Turn in your Bibles to Proverbs chapter 1. Proverbs chapter 1. We'll be looking at verses 20 to 33 this morning. We've been going through the book of Proverbs for several weeks now. Now we continue with the end of chapter one. So let's read the word of our Lord from verses 20 to 33. Wisdom cries aloud in the street. In the markets, she raises her voice. At the head of the noisy streets, she cries out. At the entrance of the city gates, she speaks, how long, oh simple ones, will you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge? If you turn at my reproof, behold, I will pour out my spirit to you. I will make my words known to you because I have called and you refuse to listen, have stretched out my hand and no one has heeded. Because you have ignored all my counsel and would have none of my reproof, I also will laugh at your calamity. I will mock when terror strikes you, when terror strikes you like a storm, and your calamity comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you. Then they will call upon me, but I will not answer. They will seek me diligently, but will not find me. because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord, would have none of my counsel and despised all my reproof. Therefore, they shall eat the fruit of their way and have their fill of their own devices. For the simple are killed by their turning away, and the complacency of fools destroys them. but whoever listens to me will dwell secure and will be at ease without dread of disaster. This is the word of our Lord. Let's pray for his blessing upon the preaching of his word. Our God, we thank you that you have spoken. We thank you that you reveal yourself to us, that you reveal our need and that you reveal what we must do to escape this calamity and disaster and danger that we face. We pray, Lord, that you would speak to each of us. You know better what we need. You know all that is in our hearts. And so, Lord, we pray for your spirit to take these words and to apply them to us. We pray that you would help us who do know you, that we would grow in faith and maturity and love and grace. We pray that you would bring unbelievers, the simple and the scoffer and the fool to knowledge of you and fear of the Lord. And we ask that you would do this in the power of your Holy Spirit and for the sake of Jesus Christ. And we pray in his name. Amen. Well, in our day, and around here at least, there aren't very many street vendors. There's not a lot of selling in the streets. The closest thing that we might have here is the ice cream truck that drives down this road with his little bell and jingle. Or maybe at the baseball game, the man walks around with beer and Cracker Jacks. But I think even these days, that guy, he doesn't even yell out Cracker Jacks or anything. You have to wave him down and ask for him to come over. You have to see him. But back in my day and where I grew up, we were very familiar with people selling things on the street. Many people, for their job, that's all that they would do is they would walk down the street pushing a cart full of whatever products they had. One guy is a knife sharpener. Another guy sells cleaning supplies. Another lady, she would carry around empanadas in a cooler that she would carry on top of her head. And another guy, he had his little cart of popsicles and ice cream for the equivalent of about five or 10 cents. And we as kids would hear the popsicle cart guy walking down the street and we would run out with our little bit of money and buy those popsicles. We would hear the lady calling out in the streets, empanadas. And it was much louder and much more dragged out than that. If you have watched soccer and you've seen someone score a goal and you know how the announcer says goal and he goes on and on and on, that's the noise. Except it was empanadas or huevos, which means eggs. This is what people would sell. This is what they would do, calling out in the streets to get your attention. Now, because we aren't very familiar with that kind of culture and we aren't very familiar with what life was like in ancient Israel, but that's similar to the days of Solomon, life in ancient Israel. People would sell their things, not on Amazon or eBay, but at the market and on the streets. And so if you're gonna get people's attention, You have to be louder than all the other people. You have to yell out what product you are selling and what price you're selling it for. If you were to go to Times Square and you see all around the lights and the advertisements and all the people, how are you gonna get attention in Times Square? You gotta be higher than everybody else and you gotta be louder than everyone else. And that's the picture of wisdom in this passage. That's the picture that you need to have in your mind of a lady. Notice how it uses she over and over again. It's a lady, like a middle-aged lady carrying her empanadas on her head. Here is lady wisdom calling out, crying out in the marketplace, wisdom. Wisdom is