that aren’t telling the truth. When I told my fellow pastors that I was doing this series on Proverbs, they couldn’t believe that I would be talking about some of this stuff. That is because they don’t want to talk about the hard topics.
And all this leads us back to the beginning of our reading where we have this wonderful woman called Wisdom who has built her house. We know that it’s a good house, a complete house because it has 7 pillars, the #7 meaning completeness and perfection. She has prepared a meal with wine and has set her table. She is ready for her guests. This meal will be a wonderful feast as she has all the finest foods available. She then sends out her servants to invite the people. She goes to the highest place in the city and calls out, “Let all who are simple come in here!” She says this to all who lack judgment. She is talking to all of us.
Isn’t this the same thing that the devil was saying? But of course, this is the Lord calling to us. We all lack judgment and we are all simple. No one ever said that life will be easy. This is because temptation so often looks like the real deal as we can see in this case. This is the time when we need a little discernment. The question becomes, “What’s better; stolen water that is sweet and later turns sour or the finest feast or banquet in the universe?” People, you are called to make decisions. You are called to be able to discern right from wrong. Jesus didn’t make you to steal. He didn’t make you to lie as we talked about last week. Jesus made you to follow Him. He made you to obey His ways because if you do, then you will able to have the best life possible.
Jesus invites you every day to come and eat at His feast. Come and drink the best wine. Why do you think that Jesus turned the water into the best wine at the wedding at Cana? It’s because He wants you to come to the best feast there has ever been. This is the theme throughout the Bible.
Solomon is telling us that we are the simple people. We are the ones who lack understanding. We are told to leave our simple ways and live. Please understand that you cannot even have life if you stay in your simple ways. When you see the people doing their very best not to think about God or honor God on Sunday mornings or any other time, know that they are doomed. It isn’t a matter of just filling our pews. It is a matter of eternal life.
One of the big problems we have is that we have to live in this world that doesn’t have a clue about Jesus. This is hard. I know that. However, I also know that the solution is at our fingertips because I lived without a solution for 40 years. I wasted 40 years of my life by not knowing Jesus. I could have been Pope by now if I had walked in the way of understanding, walked in the way of Jesus. Next time you see a group of lost people, have compassion for them because they are so simple. Feel sorry for them and try to think of ways that we can reach out to them. We can never give up because we know that He is the way, the truth and the life. We know Jesus and He will do what is best for all of us. He will help us reach out.
This has really been quite a Proverb. Solomon didn’t pull any punches. I noticed when I prepared this that most preachers don’t preach from this passage that has all the truth we need to know. So let’s start practicing getting away from the devil. Nothing good comes when you follow him. Turn your eyes upon Jesus and keep them there. When you find yourself away from God, then try your hardest to return your eyes to Jesus. Jesus Christ is the best deal you will ever get. Jesus Christ is the real deal and that’s a fact, Jack. Thank you, Jesus, for first loving us. Let’s pray.
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