we are considering the way of wisdom as we turn to Proverbs, the book most identified with wisdom, and Solomon's presentation in preparation for acquiring wisdom. He introduces this course in wisdom here in the first seven verses of chapter one, I wish to read those verses in your hearing. Let's stand together as we turn there. Proverbs chapter one, the first seven verses. We'll focus our attention upon verses six and seven, particularly this afternoon. Proverbs chapter one, the first seven verses. Hear this, the very word of Almighty God, holy, infallible, inerrant in all its parts. The Proverbs of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel. To know wisdom and instruction, to perceive the words of understanding, to receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, judgment, and equity. To give prudence to the simple, to the young man, knowledge and discretion. A wise man will hear and increase learning. A man of understanding will attain wise counsel. to understand a proverb and an enigma, the words of the wise and their riddles. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction. Let us ask God's blessing on this word. Holy Father, bless our hearing of your word. We pray that it should pour forth from your minister as the life-giving water of Christ, quenching the thirst of the soul. Give us that desire, ears to hear and eyes to see, for the glory of our Savior. It is in his name we pray, amen. You may be seated. Last week, we considered the vocabulary of wisdom and a brief cast of characters as Solomon presented that to us. Remember those summary definitions we gave in that presentation, knowledge and understanding, those raw materials for making wise assessments and growing in wisdom. Instruction, which is closely related to discipline, and correction, prudence or reasoned and considered insight, discretion or discernment, the ability to differentiate between right and wrong, those who are described here, the simple, one who is untaught, immature, youthful, untrained, and inexperienced, the wise, the one who is a perpetually fruitful hearer, ever increasing in wisdom, the fool, the thoroughly unteachable person, full of himself and his own guidance, frequently displaying moral deficiency, disrespect, and lack of self-restraint. And remember how wisdom will be presented to us as the words of the wise are given. Solomon describes proverbs, enigmas, words of the wise and their riddles. This points to the subtlety of acquiring wisdom, the indirection of the means of communicating and learning wisdom. This helped us to see that it's not just memorizing, say, a rule book or a recipe or a set of directions. Wisdom is a subtle thing and must be learned in the way of mastery that looks like those master craftsmen that we consider. There is an apprenticeship that must be taken up if we are to acquire wisdom. And that apprenticeship will train us in basics and lead us into greater skill with those basics. And we become journeymen in that art of acquiring and practicing wisdom, and as God continues to bless, we'll become like the wise, we'll acquire a mastery that reflects the character and wisdom, the virtuous mind of our Savior, in whom dwells all the wisdom of God. So we must resolve, then, as we consider these things, to become apprentices seeking advancement in our training, to be journeymen, and finally to begin showing that mastery of wisdom revealed in Christ. Now, as we consider the training involved in that mastery, it is to be considered as the acquisition of any art Right there, there's something that we recognize in that process. Folks don't just simply turn around one day and have a remarkable ability, usually. There are very unusual examples. And of course, we have Solomon, who was given a supernatural gift of wisdom. But ordinarily, those who display a mastery of an art have exercised themselves diligently in a process that took many years. to display that mastery and craftsmanship. This is true in music, in cooking, in building, in the martial arts. It's called an art of war or of battle because those who study those things, whether Western or Eastern forms of that, take many years to consider the subtleties of that way of winning in warfare. So in every pursuit that may be called an art, there's a process of becoming a master in that. And it's a lengthy process. It involves mastering first the basics, the raw materials, if you will. Now, we recognize that, again, in any art, but you can consider a master artist in any field of art, he must first a skill with the media that he's going to use. If he's going to be a sculptor, there are various forms of media, and he's going to need to begin getting a feel for that medium. If he is carving with wood, he's going to, and if you, thanks to the abundance of things available on YouTube, you can find men and women who are master craftsmen in that, and what you should notice is as they display their art, they have a feel for their medium. They know a good piece of wood for the carving. They can tell what they need to