available. Come acquire wisdom. Get wisdom. She's saying you need to come get what I have on offer. That's the main idea of this passage that we're looking at today. And so in the first nine chapters of Proverbs, we have many lectures or sermons of a father speaking to his son. And you can see where those sermons start because he says, my son, my son, or hear my son. And so you're going to see that throughout Proverbs one through nine, but intermixed with these lectures, we have the father describing wisdom, and he describes her as a woman, a lady, because this young man is gonna be tempted by another lady, Lady Folly, the foolish lady. He's gonna be tempted by the adulterous woman, and so this young man needs to not see the value of the adulterous woman, or Lady Folly, but instead he needs to pursue another lady, Lady Wisdom. The father wants his son to have a relationship and get to know and wed himself to Lady Wisdom. So in between his lectures to his son, he goes on these poetic descriptions or explanations of who Lady Wisdom is and what she does. So we're gonna look at his first interlude about Lady Wisdom here in verses 20 to 33. So wisdom is speaking, but the father is describing to his son what wisdom says. So let's look at this passage, and first we see the invitation of Lady Wisdom, verses 20 to 23. First, in verse 20, we see what wisdom is doing. So notice where Lady Wisdom is. She's in the streets. She's in the market. She's at the head of the streets. So this would be at the top of the hill. Most towns were built on top of a hill and everything kind of goes up to the middle. And so everything is focused on the top of the hill. And it's at the top of the hill that she cries out to get everybody's attention. At the head of the streets, at the top, she cries out. She's at the city gate. She's at the entrance where the judges and the elders would sit. So, what this is trying to tell us is that wisdom is available everywhere. Wisdom is here, it's there, it's everywhere around you. Wisdom is calling out to you everywhere, publicly. The message is a public broadcast. The announcement is to anyone, all the time, everywhere. Everyone always needs wisdom. Everyone needs it everywhere all the time, but it's also available all the time. This is a public message. My interpretation of this passage and the rest of Proverbs is that Lady Wisdom represents the Lord. And you see that even here in verse 29, when they reject wisdom, it says, it's because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord. So to acquire this lady wisdom and to marry her is to enter into relationship with the Lord himself. It's to fear the Lord, to know the Lord and love him and trust him. And so we can make some parallels between knowing God and God himself and Lady Wisdom. And so what this passage is saying is that just as Wisdom is publicly announcing herself as available to anyone who will come and ask, so also the knowledge of God is everywhere, available, publicly broadcast. Romans 1 says that the knowledge of God is broadcast from creation. from the heavens. The heavens declare the glory of God, Psalm 19 says. Romans 1 says that nobody has an excuse to say that they don't know God because his invisible power and his divine nature and his attributes are clearly perceived in the things that have been made so that everyone is without excuse. This is not a mystery. This is not hard to figure out. It is clear to every human being that God exists, that He is powerful, that He is a loving and just and good God. These attributes of God are clearly perceived by everyone. All you have to do is look at the skies, look at creation, look at yourself, Look at your human body and how it has been made by a good designer. All of these things reveal the glory of God. And so God is calling aloud to every single person, glorify me, worship me. You know that I created you. You know that I created you for my glory. And everywhere you walk, everywhere you look, you see evidence of my glory. Come. Fear me. Know me. Have a relationship with me. But of course, the problem is, Romans 1 tells us, we suppress the truth. We push it down. We try to pretend that that truth doesn't exist in our hearts. But still, the knowledge of God is available everywhere. So she's everywhere. She's also loud. Notice how loud Lady Wisdom is. She cries aloud. She raises her voice. She cries out, verse 21. These words are used in the Old Testament to talk about distressing situations that other people face. So maybe you know the story of Joseph. And Joseph has not revealed yet to his brothers that he is one of their brothers. But then when he finds out that they really are his brothers, he tries to go off in secret, but it says he bursts into tears so that Egypt hears him crying and the household of Pharaoh hears him crying. That's the word that's used here of Lady Wisdom crying out, bursting into tears like a loud distress signal is being broadcast. That's how loud she is. because she wants everyone's