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“Questions and Answers, Part XVI” by Romans
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMCA-hAltP0
Greetings, one and all! Thank you for coming, and for giving me the opportunity to share my Bible Study with you. As you may have guessed, we are continuing in the “Questions” aspect of our Series, “Questions and Answers.” Last week, I thought I presented all the most pertinent questions from the Psalms, but, today, as I reviewed them I saw that there were yet a few questions that should have been included. We shall review them tonight, and then move on into the Book of Proverbs.
Tonight, we are going to begin with Psalm 120:1-3: “In my distress I cried unto the LORD, and he heard me. 2 Deliver my soul, O LORD, from lying lips, and from a deceitful tongue. 3 What shall be given unto thee? or what shall be done unto thee, thou false tongue?”
Matthew Henry writes, “Here is, I. Deliverance from a false tongue obtained by prayer. David records his own experience of this. 1. He was brought into distress, into great distress, by lying lips and a deceitful tongue. There were those that sought his ruin, and had almost effected it, by lying.
(1.) By telling lies to him. They flattered him with professions and protestations of friendships, and promises of kindness and service to him, that they might the more securely and without suspicion carry on their designs against him, and might have an opportunity, by betraying his counsels, to do him a mischief. They smiled in his face and kissed him, even when they were aiming to smite him under the fifth rib. The most dangerous enemies, and those which it is most hard to guard against, are such as carry on their malicious designs under the colour of friendship. The Lord deliver every good man from such lying lips.
(2.) By telling lies of him. They forged false accusations against him and laid to his charge things that he knew not. This has often been the lot not only of the innocent, but of the excellent ones, of the earth, who have been greatly distressed by lying lips, and have not only had their names blackened and made odious by calumnies in conversation, but their lives, and all that is dear to them in this world, endangered by false-witness-bearing in judgment. David was herein a type of Christ, who was distressed by lying lips and deceitful tongues.
2. In this distress he had recourse to God by faithful and fervent prayer: I cried unto the Lord. Having no fence against false tongues, he appealed to him who has all men's hearts in his hand, who has power over the consciences of bad men, and can, when he pleases, bridle their tongues. His prayer was, “Deliver my soul, O Lord! from lying lips, that my enemies may not by these cursed methods work my ruin.” He that had prayed so earnestly to be kept from lying and hated it so heartily in himself might with the more confidence pray to be kept from being belied by others, and from the ill consequences of it. 3. He obtained a gracious answer to this prayer. God heard him; so that his enemies, though they carried their designs very far, were baffled at last, and could not prevail to do him the mischief they intended. The God of truth is, and will be, the protector of his people from lying lips.
II. The doom of a false tongue {is}foretold by faith. As God will preserve his people from this mischievous generation, so he will reckon with their enemies. The threatening is addressed to the sinner himself, for the awakening of his conscience, if he have any left: “Consider what shall be given unto thee, and what shall be done unto thee, by the righteous Judge of heaven and earth, thou false tongue.” Surely sinners durst not do as they do if they knew, and would be persuaded to think, what will be in the end thereof. Let liars consider what shall be given to them: Sharp arrows of the Almighty, with coals of juniper, that is, they will fall and lie for ever under the wrath of God, and will be made miserable by the tokens of his displeasure, which will fly swiftly like arrows, and will strike the sinner ere he is aware and when he sees not who hurts him. This is threatened against liars. God shall shoot at them with an arrow; suddenly shall they be wounded. They set God at a distance from them, but from afar his arrows can reach them. They are sharp arrows, and arrows of the mighty, the Almighty; for they will pierce through the strongest armour and strike deep into the hardest heart. The terrors of the Lord are his arrows , and his wrath is compared to burning coals of juniper, which do not flame or crackle, like thorns under a pot, but have a vehement heat, and keep fire very long (some say, a year round) even when they seem to be gone out. This is the portion of the false tongue; for all that love and make a lie shall have their portion in the lake that burns eternally.”
As we move forward, and review the questions asked in the Psalms, we come to Psalm 130:3-5: “ If thou, LORD, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? 4 But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared. 5 I wait for the LORD, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope.”
