Good evening. Please turn in your Bibles to the book of Proverbs, Proverbs chapter 2. And children, I know that many of you are currently, at least those of you in the school, are currently memorizing this entire chapter, or at least this section from Proverbs. I know my own children are a couple of verses in at this point. And so I do hope that this sermon this evening will, of course, be profitable to your souls, but also a great aid as you're committing this wonderful passage of scripture to your memory. Well, let's read together God's word. My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding, yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like treasure, or like silver, and search for it as for hidden treasures. Then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives wisdom. From his mouth come knowledge and understanding. He stores up sound wisdom for the upright. He is a shield to those who walk in integrity, guarding the paths of justice, and watching over the way of his saints. Then you will understand righteousness and justice and equity, every good path. For wisdom will come into your heart and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul. Discretion will watch over you. Understanding will guard you. delivering you from the way of evil, from men of perverted speech who forsake the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness, who rejoice in doing evil and delight in the perverseness of evil, men whose paths are crooked and who are devious in their ways. So you will be delivered from the forbidden woman, from the adulteress with her smooth words, who forsakes the companion of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God. For her house sinks down to death and her paths to the departed. None who go to her come back, nor do they regain the paths of life. So you will walk in the way of the good, and keep to the paths of the righteous. For the upright will inhabit the land, and those with integrity will remain in it. But the wicked will be cut off from the land, and the treacherous will be rooted out of it. So ends the reading of God's word. Let's pray once again. Lord God, we ask that you would help us to do even what we have read and been commanded to do by the Father here. Give us minds that are attentive to your word. Give us ears that are eager to listen and hearts that are receptive even as we're sitting here and perhaps feeling somewhat passive listening to a pastor preach a sermon. Lord, help us be active and not passive that we might listen and by faith receive the blessings you have for us even this evening. We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen. Well, in Proverbs so far, we have heard from several different voices. We've heard from the voice of perhaps Solomon himself in the opening introduction, introducing us to this whole theme of wisdom and how we come to know wisdom. Then we heard from the father, warning his son to keep away from the gang members, as it were. Then we heard the call of Lady Wisdom. And now once again as we enter into Proverbs chapter two, we hear again the voice of the father as he makes his passionate plea for his son to pursue the way of wisdom. And the father is urging his son to this because he wants his son to enjoy the blessings that come through pursuing wisdom. And this father, who is speaking in our passage, is also our father, our heavenly father, the one who is leading us in the path of life, and also the one who desires that we may continue in that path, that we might receive the blessings that he has for his people, primarily through communion with him. Well, what is the son to understand if he is to walk on this path? Well, notice there's an if-then pattern to this passage. Verse two, if you receive my words. Verse three, if you call out for insight. Verse four, if you seek for it like silver. These ifs are the conditions, are the requirements. If the son is to receive wisdom's benefits, well then the son must seek for wisdom like treasure and call out for it and search for it and so on. You see, God gives wisdom freely as a gift to his people, but it is a gift that we must ask for. It is a gift that we must seek diligently. Wisdom does not come to us without effort or sacrifice. It demands that we search for it ardently, just like one might search for hidden treasure. It's a pursuit that requires patience and diligence and discipline and humility. But it is a pursuit that is not without its own reward. For as the father moves from the ifs to the thens, he then goes on to reveal the astonishing rewards that await those who are willing to pursue wisdom. Chief among them, he says, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find knowledge of God. The great blessing that comes through the pursuit of wisdom is in fact a greater knowledge of God, a greater communion with Him and a greater love for Him. And so as we grow in our knowledge of Him and we pursue that wisdom, it will shape us so that we delight more and more in His ways and that we delight in Him and thus He will protect us from the paths of the wicked. Well, that's an overview, so let us now attend to God's word with our ears and incline our hearts so that we might gain wisdom. And in doing so, not merely accumulate more knowledge, but truly grow in our love of the Lord God. Let's consider this evening the pursuit of wisdom, the protection of wisdom, and the promise of wisdom. First, we see the pursuit of wisdom. In order to gain wisdom and to receive wisdom's benefits, well, there are conditions that must be met. There are requirements. There are things that we must do. We cannot sit idly by expecting that wisdom will fall from the heavens one day while we're sitting on our couch and land on our laps. No, wisdom is something that must be searched for. We must pursue it. As I mentioned, there's an if-then pattern. If you do this, then this will happen. And so the father is urgently calling his son to pursue wisdom with this if-then