attention. Because she knows she has an urgent message. Lady Wisdom isn't coming alongside you and saying, you know dear, it would be good for you to have some fear of the Lord in your life. Things will go well for you if you're a wise person. She's crying aloud all the time everywhere. How long will you love being simple? How long will you keep being a scoffer? How long will you fools hate knowledge? Because she knows this is an urgent message. Distress. and anguish are going to come upon you. Terror is going to strike you. It could strike you suddenly. You could die and you could be destroyed eternally. And if you keep ignoring me, you're going to receive the fruit of your ways. You're going to reap what you sow. So that's not a message to talk gently and quietly about. She's loud because this is an important message. And so this is an important message for us. This is an important message for children and for young men and young women as you face decisions that will determine the rest of your life. You could be wise or you could be a fool or end up a scoffer. and the decisions that you make will determine your future and your eternity. And so this is a message for you to urgently listen to, seek wisdom, choose the fear of the Lord. So now let's look at her invitation here. Her invitation in verse 22 is really a rebuke. How long? How long are you going to keep doing this? How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge? I'll notice the first person that she really is directly addressing is the simple one, the simple 10. So indirectly, she talks about the scoffer and the fool, but she's talking about them, but she's talking to the simple one. Simple one, how long will you love being simple? We can picture the father trying to communicate this message to his son. as his son has grown older, his son is a young man now, his son is about to venture out into the world, and yet the father has a suspicion that his son isn't really ready to live on his own in the real world. The son is a simple one, a simpleton. A simple one is someone who is spiritually immature, So you can picture the son who is bigger in size. He's grown up, but his maturity has yet to catch up with his physical size. Sort of like, you know, when you're growing, when kids are growing, and sometimes your feet get really big, and it's not really in proportion to the rest of your body, and eventually you grow up into your feet, if you know what I mean. Well, in the same way, the simple one needs to grow in maturity into who he or she is on the outside, the physical age that he or she is. The simple one is like what Hebrews 5 talks about when the writer says, by this time you ought to be a teacher. By this time you ought to be a man or a woman grown up enough By this time, you ought to be eating meat, but we have to go back and get the milk out. You've grown the teeth. You are able to eat meat, but you won't eat the meat, so we gotta go get the milk. By this time, you ought to be spiritually mature enough to be teacher, but we have to go back to the basics of the gospel. This is what it means to be a simple one. A simple one is naive. We talked in Sunday school about this weeks ago, that he doesn't know what he doesn't know. So if I were to plop you on top of a mountain in the Himalayas, you wouldn't even know where to start for surviving. You don't know the weather, you don't know what food is safe to eat, you don't know what to do. So what do you need to do? Acquire wisdom. Ask for help. The simple one doesn't know how much he doesn't know. He doesn't know where he needs to grow. And so, this is obviously talking about a spiritual condition, a spiritual maturity. You might be a Christian, but still spiritually immature. And some people might claim to be believers, but they don't even really know what it really means to be a believer. They say, well, I believe the basics, I go to church, what else do you want from me? And sometimes you try to help people, you disciple and help them mature and you talk about loving God with your heart and hating your sin and fighting against your sin and becoming more holy and these concepts just make no sense to them. That's what it means to be a spiritual simpleton. And then the next person that she talks about is the scoffer. The scoffer is the worst kind, even worse than a fool, because the scoffer has hardened his heart. He mocks God. He delights in mocking God. He makes it his mission in life to tear down God and those who follow God and to tear down the wise. The scoffer is the person who puts the sticker on the back of his car of the Darwin fish. And the fish has got the legs on it and it says Darwin and it's eating the Christian fish. It's like you just hate Christians so much, you just hate God so much that you just want everybody to know that you want Christians to get eaten up. I mean, symbolically speaking. The scoffer is the atheist who hates God and yet makes it his mission in life to hate the God that he says doesn't