Albert Barnes tells us, “If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities - If thou shouldst observe, note, attend to, regard all the evil that I have done. The Hebrew word means properly to keep, to watch, to guard. The word, as used here, refers to that kind of vigilance or watchfulness which one is expected to manifest who is on guard; who keeps watch in a city or camp by night. The idea is, If God should thus look with a scrutinizing eye; if he should try to see all that he could see; if he should suffer nothing to escape his observation; if he should deal with us exactly as we are; if he should overlook nothing, forgive nothing, we could have no hope.
Who shall stand? - Who shall stand upright? Who could stand before thee? Who could hope to be acquitted? This implies (1) that the petitioner was conscious of guilt, or knew that he was a sinner; (2) that he felt there was a depth of depravity in his heart which God could see, but which he did not - as every man must be certain that there is in his own soul; (3) that God had the power of bringing that to light if he chose to do it, so that the guilty man would be entirely overwhelmed; (4) that he who urged the prayer rested his only hope on the fact that God would not mark iniquity; would not develop what was in him; would not judge him by what he saw in his heart; but would deal with him otherwise, and show him mercy and compassion.
Every man must feel that if God should “mark iniquity” as it is - if he should judge us as we are - we could have no hope. It is only on the ground that we may be forgiven, that we hope to come before him.”
Adam Clarke adds, “If thou - shouldest mark iniquities - If thou shouldst set down every deviation in thought, word, and deed from thy holy law; and if thou shouldst call us into judgment for all our infidelities, both of heart and life; O Lord, who could stand? Who could stand such a trial, and who could stand acquitted in the judgment? This is a most solemn saying; and if we had not the doctrine that is in the next verse, who could be saved?”
Next, in the Psalms we come to Psalm 137:1-4: “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. 2 We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. 3 For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. 4 How shall we sing the LORD'S song in a strange land?”
The Expositor's Bible comments, “THE captivity is past, as the tenses in verses 1-3 show, and as is manifest from the very fact that its miseries have become themes for a psalm. Grief must be somewhat removed before it can be sung. But the strains of triumph heard in other psalms are wanting in this, which breathes passionate love for Jerusalem, tinged with sadness still. The date of the psalm is apparently the early days of the Return, when true-hearted patriots still felt the smart of recent bondage and sadly gazed on the dear ruins of the city.
The singer passes in brief compass from tender music breathing plaintive remembrance of the captives’ lot, to passionate devotion, and at last to an outburst of vehement imprecation, magnificent in its fiery rush, amply explicable by Israel’s wrongs and Babylon’s crimes, and yet to be frankly acknowledged as moving on a lower plane of sentiment than is permissible to those who have learned to repay scorn with gentleness, hate with love, and injuries with desires for the injurer’s highest good. The coals of fire which this psalmist scatters among Israel’s foes are not those which Christ’s servants are bidden to heap on their enemies’ heads.
Nothing sweeter or sadder was ever written than that delicate, deeply felt picture of the exiles in the early verses of the psalm. We see them sitting, as too heavy-hearted for activity, and half noting, as adding to their grief, the unfamiliar landscape round them, with its innumerable canals, and the monotonous "willows" (rather, a species of poplar) stretching along their banks. How unlike this flat, tame fertility to the dear homeland, with its hills and glens and rushing streams!
The psalmist was probably a Temple singer, but he did not find solace even in "the harp, his sole remaining joy." No doubt many of the exiles made themselves at home in captivity, but there were some more keenly sensitive or more devout, who found that it was better to remember Zion and weep than to enjoy Babylon. "Alas, alas! how much less it is to hold converse with others than to remember thee!" So they sat, like Michaelangelo’s brooding figure of Jeremiah in the Sistine Chapel, silent, motionless, lost in bittersweet memories.