pattern. It begins in verse one. My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, In chapter one, the father called the son to listen to him. But here, the father is requiring of his son even more. Don't just listen, don't just hear me and keep an open mind. No, the father says, store up the things that I tell you. Treasure my counsel and my commandments. To store something up and to treasure it means to value it and to keep it safe so it won't get lost or stolen. I'm sure we all have something that we value greatly in this life, some kind of worldly physical object, perhaps. It might be something that you acquired while you were traveling, perhaps, to a foreign country. Or maybe it's something of great monetary value that you purchased at one point, perhaps a nice watch. Or maybe it's something that a grandmother or a mother or a parent or a grandfather gave to you before they died, and it's a very precious family heirloom. Well, what do you do with that thing? You don't leave it around kind of on the coffee table. No, you store it, you guard it, you put it somewhere safe where it will be protected from either robbery or damage or simply getting lost. That's what we do with what is precious to us. Well, in an even greater way, we are to guard and store wisdom, the wisdom of our Heavenly Father. And whereas you may keep your, Grandmother's pearl necklace in a safe box somewhere or a safe itself. Here we are told you are to lock wisdom in a far more intimate place. You are to guard wisdom in your heart. That's the point that verse two makes. That not only are you to attend to wisdom with your ear, but you are to incline your heart to understanding. The heart represents the core of your being, your soul, it's who you are. And there you are to treasure and store up wisdom. The heart is the core of your being, it's the source really of all that you do and think and say. It's from your heart that you live and act and interact with others. And if your heart is molded and shaped by wisdom, if wisdom is stored there and guarded there, well then that's what will flow out of your life. As Psalm 119 says, which we read earlier, or sang earlier, how can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word. With my whole heart I seek you. Let me not wander from your commandments. I have stored up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. And as we'll consider later, if you guard wisdom, wisdom will indeed guard you. Well, not only are we to incline our hearts to wisdom, but we're also to call out for wisdom. Verse three, yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding. It's been a while, but you might remember in the previous passage, it was Lady Wisdom who was calling out at the street corners, calling for the young, the ignorant, all to come to her. Well, now the father says, don't wait to hear her voice. You go calling for her. Search for her. Call out, inquire, seek wisdom. knowing that God gives generously to all without reproach. How do we call out for wisdom? Well, do we not call out for wisdom when we pray? As I did this morning, as her brother Phil did a moment ago. When we pray, we're asking God to help us and to fill the void that we lack, the wisdom that we lack. We ask that God, who is the source of wisdom and the end of wisdom itself, to fill us and to provide for us in these ways, knowing that he indeed gives generously to all without reproach. So we go to God because he's the source of wisdom. And so you, dear Christian, whether you are going through a trial of some kind, or you are dealing with a difficult situation, maybe even a difficult person. So you are called here to go to the Lord. Your first step must be to pray, to cry out, to ask God for the wisdom you lack, but which he generously provides. Well, our pursuit of wisdom, it might start with prayer, but it must not end there. We don't just pray for wisdom and then sit on our hands and kind of wait for things to happen. There is no let go and let God when it comes to wisdom. You first call out for it, he says, but then you must search for it, you must seek it, you must cultivate it, you must practice it. That's what the Father says next in verse four. If you seek it like silver and search for it as hidden treasures, So here the father is really giving some motivation and also urgency to the son's search for wisdom. My son, it's like if you knew there was treasure hidden in a field. You'd drop everything and go, and you'd find it. You must search for wisdom with urgency. Children, I don't know if this happens in your house, but every so often this happens in my house where I'll come home after a day's work or whatever and I'll put down my keys somewhere and then when I'm ready and I need to go somewhere else and I need to pick up my car keys, I can't find them. They're gone. Usually, in my defence, it's because a little toddler comes along and maybe picks them up from where I placed them and then places them somewhere else, in a little bag or something like that. It's funny to think about, but it's not funny when it happens. When you've got an elders meeting this coming Tuesday night. And then you're looking for your keys, and you know you're on a deadline, you've got to leave. And at that point, in my house at least, it's all hands on deck. I get everybody involved, and there's no cushion left unturned. Every sofa's torn apart and pulled apart, and we have to find the keys until finally we do. Or maybe you've had to do that once or twice for your own mom or dad when they've lost their keys. Now thankfully, every time I have misplaced my keys, or someone's borrowed them for a while, I have always gotten them back. But sometimes you can't find what you're searching for. And children, maybe you've experienced that. Maybe you had a toy or a trinket or something, maybe a toy you got for Christmas, or maybe you got from the prize box in school, something like that, and you misplace it, you can't find it. And you search for it and you search