do. There are master craftsmen who build instruments from wood. They are particularly skilled. They'll take a sheet of wood. They'll tap it. They can tell what's a good use for that particular kind of wood. Where did they learn that? by much use, by lengthy time handling the material. So those basics have to be learned in such a way that they become a part of the artist, the one who is pursuing mastery. Now we recognize this when we enjoy watching a master at his craft. As you see somebody who's throwing as it's called, throwing clay and making pottery, or one who's carving, one who's painting, you'll see a fluid capacity on the part of the master to bring into reality something that displays his mastery. And what you won't see, usually, is a distraction on the part of the master with his material. You'll see that the material has become something that he doesn't even have to think about anymore. Whatever it is, he can bring out the art, because the art is in him. And he can use the material to display that art. There is something that's almost the form of a fable with a master artist with a violin, a Paganini. And there is a story told of an occasion when he was performing. And he was performing with great vigor. And as he was playing the violin, he was laying into it. And it was overwhelming, the beauty and mastery. And as he was laying into it, it couldn't keep up with him. A string broke. He didn't stop. He kept playing, and it was as though nothing had happened. And as he kept playing, another string broke. And he kept playing, and it continued to pour out beauty in music as he displayed the mastery of the art, pouring it out in the instrument. And another string broke until he was finally down to one string, and he finished the performance. And as a master who happened to be rather full of himself, he said, Paganini on one string. That part's not wise, being full of oneself. But the mastery is on full display there. The material was at his fluid and complete disposal. He could bring out the art. The material was no hindrance to him. He had mastered the material and so could perform with it at ease. We are trained in wisdom. The raw material of understanding and perceiving and taking up observations so as to learn wisdom will be exercised in our soul so that the events, the observations, the raw material become something that is natural for us. as we are shaped after the mastery of wisdom. One who has mastered his craft is no longer struggling with or against his tools. Those basic materials and methods have simply become a smooth and fluid way that the craftsman displays his craftsmanship in the pursuit of that art. So it must be with us. As the Lord trains us in our apprenticeship, he's going to train us in the raw material. And we need to become so familiar with it that we begin forming in the character of wisdom naturally as we're exposed. We'll be like the wise man described by Solomon here. He can't help but get wiser. Throw anything at him, and the art keeps coming out because his soul is being shaped by God for mastery in wisdom. Now, Solomon sets out for us here in what he describes in verse 6, a scaffolding, a framework in which wisdom is going to be learned. It's a scaffolding or a framework for wisdom. And so as we consider what he describes as that framework, it might be a little frustrating to us at first. As we look at what the raw materials are in Solomon's presentation, It's Hebrew poetry. And there are a variety of things that happen with Hebrew poetry, and they don't seem to us at first blush like the ideal way to get wisdom across to us, right? Because of the subtlety, because of the indirection, because of the work it makes you do. Now, that's what's going on right there. In learning to master wisdom, we have to be exercised in thinking a certain way. Hebrew poetry is ideal for that. There are certain structures that you'll see in Hebrew poetry. The Hebrew style of poetry exercises itself not with rhymes, although you will find plays on sounds in the Hebrew. Its primary form of rhyming, if you will, is in parallelism. There are couplets of ideas. couplets of verses and so on that build our understanding by what's being compared. Sometimes those couplets bring about a synonymy, right, where one thing is stated and then it's stated again in another way. It's the same idea said again in a way that now expands our understanding of it, brings nuance. Sometimes those couplets of ideas, those parallels, are antithetical. so and such this, but in contrast that. The contrast, we're supposed to dig into it to recognize the subtleties of what's being separated there. Sometimes it's called synthetic. Sometimes it builds one thing after another. It's not just restating the same thing, but actually building the concept and giving it more. There are many, many more, but we can summarize as those three to give us a handle on the kinds of things happening with the raw materials of Hebrew poetry. The use of poetry by God for cultivating us in the apprenticeship for wisdom is not a weakness. We