But there was another reason than their own sadness for hanging their idle harps upon the willows. Their coarse oppressors bade them sing to make mirth. They wished entertainment from the odd sounds of foreign music, or they were petulantly angry that such dumb hang-dog people should keep sullen faces, like unilluminated windows, when their masters were pleased to be merry. So, like tipsy revellers, they called out "Sing!" The request drove the iron deeper into sad hearts, for it came from those who had made the misery. They had led away the captives, and now they bid them make sport.
The roystering Babylonians did not care what kind of songs their slaves sang. Temple music would do as well as any other; but the devout psalmist and his fellows shrank from profaning the sacred songs that praised Jehovah by making them parts of a heathen banquet. And the singers were not influenced by superstition, but by reverence, and by sadness, when they could not sing these songs in that strange land. No doubt it was a fact that the Temple music fell into desuetude during the Captivity. There are moods and there are scenes in which it is profanation to utter the deep music which may be sounding on perpetually in the heart. "Songs unheard" are sometimes not only "sweetest," but the truest worship.
The psalmist’s remembrances of Babylon are suddenly broken off. His heart burns as he broods on that past, and then lifts his eyes to see how forlorn and forgotten-like Jerusalem stands, as if appealing to her sons for help. A rush of emotion sweeps over him, and he breaks into a passion of vowed loyalty to the mother city. He has Jerusalem written on his heart. It is noteworthy that her remembrance was the exiles’ crown of sorrow; it now becomes the apex of the singer’s joy. No private occasion for gladness so moves the depths of a soul, smitten with the noble and ennobling love of the city of God, as does its prosperity. Alas that the so called citizens of the true city of God should have so tepid interest in its welfare, and be so much more keenly touched by individual than by public prosperity or adversity! Alas that so often they should neither weep when they remember its bondage nor exult in its advancement!”
Matthew Henry adds, “I. The abuses which their enemies put upon them when they were in this melancholy condition, Psa_137:3. They had carried them away captive from their own land and then wasted them in the land of their captivity, took what little they had from them. But this was not enough; to complete their woes they insulted over them: They required of us mirth and a song. Now, 1. This was very barbarous and inhuman; even an enemy, in misery, is to be pitied and not trampled upon. It argues a base and sordid spirit to upbraid those that are in distress either with their former joys or with their present griefs, or to challenge those to be merry who, we know, are out of tune for it. This is adding affliction to the afflicted.
2. It was very profane and impious. No songs would serve them but the songs of Zion, with which God had been honoured; so that in this demand they reflected upon God himself as Belshazzar, when he drank wine in temple-bowls. Their enemies mocked at their sabbaths.
II. The patience wherewith they bore these abuses, in verse 4. They had laid by their harps, and would not resume them, no, not to ingratiate themselves with those at whose mercy they lay; they would not answer those fools according to their folly. Profane scoffers are not to be humoured, nor pearls cast before swine. David prudently kept silence even from good when the wicked were before him, who, he knew, would ridicule what he said and make a jest of it, Psa_39:1, Psa_39:2. The reason they gave is very mild and pious:
How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land? They do not say, “How shall we sing when we are so much in sorrow?” If that had been all, they might perhaps have put a force upon themselves so far as to oblige their masters with a song; but “It is the Lord's song; it is a sacred thing; it is peculiar to the temple-service, and therefore we dare not sing it in the land of a stranger, among idolaters.” We must not serve common mirth, much less profane mirth, with any thing that is appropriated to God, who is sometimes to be honoured by a religious silence as well as by religious speaking.
III. The constant affection they retained for Jerusalem, the city of their solemnities, even now that they were in Babylon. Though their enemies banter them for talking so much of Jerusalem, and even doting upon it, their love to it is not in the least abated”
With that, now I can say with greater satisfaction that we have completed our review and examination of the questions asked in the Book of Psalms. As we proceed in the Old Testament, we come to the Book of Provers, and to a question asked in under the heading, “The Call of Wisdom: “Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets: She crieth in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates: in the city she uttereth her words, saying, How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge?” (Proverbs 1:20-22).