exist. He loves to tear down this God that he doesn't believe in. He hates God. Why not just leave Christians alone? Why not just leave people who believe in God alone? It's because you're a scoffer. And then there is the fool. The fool is the know-it-all. That's why she says here he hates knowledge. He hates knowledge because he thinks he has all the knowledge. He thinks he knows everything. So he's never going to ask for help. He's never going to listen to anyone. He doesn't necessarily hate God. He just feels no need for God because He has everything. He knows everything. So, what does wisdom say? She says in verse 23, The invitation. or the rebuke is stop it. Stop being simple. And then she says, if you will do this, if you will turn at my reproof, my rebuke, stop being simple, you'll get my spirit and you'll understand my words. So turn, turn. Proverbs 29 verse one says, he who is often reproved yet stiffens his neck will be broken beyond healing. It's like a image of an ox, an animal that just will not turn his neck and somebody yanks it so hard that the neck breaks. Like when you're trying to jam some piece of plastic into something and you just keep jamming and jamming it and then it's just gonna break because the plastic isn't flexible enough. And so, You need to turn at the rebuke is if you don't, if you keep ignoring the rebukes, then you will be broken beyond healing. So she says turn. That's just the word that means repent, repent of your sins, turn from your way of life and turn towards the fear of the Lord and knowing the Lord. And if you do this, you will receive God's spirit. God's Spirit will be poured out on you, and then the Spirit will help you to understand God's words. The Spirit gives us knowledge of the truth. Because we suppress the truth in unrighteousness, we are unrighteous, we are blind to truth. We need the Spirit to open our eyes, to show us the truth, And so we need to repent of our sins. We need to call upon God to give us his spirit, to reveal his truth to us. So here's the invitation. Stop being simple. Turn at this reproof and you'll receive the Holy Spirit. Before we go on to the warning, let's think about this invitation as it's offered to us. Maybe you know the term, the free offer of the gospel. We believe in the free offer of the gospel, that the gospel of Jesus Christ can be offered to every single person in the world. We can say to any human being, Christ has died on the cross. Christ has risen from the dead. And if you will turn to the Lord Jesus Christ and repent of your sins and trust him as savior, you will be saved. That offer is open and available to anyone. Anyone who will turn to Christ will be saved. Isaiah 55, God says, Come buy wine and milk without money and without price. And so it's a free offer because the wine and the milk are free. You don't have to have any money to come to the Lord Jesus Christ to come and know God. And so wisdom calls out to everyone. Wisdom is a free offer. Here's the free offer of the gospel, the free offer of wisdom. Turn, turn to know the Lord, turn and fear the Lord and you will be saved. You will receive the Holy Spirit. Jesus and John, chapter seven. Did something that sounds a lot like Lady Wisdom here. John 7 37 says that on the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles on the great day, Jesus stood up. He stood up. probably on top of something, on top of a box, who knows, he stood up in front of the crowds. As all the crowds were walking by, milling around, the biggest crowd of the week on that great day of the feast, Jesus stood up and he cried out. He cried aloud and he said, if anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Jesus freely offered the gospel. All that is needed is that you be thirsty. If anyone thirsts, you may come to Christ. And so Jesus, like wisdom, calls out to anyone and everyone, turn and come to me and you will be saved. All you need to do is recognize your thirst. See, the problem is that the simple one loves being simple. The scoffer delights in scoffing in the fool hates knowledge. Those who don't think they're thirsty will not come to Christ. Those who don't see any need for the wine and milk that God is offerings freely. They're not going to come drink the wine and the milk. Those who don't see their guilt of sin will not come to Christ. Those who do not see their foolishness and simpleness, they will not acquire wisdom. See your need. Turn so that you will not be broken. Receive God's spirit. Well then, in this last part of the passage, verses 24 to 33, we have the warning of what will happen if you refuse. Maybe wisdom is crying out in the streets and she sees a bunch of people walk by. Nobody's buying. Nobody's listening to her. And so maybe she stops and says this, and she's still talking directly to the simple one. She says in verse 24 because I have called and you refuse to listen, have stretched out my hand and no one has heated because you have ignored all my counsel and would have none of my