for it, and it doesn't matter how much time you spend searching for it, it never shows up. And then you feel disappointed, don't you, when you come up empty? And you might even feel a little bit empty. You feel a little bit unrewarded for your time. You might feel like it's a waste of time. Well, not so with wisdom. We are to eagerly pursue wisdom with the promise that after that pursuit or through that pursuit, we will never come up empty. The Lord will always reward wisdom to those who seek wisdom. God promises that the effort we spend on this pursuit of wisdom will be rewarded. And there are all kinds of things in life that we can waste our time on. So many things that are time suckers, time we'll never get back, time that will be unrewarded and wasted. But the pursuit of wisdom is not one of those things. We learn why in verse five, which is also where we find our first then clause. The Father essentially says, if you follow my instructions from verses one through four, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives wisdom. From his mouth come knowledge and understanding. He stores up sound wisdom for the upright. Here, the Lord promises that as we grow in wisdom, we grow in our love and knowledge of God. And that really is, isn't it, the true treasure of wisdom. The true reward of seeking after wisdom is that we will find God himself. Find wisdom and you will find God. Find God and you will find wisdom. And here, the father pictures God as being a store of wisdom and almost as if he's just got wisdom stored up in his mouth and he's ready to tell you it all if you listen, if you'll ask, and if you'll seek it. Well, beloved, as you have heard the call of the Father, not just some Jewish father from Proverbs, but your heavenly Father calling you to wisdom, Remember that you are the child and this is your father calling you to embark upon this pursuit, this treasure hunt. And as you consider that, consider again how it starts. The pursuit begins with listening. Children, you must listen to your parents, all of us. must listen to the voice of wisdom in all of the ways that it cries out to us, whether it's in sermons, or teachers, or teaching, or wise counsel by godly brothers and sisters, we must listen. And then we ourselves must call out for wisdom, giving ourselves to prayer, praying regularly for specific situations where we need wisdom, and we must search for wisdom like a hidden treasure. Well, as you think of your own life, does your life reflect the call of this passage to seek out the treasures of wisdom? Is it your habit to dig deep and mine the passages of scripture to unlock its treasures and jewels? When you are flustered and frustrated by the trials of life, do you spend time in prayer calling out for wisdom? Do you listen to wisdom's voice as it speaks through preaching, through spending time with wise and godly fellow saints? Well, gaining wisdom is anything but a passive activity. Sit and wait and it will pass you by, but search for it and you will find it. So go and mine and search and seek knowing that God gives generously and that in Christ we have a storehouse of treasures. First, we are called to pursue wisdom, to seek for it, to call for it, to treasure it and guard it. And what we find next is that if you seek wisdom, you'll receive wisdom. And if you guard wisdom, well, then wisdom will guard you. And that's the second thing we'll consider then, the protection of wisdom. Look at verses 7 and 8. God stores up sound wisdom for the upright. He is a shield to those who walk in integrity, guarding the paths of justice and watching over the way of his saints. One of the ways God shields us from harm and guards us is he says you're giving us wisdom. Verse eight says he guards our paths and he watches over the way of his saints. This language of path and way, of course, are metaphors for the way of our lives, the path that we walk on through this life. It is life's journey. And when we are following God and his ways, well, then he leads us along the good path. The word that is used here for saints is a variation of the word for chesed, which is God's covenant love. And so here the promise is that if you are one of God's people, if you are one of his beloved covenant people, he will lead you on the right path through the wisdom that he gives. But how will wisdom guide us? Well, we see that in verses nine to 11. Then you will understand righteousness and justice and equity and every good path. For wisdom will come into your heart and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul. Discretion will watch over you. Understanding will guard you. So one of the first ways that wisdom guards us is by giving us understanding of every good path. You will have understanding for what is the right thing to do in a situation. You will be able to discern what is the good path in life. That word for that, the word for that is discretion. The word discretion means to have insight and to have understanding. It means in the moment to be able to think through the multiple options that are presented before you and choose the right one. And the right one in the sense of the one that is the way of integrity. I mean there are many options we can choose from and there are many that can get us out of a sticky situation. They may not be the way of integrity though. The Lord leads us in the way that is right, the way of integrity, where we don't have to compromise through lying to cover for ourselves or any other kind of sinful way to get out of a jam quickly. No, the Lord leads us along good paths. So wisdom will guard us through knowledge and discretion of the right path. Wisdom will also keep us on the right path by causing us to love that path, Verse 10, for wisdom will come into your heart and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul. Here we see that the way of wisdom is not simply behavior modification. Wisdom doesn't simply touch on the outward things. Rather, it changes us in the core of our