The Sermon Bible tells us, “The wisdom of God is a manifold wisdom. While it centres bodily in Christ, and thence issues as from its source, it is reflected and re-echoed from every object and every event. Every law of nature and every event in history has a tongue by which wisdom proclaims God’s holiness and rebukes man’s sin. Three classes of persons seem to be singled out here, and to each is administered an appropriate reproof:— I. The simple, who love simplicity. Probably we should not be far from the truth if we should accept this term in the Proverbs as intended to indicate that class of sinners whose leading characteristic is the absence of good rather than positive activity in evil.
II. The scorners, who love scorning. This class meet the threatening realities of eternity not by an easy indifference, but by a hardy resistance. They have a bold word ever ready to ward solemn thoughts away: a sneer at the silliness of a saint, an oath to manifest courage, or a witty allusion to Scripture which will make the circle ring again with laughter. Scorners love scorning. The habit grows by indulgence. It becomes a second nature.
III. The fools, who hate knowledge. Fools are those who have reached the very highest degrees of evil. Here it is intimated that they hate knowledge; and knowledge has its beginning in the fear of God. "How long shall fools hate knowledge?" Unless they learn to love it soon, they will hate it for ever. W. Arnot, Laws from Heaven, 1st series, p. 64.”
John Gill adds, “Proverbs 1:20: Wisdom crieth without,.... Here the person instructing throughout this whole book is represented under the name of "Wisdom"; by which we are to understand not the attribute of divine wisdom displayed in the works of creation; nor the light of nature in man; nor the law of Moses given to the Israelites; nor the revelation of the divine will in general, as it is delivered out in the sacred Scriptures; nor the Gospel, and the ministry of it, in particular; but our Lord Jesus Christ; for the things spoken of Wisdom, and ascribed to it in this book, especially in the eighth and ninth chapters, show that a divine Person is intended, and most properly belong to Christ; who may be called "Wisdoms," in the plural number, as in the Hebrew text, because of the consummate and perfect wisdom that is in him;
as he is a divine Person, he is "the Logos", the Word and Wisdom of God; as Mediator, "all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hid" in him, Col_2:3; and, as man, "the Spir
it of Wisdom" rests upon him without measure, Isa_11:2. This, with what follows to the end of the chapter, is a prophecy of the ministry of Christ in the days of his flesh, and of the success of it; and of the calamities that should come upon the Jews for the rejection of him: and Wisdom is here said to "cry", as Christ did; the word signifies to cry both in a sorrowful way, as Jesus did when he cried to Jerusalem, weeping over it; and in a joyful one, which well suits with the Gospel, as preached by him;
a joyful sound expressed by piping, in opposition to John's ministry, which was a mournful one, Mat_11:17; for crying here means no other than the preaching of the word; which is such a cry as that of heralds, when they publicly proclaim peace or war; so Wisdom or Christ, is said to "proclaim liberty to the captives", and "the acceptable year of the Lord", Isa_61:1. This cry was made "without" the city of Jerusalem, and without that part of the country which was properly called Jewry; Christ first preached in the land of Galilee; or this may mean the Gentile world, where Christ preached, though not in person, yet by his apostles, whom he sent into all the world to preach the Gospel to every creature;
she uttereth her voice in the streets: of the city of Jerusalem, and other places; which is to be understood of crying in a bawling and litigious way, of lifting up the voice in self-commendation, neither of which Christ did; and yet might cry and utter his voice in the streets, that is, publicly preach his Gospel there, as he did; and he also sent his servants into the streets and lanes of the city to call in sinners by the ministry of the word; which perhaps may be meant of places in the Gentile world; nor is this sense to be excluded here; it may be figuratively understood of the public ministration of the word and ordinances in the church called the streets and broad ways of it.
חכמות "sapientiae", Montanus, Vatablus, Mercerus, Cocceius, Michaelis.