reproof. I also will laugh at your calamity. I will mock when terror strikes you. When terror strikes you like a storm and your calamity comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you. She says that she's called and people are refusing. She stretches out her hand. Now this could be like an invitation to come, but this term is used in the Old Testament, the stretching out the hand as a negative. God stretches out his hand against Pharaoh when he sends the plagues. Exodus 15, God stretches out his hand and the sea falls upon the chariots of Egypt. And so the stretching out the hand would be to come and bring judgment on someone. It could be like this lady, people are walking by and she smacks them in the head. Listen, I'm talking to you, you simpleton. Yes, you. She's smacking them in the head. And they still walk by, they still don't listen. I think that's the idea of what she's saying. So she stretches out her hand. No one has heeded. They ignore all her counsel. They don't want her reproof. So she says, I will laugh at your calamity. Now, if wisdom is representing God here, it might seem a little strange to you that God would laugh at people's calamity. Some of you might say, well, I mean, it's wisdom here. It's not really God. Well, we do have other parts of the Bible that say this, that in Psalm 2, God sits in the heavens and He laughs as the nations plot in vain against Him. Psalm 37 and Psalm 59 both say that God laughs at the wicked. So, this isn't something that we talk about much or that is on the list of the attributes of God. God is the one who laughs at the wicked. This isn't in the Romans Road evangelism booklets. You know, if you go through the Romans Road and they still ignore you, then make sure you tell them at the end that God's going to laugh at them and their calamity. We don't usually think of God like this. This is what the Bible says in a few places about God. He laughs He mocks when terror strikes them. So how do we think about that? Well, one thing that does make it a little less harsh is that you notice the calamity is happening to the person. It's not like wisdom says, I'm going to strike you down myself and then laugh at you. But the calamity, the disaster is the consequence and the result of the foolish life, the foolish decisions. Now it's true when we talk about God, of course God is the one who judges and God brings eternal destruction when he condemns people to hell for rejecting him. But there is a sense in which this is just the natural consequence of the holiness of God. God has to show his wrath. Wrath is the action of holiness responding to sin. It's your bed, you gotta lie in the bed. You decided to sin against the holy God, you will receive the natural consequence, which is the eternal wrath of God. So disaster must come upon the wicked, upon those who sin against him. There does seem to be this sort of comical way of showing this story of these people who are ignoring wisdom because you're seeing someone who is just so arrogant so prideful, who just refuses to listen to anyone, refuses to change. And so there is some comedy to the fact that they would then fall as the consequence of their foolish decisions. In the Greek myth, Icarus wants to be God. He wants to go up into the heavens. And so he decides that he's gonna make himself some wings. And his father is like, Icarus, don't do this. Don't do this. This is really dumb. You're gonna die, Icarus. But he is so proud and he is so arrogant. He wants to be a god. And so he makes wings. He makes them out of wax. And there he is, he goes up in the sky, he's flying for a little bit, and he is so happy, and he is so proud of himself, he thinks he is so great. But of course, the sun melts the wax, and he falls. And that myth, I mean, I'm sure some of you, you're probably sitting there feeling bad for Icarus, but the myth is portrayed as a comedy. Look at this arrogant man. and how he brought destruction on himself. That's the idea of what this passage is telling us. Either way, what God is telling us is that something very serious will happen to those who ignore him. Disaster will strike. there will be calamity. He says it's like a storm, a whirlwind. Picture a hurricane. A hurricane is destructive because it is very strong. And so you can't resist it. And it also comes on you suddenly. If you know that the hurricane is coming and you are wise enough to evacuate, you have a chance of surviving. But if you don't evacuate, There's a good chance you will be destroyed. And so that's what he's saying about the disaster of God, the arrogant man, the proud man who thinks he needs no God, who is the fool or the simple one. He keeps going on his life and he lives life however he wants. But then one day disaster strikes. The storm comes. And he can't escape on that day. It's too late on that day. His life is destroyed. And you can see that as a natural consequence for a lot of people in their lives as they continue to ignore the Lord and ignore his wisdom. And