being. If you pursue wisdom, wisdom won't change your life. Wisdom will change you. You will be changed. you won't be left the same. And this is what we need. Humanity's greatest problem isn't simply that we don't have enough knowledge. And if we simply acquire enough knowledge, then we'll work ourselves out of all of our problems. If we only knew the right thing to do in a situation, oh, well, then we wouldn't have any problems. Now, there are some times we don't know genuinely what is the right or best way. But most of the time, I think we have a pretty good idea. And scripture teaches. that the problem we have isn't so much a lack of knowledge, because scripture teaches that the law is written on our hearts. No, the problem is that our hearts are broken, they're wicked, they are bent towards what is evil rather than towards what is good. And so the problem isn't that we lack knowledge, rather we have a problem of the heart. And even as believers, we know this to be true. We know the way that is evil. We know it's sinful. We know it's an offense to God. We know it's destructive. And yet at times, our hearts are drawn towards that thing. And what we need is for our hearts to be shaped and changed by God himself, to be made more like Christ. We need God to work in our hearts so that, as the Father says, wisdom will become pleasant to our souls. And then we won't want to walk on the path of the wicked. And we can say with the psalmist, I delight in your law. So God's wisdom will protect us by giving us knowledge and discretion. It will make us want to delight and walk in the wise paths. But why do we need this protection? You know, the father says that God is like a shield. From whom do we need to be shielded? Well, in verses 12 to 19, we are introduced to two rather unsavory characters who will appear again and again in the book of Proverbs, the perverse man and the wicked woman. In verses 12 to 15, we're introduced to the wicked man. We're told that he goes the way of evil. His speech is perverted. He is one who has forsaken paths of uprightness. He walks in darkness. And whereas the father has instructed the son to delight in wisdom, this man not only does what is evil, but we're told he delights in doing evil. He delights in the perverseness of his evil. Evil for this man is like a form of entertainment. He enjoys it. And we need to be delivered from the perverse man because we can be enticed by his perverse, smooth, manipulative words. This man calls and he says, come and join me, live a little, have some fun, see the world, experience the things of the world, don't miss out with your religious stuff. And if our hearts are unguarded, if they're unshielded by the father and his words, well then we may well be enticed to follow after the way of the perverse man. And so as the father says, my son, guard wisdom in your heart and that wisdom will guard you, it will keep you, it will protect you from the enticement of perverse men. The second character is this forbidden woman, the adulteress. Like the man, she also is described as one who is a forsaker. She has forsaken the companion of her youth, meaning she has left her husband, and where still she has forsaken God. She entices with her smooth words, her flattering compliments, her attractive looks, her alluring promises of pleasure and excitement and distraction from the mundane things of life. She is a seductress. How will wisdom deliver us from her? Wisdom shows us her end and the end of all who follow her. Verses 18 and 19. For her house sinks down to death, and her paths to the departed. None who go to her come back, nor do they regain the paths of life. I don't know if you've ever been to California, or you've probably seen pictures on the news. I don't know how much it's still happening, but when I was there in 2000, it was kind of happening a lot. These amazing looking houses, you know, built right onto the ocean in Southern California. A little bit too close, though. And they're built in these cliffs that are crumbling. And houses are literally falling off the cliffs down either into the ocean below them or whatever is below. You know, it's obviously a very terrible thing for the families who own those houses. But that's how this woman and her home is being pictured for us. It's enticing, it's flattering. But as soon as you step into one of those houses, you don't know if you're going to imbalance the house and the whole thing will go crashing into the sea. And that's what the father warns of the son. Yeah, it's enticing, it's flattering, she makes you feel good about yourself, but she's dangerous. And if you follow her, you will go to the way of death, you will crash into the sea of despair and death. And so wisdom gives you the discretion to see that all of her promises are empty. They sound great, she looks great, but it's empty. It is the way of death and suffering and sorrow. And the love of wisdom will cause you to say, never will I forsake my God with this forsaken woman. Now, of course, the perverse man and the adulterous woman come to us in many different forms. They could be actual people behaving and enticing us in the very ways that the Father has described here. Or they could be the sinful tug of our own hearts and our remaining sin. But whatever form they take, you must remember, dear Christian, that God promises deliverance. Both of these descriptions begin with a statement that you will be delivered from these two people. So in your temptation, whether it is by this perverse man or this seductive woman, God will protect you. His wisdom will be a shield if you use it. As Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 10, no temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability. But with the temptation, he will also provide the way of escape that you may be able to endure it. Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. Paul can say flee from idolatry because he knows that God protects us from the allurement and the enticement of idolatry. Paul can say flee idolatry because he knows that God gives us somewhere to flee to. It's not to some other idol, well I struggle with lust or whatever, well then I'll flee to drug use or something like that. No, we flee to Christ, we flee to God and the shield and the protection that he provides. Beloved, are you fleeing idolatry? Are there ways that you need to flee, not only the idolatry itself, but the paths that lead to idolatry? Because you're scratching your head, wondering, why do I keep falling into this sin? But all along the way, you're following the path to that sin. Is it time for you to get off that path, to abandon it, to flee it? Are there people in your life, perverse men and wicked women, maybe from your past, maybe in your present, who you know have a strong influence over you, and you just know that when you're around them, you feel the pressure to behave like them? And is it time to cut those cords and say, enough, and to flee and to part ways from them? God gives us wisdom. He is our shield so that we might use the shield that it is to avoid the path of the wicked, to flee from that path, not to flirt with that path. God gives us a way of escape. And so, put this scripture to your memory. And the next time you're tempted in some way, don't resign yourself to your pet sin that you've struggled with your whole life. Don't fall for that temptation to simply say, well, this is just the way I am, or this is just the way it is. This is who I am. No, instead, recall the promises of Paul in 1 Corinthians 10. Recall the promises of the father in Proverbs chapter two, that God will deliver you. He is your protector. He is your shield. trust in his promises, and pray more and more that God would give us hearts that abhor what is evil and cling to what is good, that we might know the protection of his wisdom. Well, if we pursue wisdom, then wisdom will protect us. But wisdom not only protects us now, it also contains great and precious promises for our future. And that's the third thing we see, the promise of wisdom, and this point is brief. Well, the final verses lay out the promised ends for the righteous and for the fool. Verse 22 tells us that the fool's end is destruction and landlessness. They will be uprooted from the land. But in contrast, we're told of the promises to the upright in verses 20 and 21. The father says, so you will walk in the way of the good and keep to the paths of the righteous. For the upright will inhabit the land and those with integrity remain in it. So the fool's end, the promise made to the fool is that if you keep going the way of folly, you will be landless. And the promise to the upright is that you will remain in the land. Well, what's this talking about? Well, of course, this is a reference to the land promises of the Old Covenant. Under the Old Covenant, Israel was promised blessings for obedience and threatened curses for disobedience. It was a works-based covenant. In fact, the phrase that describes how the wicked will be cut off and uprooted from the land is taken directly from Deuteronomy chapters 27 and 28, which describe the curses for covenant disobedience. However, all of the promises of the land here for the righteous in the Old Covenant, in the Old Testament, were never really about the land of Canaan, the physical land itself. The land in the Old Testament always stood for something more and something greater. It stood for our communion with God and our experience of him and his blessing and his presence among us. It wasn't simply that the Israelites really, really liked milk and honey, that they longed for the land flowing with milk and honey. No, they longed for the presence of the Lord. They did in their better days. And believing Israelites, like Abraham, knew this. Hebrews tells us that Abraham's faith wasn't in the land of Canaan. No, he was looking to that heavenly land whose founder and builder is God. And so this promise of being landed isn't the promise of a plot of real estate sometime in the future. No, this is the priceless blessing promised to those who pursue wisdom in the fear of the Lord, that we will be in his presence forever, that we will know his blessings. The previous passage, if you remember, laid out the horrors that await the wicked, eternal fire, Shoah, the Holocaust. But here we have the blessings and the joys of the new creation. And these blessings are for all who pursue wisdom in the fear of the Lord. And we remember that our right to these things, that the basis upon which they're promised, doesn't come through our own working, but through trusting in the one who is the source of wisdom, the one who is wisdom incarnate, the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ, Paul says, is the storehouse of all wisdom and treasure. And so in our pursuit of wisdom, that must not be separate from our pursuit of Christ. We will only inherit the land. We will only know eternal life and the land of mansions that Christ promises as we pursue Him, as we seek Him, as we call out to Him, and as we listen to His voice. And then He promises that all who receive Him, He gives the right to be sons of God. And so then, let us walk all of our days before Him, trusting in His righteousness, in His wisdom, looking to the land where righteousness dwells. Seek that eternal land and that eternal treasure so that you might, in the words of the Shema, love the Lord with all of your heart, with all of your soul, strength, and mind. Let's pray. Lord, we ask that you would help us now. You have called us to worship you with our minds, and we confess even on a Sunday evening that our minds are tired. Lord, we ask that the things we've heard from your word would not escape our minds like sieves, the things that we've heard this day, but that we might indeed store them as treasure hidden deep within our hearts, so that as we guard your wisdom and your word, you and your word and your wisdom would guard us. We ask these things, in Jesus' name, amen.