must understand it's a strength. God chose this medium precisely because it was the perfect means of communicating this subject to us for His purposes. We may be personally more or less inclined to appreciate these subtler and more indirect forms of literature. but we must learn to value them and be shaped by them because God, who created language, has ordained this use of language to reveal his wisdom. Consider just one example. Solomon takes us through nine chapters of introductory material, building, if you will, a way for us to be ready to hear those Hebrew parallels in ways that are succinct terse, packed, and that make us think. Here's an example that Waltke zeroes in on, a commentator on the Proverbs, in Proverbs 26, at verse nine. Like a thorn that goes into the hand of a drunkard is a proverb in the mouth of fools. Now, Waltke points out here is that this proverb may seem like, oh, OK, it's horrible, right? And we're done here. Well, he says, well, no. You're being asked by the writer of the proverb to dig in, pull out more, and start making the comparisons so that you start to unpack depth of meaning that's condensed powerfully into a couplet of poetry. You have to start unpacking. What is it for the proverb to be, as is described in the first part, like a thorn in the hand of the one who has taken it up, who is foolish? We're asked to make those comparisons. Well, a drunkard may be unable to recognize the harm he's doing to himself as he grabbed the thornbush, right? And as he grabbed it, He's not only damaging himself, and as a drunkard, he may not recognize the damage he's doing because he's drunk. And he's acting unwieldy. He's likely to be harming other people with the thorn bush or the thorn branch in his hand. That's all packed into that first line, but he didn't unpack it for us. We're supposed to meditate on it and start to unpack it and then see How, like that fool, is this drunkard? The fool will take up a proverb, this terse piece of wisdom intended to instruct, and it will be, in fact, something that condemns him, harms him, and probably, in his use, will harm others. He'll bring a shame to it. Do you see how there's so much more going on here? We're just scratching the surface. That's the way God designed the use of language in Hebrew poetry to begin teaching us how to perceive wisdom and be taught wisdom. Now, Hebrew poetry then is that scaffolding. It's going to be the structure by which God teaches us wisdom. But there's a foundation for that scaffolding. And here's the critical part. Verse 7 tells us, and it's repeated in many places in the wisdom literature, there's a foundation for wisdom. If we're to grow in this process of apprenticeship, journeyman, and mastery of wisdom, there is one foundation. We must see that foundation and embrace it as God describes it. In verse 7, he says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction. The fear of the Lord is that foundation. And it's not just a starting place that you move on from. It's not a starting line. It's a foundation. You stay there. If you're to continue into mastery of wisdom, you continue to build on the foundation of the fear of the Lord. You don't lay a foundation in one place and then build a house somewhere else. The foundation laid is where you build. That foundation is the fear of the Lord. We see Solomon say that again in chapter nine. In verse 10, he says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. It's mentioned in Job 28. And to man, he said, behold, the fear of the Lord. That is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding. And in Psalm 111, verse 10, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. A good understanding have all those who do his commandments. His praise endures forever. So what is this critical, exclusive foundation What is the fear of the Lord? Well, on many occasions in the past you've heard from this pulpit an emphasis upon the fear of the Lord, a description of it in various ways. One minister defines it very succinctly as giving God his due. The fear of the Lord is ascribing to God, treating God in a way that is appropriate given who he is, given who God is. How ought we to treat him in thought, word, and deed? The scripture answers with fear, with reverence. All mankind ought to fear God, but the way we fear him is very different as believers than it would be for unbelievers. For sinners left in their sin, God is terrifying because he is a just judge who will punish sin in his pure and holy wrath. But for those who know God as Savior by faith in Jesus Christ, the one who has taken away sin and wrath by his sacrifice, in our place, this terror is transformed into grateful reverence. The fear of God always has in view the nature of God as holy, righteous, and just. So even the redeemed see and know that God is powerful and a terrifying God, But the redeemed in Christ have God as Father, so our fear is that of loving respect. Ours is such a loving reverence for God that we dread the thought of offending against His holiness. Thus, fear of the Lord