How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity?.... Simple foolish things, agreeably to their character, being weak simple men, men of weak capacities and shallow understandings; and such were the first persons that were called by Christ through the ministry of the word, even effectually; they were babes and sucklings in comparison of others, by whom they were despised as illiterate and ignorant of the law; though it may respect the Jews in general, who were externally called by Christ, and were a simple and foolish people, addicted to silly customs and usages, to the traditions of the elders, and loved the folly and darkness of them, and to continue in them, rather than the light of the Gospel;
and the scorners delight in their scorning; at Christ, because of the meanness of his parentage and education; at his disciples and followers, at his doctrines and miracles, sufferings and death;
and fools hate knowledge? the knowledge of Christ, and of God in Christ; the knowledge of the Gospel, and the truths of it; they hated the light of it, and did not care to come to it, but rather loved the darkness of the law, and even of error and infidelity; they hated Christ, the teacher of true and useful knowledge; they hated his person, though without a cause; they hated him in his offices, as a Prophet to instruct them, as a Priest to be the propitiation for them, and as a King to rule over them; such "fools" were they, and who are therefore expostulated with by Wisdom or Christ; which expostulations show their continuance in these things, and the danger they were in by them, the pity and compassion of Christ as man and a minister of the word, and the fervour and importunity of his ministrations.”
As we forge ahead in the Book of Proverbs, we come next to this beginning in Proverbs 6:6: “Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise: Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, Provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest. How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? when wilt thou arise out of thy sleep?” (Proverbs 6:6-9).
Matthew Henry writes of this: “Solomon, in these verses, addresses himself to the sluggard who loves his ease, lives in idleness, minds no business, sticks to nothing, brings nothing to pass, and in a particular manner is careless in the business of religion. Slothfulness is as sure a way to poverty, though not so short a way, as rash suretiship. He speaks here to the sluggard,
I. By way of instruction, Pro_6:6-8. He sends him to school, for sluggards must be schooled. He is to take him to school himself, for, if the scholar will take no pains, the master must take the more; the sluggard is not willing to come to school to him (dreaming scholars will never love wakeful teachers) and therefore he has found him out another school, as low as he can desire. Observe,
1. The master he is sent to school to: Go to the ant, to the bee, so the Septuagint. Man is taught more than the beasts of the earth, and made wiser than the fowls of heaven, and yet is so degenerated that he may learn wisdom from the meanest insects and be shamed by them. When we observe the wonderful sagacities of the inferior creatures we must not only give glory to the God of nature, who has made them thus strangely, but receive instruction to ourselves; by spiritualizing common things, we may make the things of God both easy and ready to us, and converse with them daily.
2. The application of mind that is required in order to learn of this master: Consider her ways. The sluggard is so because he does not consider; nor shall we ever learn to any purpose, either by the word or the works of God, unless we set ourselves to consider. Particularly, if we would imitate others in that which is good, we must consider their ways, diligently observe what they do, that we may do likewise.
3. The lesson that is to be learned. In general, learn wisdom, consider, and be wise; that is the thing we are to aim at in all our learning, not only to be knowing, but to be wise. In particular, learn to provide meat in summer; that is, (1.) We must prepare for hereafter, and not mind the present time only, not eat up all, and lay up nothing, but in gathering time treasure up for a spending time. Thus provident we must be in our worldly affairs, not with an anxious care, but with a prudent foresight; lay in for winter, for straits and wants that may happen, and for old age; much more in the affairs of our souls. We must provide meat and food, that which is substantial and will stand us in stead, and which we shall most need.
In the enjoyment of the means of grace provide for the want of them, in life for death, in time for eternity; in the state of probation and preparation we must provide for the state of retribution.
(2.) We must take pains, and labour in our business, yea, though we labour under inconveniences. Even in summer, when the weather is hot, the ant is busy in gathering food and laying it up, and does not indulge her ease, nor take her pleasure, as the grasshopper, that sings and sports in the summer and then perishes in the winter. The ants help one another; if one have a grain of corn too big for her to carry home, her neighbours will come in to her assistance.
(3.) We must improve opportunities, we must gather when it is to be had, as the ant does in summer and harvest, in the proper time. It is our wisdom to improve the season while that favours us, because that may be done then which cannot be done at all, or not so well done, at another time. Walk while you have the light.