then you see one day your spouse leaves you because of all the destruction that you have caused in your marriage. One day you find yourself in addiction because of all the destructive decisions that you have made in your life. There are hundreds, thousands of examples that we could give of people who continue to be fools and you watch them destroy their lives and there's nothing you can do about it. They won't stop. And finally, destruction comes on them. But ultimately, this is pointing to an eternal destruction. Because here's what we see now in verses 28 to 31. They will call upon me, but I will not answer. They will seek me diligently but will not find me because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord would have none of my counsel and despise all my reproof. Therefore they shall eat the fruit of their way and have the fill of their own devices. You see that at some point There's no turning back. There's no second chance. Wisdom called aloud in verse 28. Wisdom was calling aloud. They kept ignoring wisdom. And now they're being destroyed. They're calling out for wisdom. Wisdom is going to ignore them. The father says, seek wisdom. If you get anything else, get wisdom. The son says, nah, now I'm gonna get pleasure. I'm gonna pursue money. Seek wisdom, and then they get destroyed, and then they wanna seek wisdom, but verse 28 says, wisdom won't be there. You won't find wisdom after the destruction has come. There's no second chance. There's a point where there is no return. You hated knowledge. You did not choose to enter into a relationship with the Lord. You kept ignoring and despising, so you will reap what you sow. This is a final judgment, an irreversible, eternal judgment. It's an eternal death from ignoring the fear of the Lord. When people choose their sin over the Lord, it brings destruction. So it is like the story of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16. Lazarus and the rich man both die. There's a chasm fixed between them and the rich man is being tormented in hell and he begs for a drop of water and Abraham is over there with Lazarus and he says, There's no way to cross over now. There will be no relief for you. And so the rich man, knowing that he will be tormented in hell forever, he says, well then please go warn my brothers. Abraham says, if they did not listen to Moses and the prophets, they wouldn't even listen to someone rising from the dead. When Abraham says Moses and the prophets, he's referring to all of the Old Testament. So we could say, could put this in the mouth of Abraham, if they did not listen to Proverbs chapter one, they won't listen if someone rises from the dead. Proverbs chapter 1 verses 20 to 33 are warning every single one of us that there is an eternal torment of hell and those who do not fear the Lord and have a relationship with the Lord will spend that eternity there and there will be no way to get out of it. there will be no turning back. That is the fruit of your ways for all of your life of rejecting the Lord. And so here in a pulpit is the word of God trying to smack you upside the head, crying aloud to you to try to get you to understand the importance of knowing the Lord. Judgment is coming. But she ends by saying the simple are killed by their turning away, the complacency of fools destroys them, but verse 33, whoever listens to me will dwell secure and will be at ease without dread of disaster. Verse 33 tells you, the way to be safe from the eternal judgment of God. Get wisdom, which means fear the Lord and know the Lord and come to the Lord through Jesus Christ. And through Jesus Christ, if you will hide in the Savior, you will be hidden in that rock when that day of disaster comes and when that storm comes. You will not have time to get to that rock after disaster strikes, after you die. But today is the day when you may run to the Savior. Today is the day when you may hide in the rock that is Jesus Christ. And in there, you will dwell secure when you face your death. And when you face the judgment seat of God, you'll be secure because your security is Jesus Christ, the one who is righteous, dying for the unrighteous, paying for our sins on the cross, rising from the dead. Are you simple? Do you need to learn more wisdom? Are you a fool? at God, may you turn at this rebuke, turn to Jesus Christ and know the Lord. Let's pray. Oh God, we do recognize your glory and your holiness, and we desire to humble ourselves before you in your mighty hand. Lord, we recognize our ways of foolishness, our lack of wisdom, our need for you, how we have not feared you. And yet we desire, Lord, to know you more. We desire to come to the Lord Jesus Christ, to drink of the water that he offers, to hide in the rock that is Christ. May that be true of each one of us. And we praise you. for this offer. We praise you that you cry aloud and you make your good news known to us. And so we pray all these things through the Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.