requires the highest thoughts of Him. We must think of Him as He has revealed Himself in His Word and not as we please. So how do we think of God? Do we revere him, love him, honor and respect him? You'll find in these opening chapters, as we proceed, that Solomon emphasizes the relationship of father and son. For the believer, our heavenly father, has deigned to teach us as his children wisdom. There's a reverence that is displayed in parenthood with children, and it is the cultivating of that reverence, that fear of the Lord, that is the foundation for the building up of wisdom. One commentator gives this longer description, and it's good in its detail. Hear this, the fear of the Lord refers primarily to a subjective response of humility, love, and trust in God, so that a person is willing to submit his or her life to the ways of God. It is a God-centered view of life that includes a reverence for God. As the beginning of knowledge, the fear of the Lord is the first and controlling principle of a person's life. Without it, wisdom, as defined by God, is not attainable. Excellent description, and that's from Dr. Richard Belcher. This definition truly captures why the fear of the Lord is the beginning, the foundation. It's where we need to start. That's the foundation that must be laid. Only those who fear the Lord are rightly humbled before Him, emptied of pride and ready to be taught. As it says in Proverbs 8, verse 13, the fear of the Lord is to hate evil, pride and arrogance and the evil way, and the perverse mouth, I hate. If we're to be instructed, we must have a reverence that casts out, through humility, pride and resistance, so that we are yielded and ready to receive instruction from the Lord. Proverbs 15, verse 33, the fear of the Lord is the instruction of wisdom, and before honor is humility. You see that humble disposition in the fear of the Lord that readies one for learning wisdom. Notice in these verses that hatred of sin, the receiving of correction that leads to humility. So if we're to begin in the process of learning in the school of wisdom, we now know where we must start. be submitted to God in a way that cultivates that reverence, which is the fear of the Lord. As a son is reverent before his father, ready to hear, yes sir, first I wish to hear what you say. That disposition of soul is humble, ready to learn. It is full of a love and acknowledgement of the justice of the father, the one who is the superior, so that it dreads the thought of offending and desires to do what is pleasing in the sight of the one revered. What are we doing then to cultivate that? Everything in our society hates that. What we're talking about is a structural difference, a superior to an inferior. And that is foundationally unacceptable in our day. Everything has to be flattened in our day. Nobody gets to be over anybody else. And you'll hear even those who claim to be evangelicals say things like, oh, well, if that were true, I would not worship a God like that. And what we're talking about is something God has revealed about himself in the Word. That. is not a fear of the Lord that begins the study of wisdom. We must have the absolute opposite perspective. We must become as humble learners, reverently submitting ourselves to the instruction of God with eager anticipation and a delightful reverence that no longer sets oneself up as judge, but rather submits oneself to be taught. This can only completely and fully be true of us before the God in whom all wisdom dwells. What are we doing then? To cultivate the fear of the Lord in the face of a day, an age, where that very structure is hated. we must submit ourselves to the word of God unabashedly, wholeheartedly, eagerly, in a way that will be completely out of step with the world. When God speaks, I gladly revere him and embrace his word. No matter how embarrassing that may seem to the world, I am not embarrassed. He matters more. And I submit myself to him. We need to ask God to cultivate that spirit in us. Our natural and native sinful disposition is one of pride, resistance to that very humility, and that's what's taught in the world around us. Let's beseech the Lord this foundation that we may learn wisdom. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we desire to grow in wisdom, to be an apprentice in your school, to be as humble children before their loving father. And your word says for this training to take place, we must have a reverence, a fear that is the foundation for this training. We acknowledge that our hearts are not naturally disposed to this. pride is bound up like foolishness in our hearts, we pray that you'd eradicate it from us. We acknowledge that this may be painful. This will be out of step with the world around us. This will be contrary to all those things. Father, we love you. And we beg of you that mercy that should cultivate in us a holy reverence a fear of you that is appropriate for us as your children that we may learn wisdom. Grant us this for your glory, the honor of our Savior. We pray it in his name. Amen.