4. The advantages which we have of learning this lesson above what the ant has, which will aggravate our slothfulness and neglect if we idle away our time. She has no guides, overseers, and rulers, but does it of herself, following the instinct of nature; the more shame for us who do not in like manner follow the dictates of our own reason and conscience, though besides them we have parents, masters, ministers, magistrates, to put us in mind of our duty, to check us for the neglect of it, to quicken us to it, to direct us in it, and to call us to an account about it. The greater helps we have for working out our salvation the more inexcusable shall we be if we neglect it.”
Our next stop in the Book of Proverbs is found under the heading, “The Blessings of Wisdom: Proverbs 8:1-4: “Doth not wisdom cry? and understanding put forth her voice? 2 She standeth in the top of high places, by the way in the places of the paths. 3 She crieth at the gates, at the entry of the city, at the coming in at the doors. 4 Unto you, O men, I call; and my voice is to the sons of man.”
The Preacher's Homiletical comments, “Places of the paths “in the midst of the highways.” “These ways are roads, solitary paths, not streets in the city, and the delineation proceeds in such an order as to exhibit Wisdom; first, in Pro_8:2, as a preacher in the open country, in grove and field, on mountains and plains, and then in verse 3, to describe her public harangues in the cities, and in the tumult of the multitudes” (Zöckler). In verse 4, The Hebrew words for men are different in the two clauses, “the first signifies men of high position, the second men of the common sort” (Fausset).
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH—Proverbs 8:1-3 THE NATURE OF WISDOM’S CALL: Even if we reject the direct Messianic interpretation of this chapter, and understand Wisdom here to be only a poetical personification of an abstract attribute of God, it would be impossible, we think, for any minister of the New Testament to teach from it, and not find his way to Him who was “in the beginning with God” (as we read in John 1:2), to the Christ who is the “Wisdom of God” (see 1 Corinthians 1:24), “in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (as we read in Colossians 2:3). To say the least, the language is admirably adapted to set forth the Incarnate Son, the Saviour of the world. The introductory paragraph reveals the intense desire of Wisdom to win disciples.
I. From her taking the initiative. Wisdom addresses man first. When two persons have become estranged by the wrong-doing of one, he who is in the wrong will be slow to find his way back to the other to acknowledge his fault. Because he is in the wrong he may conclude, and in many cases would rightly conclude, that an advance on his side would be useless. But an advance from him who is in the right would be more likely to be successful; such a course of conduct on his part would carry with it a powerful magnetic force to draw the offender back, and would be a most convincing proof of the desire of him who had been rightly offended to effect a reconciliation.
And if the offence had been committed, not once, but many times, the reluctance of the offender to face his offended friend would be increased in proportion to the number of times the act had been repeated, and if, notwithstanding these repeated offences, advances should continue to be made from the other side, the desire for reconciliation would be made more and more manifest. Wisdom is here represented in this light, and God in Christ did take the initiative in “reconciling the world unto Himself.” The Incarnate Wisdom came to men because men would not, and could not, by reason of their moral inability, come to Him first. In proportion to the distance men wander from God do they feel the impossibility of returning to Him unless they can receive from Him some encouragement to do so. This encouragement they have in the fact that “the Son of Man came to seek and save that which was lost (as we read in Matthew 18:11), that, “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).
II. From the variety of places where Wisdom’s voice is heard. If a man has goods to sell, he seeks those places where he will be most likely to find buyers; if he has thoughts which he wishes to make public, he goes where he will find the most hearers. The pilot has wisdom which he wants to sell to the less experienced ship-master, and he runs his cutter out into the highway of the channel. He is found at “the entrance of the gates” of the water-ways, at the mouths of the rivers; he places himself in the way of those who need his wisdom, and who will pay a good price for his skill. In proportion to a man’s earnestness to obtain a market, or a hearing, will be his endeavour to seek out the places where he will most likely succeed. Wisdom is here represented as frequenting the most conspicuous places, the most crowded thoroughfares, to find buyers for that spiritual instruction which is to be had “without money and without price.”
