“The fear of theLORDis the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight” (Prov. 9:10, RSV).
According to this description, many of the world’s “wise” ones have never come out of kindergarten and into the realities of life.
If true wisdom is the orientation of self and the affairs of this world to the Creator-Redeemer, how many of us possess it? Only the fool says God does not exist (Ps. 14:1). The wise man gives God his rightful place in every realm—creation, history, and destiny—and recognizes him as sovereign over individuals and over nations.
Such wisdom, coming as it does from a reverential fear of and trust in God, produces peace, joy, and hope, independent of outward circumstances. It is the preventative for the situation our Lord described as “men fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world …” (Luke 21:26).
Even for believers it is usually true that their God is too small. Like the timid souls of every generation, we tend to conceive of God as being bound by our own limitations. Thus we view life with a sense of futility.
To combat this we should pray for and foster in our own hearts and minds a concept of God that reaches back into eternity, outward into infinity, and forward to a joyous and unending life with him. The eternal sovereignty of God, once it is grasped, lifts our hearts and enlightens our minds; and when with this we envision something of the awesome reality of his love, glory, and power, we are on the way to being wise—as God counts wisdom.
When we are able to say with the Psalmist, “For I know that the LORD is great, and that our Lord is above all gods. Whatever the LORD pleases he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps” (Ps. 135:5, 6), we find that life comes into clear focus. Doubts vanish when we realize that “the LORD [who] by wisdom founded the earth; by understanding … established the heavens” (Prov. 3:19) is the same Lord who came to redeem us from our sins.
Christians lose much joy in life by failing to recognize that the God of creation is also the God of history. As such he is sovereign also in love and in judgment. We have nothing to fear, for the wrath of a holy God against sin has been borne in the person of his Son.
On one hand there is redeeming love. On the other there is consuming judgment. The Prophet Isaiah speaks of the latter: “I will punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; I will put an end to the pride of the arrogant, and lay low the haughtiness of the ruthless. I will make men more rare than fine gold, and mankind than the gold of Ophir. Therefore I will make the heavens tremble, and the earth will be shaken out of its place, at the wrath of the LORD of hosts in the day of his fierce anger” (Isa. 13:11–13).
The Prophet Jeremiah too had a vision of the God of history. He wrote, “Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: … It is I who by my great power and my outstretched arm have made the earth, with the men and animals that are on the earth, and I give it to whomever it seems right to me” (Jer. 27:4b, 5).
Writing of Israel’s apostasy and sinfulness, the Apostle Paul says, “Now these things happened to them as a warning, but they were written down for our instruction, upon whom the end of the ages has come” (1 Cor. 10:11).
The wisdom God gives to those who fear him puts him on the throne in every area of his universe—in creation, in history, and also in destiny. He who brought the world into existence will surely control the course of events to the end. Today we see the rage and tumult of men and nations. Has God been dethroned? Has he abdicated? Has he lost control of events? Far from it. No circumstances of our individual lives, no courses of nations, are completed until God has finished his own work in and through them.
Man’s greatest folly is to lift himself, the creature, above the Creator. That many deny or ignore God only adds to their guilt. Materialism in every age has been concerned with the tangible. Only by the wisdom God gives can men see beyond the horizon and on into eternity. Then and only then can time and eternity come into proper perspective.
The wisdom of this world enables man to discover the facts of the universe, but only the wisdom that is from above can bring us to know the eternal Source of all things. And to know Him is life eternal.
It is by faith that we become wise, for faith, the basis of godly wisdom, rests on intangibles (by worldly standards) that are real only to those who believe. The love of a mother may be called an intangible, but it is wonderfully real. So the wisdom God imparts to those who believe in him brings reality out of unreality and gives substance to things the world can never see.
The fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom, is God’s gift to the humble. A childlike attitude of mind is the gateway to God’s grace. It is not a mere lazy acquiescence but a rational acknowledgment of God as Creator and Lord.
The humble heart knows its need. It comes to see itself in the light of God’s holiness and to admit with the Prophet Jeremiah, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately corrupt …” (Jer. 17:9). Such humility recognizes that “before him no creature is hidden, but all are open and laid bare to the eyes of him with whom we have to do” (Heb. 4:13).
The inescapable link between true wisdom and genuine humility rests in the perspective this wisdom gives. When we see ourselves in the light of God’s holiness, we are inclined to cry out with Job, “I had heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees thee; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:5, 6). Thomas showed true wisdom and humility when he cried, “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28).
Only the Spirit of God can enable us to see the vast gulf between wisdom and knowledge. The Apostle Paul aptly says that “knowledge puffs up.” Wisdom enables man to use knowledge for God’s glory. That secular knowledge is exalted above wisdom is one aspect of the spiritual blindness of unregenerate man. There can be no true wisdom apart from God.
The writer of the Book of Proverbs admonishes, “Get wisdom, and whatever you get, get insight” (Prov. 4:7). Is not the lack of such insight the cause of much of the chaotic thinking and living today?
The frustration, uncertainty, and fear we see on every hand can be exchanged for peace, certainty, and perfect assurance if we appropriate the wisdom God yearns to give. This is the Christian’s privilege and at the same time his opportunity. All about us are people who are educated, perhaps, but who lack true wisdom because there is no fear of God in their hearts.