Christ was found imparting the treasures of His wisdom wherever men would listen to His words. He “went up into a mountain and taught” (in Matthew 5:1). He was found in the streets of the cities, in the temple, at the publican’s feast (in Luke 5:27), in a boat on the shore of the lake. When multitudes were gathered at Jerusalem at the feasts, He was among them (in John 7:14 and 37). At other times “He went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the Gospel of the kingdom.” And thus He revealed His intense desire to give unto men those words which He declares to be “spirit and life.”
III. From the earnest tone of her call. “Doth not Wisdom cry.” When the voice of Christ was heard upon earth it was in no indifferent tone He addressed His hearers. He was “moved with compassion” towards the multitudes who followed Him. On the “great day of the feast He stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let Him come unto Me and drink.” With what earnestness must He have uttered His lament over Jerusalem: “If thou hadst known, even thou, in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace.” A man’s tone is more or less earnest to us in proportion as he gives proof that he is willing to follow up words by deeds.
Judged in this light, how earnest must the call of Christ to men sound when they consider that He was willing to face Gethsemane and Calvary to give effect to His words.
Proverbs 8:1. She crieth by the written word, by ministers, and by the dealings of Providence. Instead of the clandestine whisper of the adulteress in the dark, Wisdom “puts forth her voice” openly in the day, and in a style suitable to every capacity, so that all are left without excuse if they reject her, preferring darkness to light.—Fausset.
The eternal Son of God gathers, plants, builds His Church by a voice, i.e., His word. All true teachers of the Word are crying voices through which Christ calls. Out of Christ’s school is no true wisdom. So long as Christ’s wisdom is still speaking outside thee it avails thee nothing; but when thou allowest it to dwell in thee it is thy light and life.—Egard.
We cannot proclaim as doctrine, but we think the last day will show that wisdom plied every art; that what was “all things working together for good” in behalf of the believer, was something analagous in tendency in the instance of the sinner; that if the sinner thought his lot defeated repentance, he was mistaken; or that, could he have fared otherwise, his chances would have been improved: all this was largely error; moreover, that he will be held accountable at last for quite the opposite, and punished for a life singularly favoured and frequently adapted as the very best to lead him to salvation.—Miller.
Proverbs 8:2. “Standeth” implies assiduous perseverance. Instead of taking her stand in dark places, in a corner... she “standeth” in the top of high places.—Fausset. Wisdom is representing as haunting all human paths. Folly lives upon them, too. Wisdom does not claim them as her own; Folly does. Wisdom has but one path. And she haunts every other to turn men out of such diverse journeyings into the one great track of holiness and truth.—Miller”
I think we have time for one more question from the Book of Proverbs. It is found in Proverbs 17:16: “Wherefore is there a price in the hand of a fool to get wisdom, seeing he hath no heart to it?”
I will allow Matthew Henry to conclude this Discussion. He writes, “Two things are here spoken of with astonishment: - 1. God's great goodness to foolish man, in putting a price into his hand to get wisdom, to get knowledge and grace to fit him for both worlds. We have rational souls, the means of grace, the strivings of the Spirit, access to God by prayer; we have time and opportunity. He that has a good estate (so some understand it) has advantages thereby of getting wisdom by purchasing instruction. Good parents, relations, ministers, friends, are helps to get wisdom. It is a price, therefore of value, a talent. It is a price in the hand, in possession; the word is nigh thee. It is a price for getting; it is for our own advantage; it is for getting wisdom, the very thing which, being fools, we have most need of.
We have reason to wonder that God should so consider our necessity, and should entrust us with such advantages, though he foresaw we should not make a right improvement of them. 2. Man's great wickedness, his neglect of God's favour and his own interest, which is very absurd and unaccountable: He has no heart to it, not to the wisdom that is to be got, nor to the price in the use of which it may be got. He has no heart, no skill, nor will, nor courage, to improve his advantages. He has set his heart upon other things, so that he has no heart to his duty or the great concerns of his soul. Wherefore should a price be thrown away and lost upon one so undeserving of it?”
This concludes this evening's Discussion, “Questions and Answers, Part 16.”
This Discussion was originally presented “live” on January 30th, 2019 \