The Good Life Series

Proverbs 2: 1 – 22

The Good Life

1 My son, if you receive my words, and treasure my commands within you, 2 So that you incline your ear to wisdom, and apply your heart to understanding; 3 Yes, if you cry out for discernment, and lift up your voice for understanding, 4 If you seek her as silver, and search for her as for hidden treasures; 5 Then you will understand the fear of the LORD, and find the knowledge of God. 6 For the LORD gives wisdom; From His mouth come knowledge and understanding; 7 He stores up sound wisdom for the upright; He is a shield to those who walk uprightly; 8 He guards the paths of justice, and preserves the way of His saints. 9 Then you will understand righteousness and justice, equity and every good path. 10 When wisdom enters your heart, and knowledge is pleasant to your soul, 11 Discretion will preserve you; Understanding will keep you, 12 To deliver you from the way of evil, from the man who speaks perverse things, 13 From those who leave the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness; 14 Who rejoice in doing evil, and delight in the perversity of the wicked; 15 Whose ways are crooked, and who are devious in their paths; 16 To deliver you from the immoral woman, from the seductress who flatters with her words, 17 Who forsakes the companion of her youth, and forgets the covenant of her God. 18 For her house leads down to death, and her paths to the dead; 19 None who go to her return, nor do they regain the paths of life— 20 So you may walk in the way of goodness, and keep to the paths of righteousness. 21 For the upright will dwell in the land, and the blameless will remain in it; 22 But the wicked will be cut off from the earth, and the unfaithful will be uprooted from it.

In case you did not know, Solomon is credited with being the writer of three books of the bible. As a young man being in love, he wrote the Song of Songs. Then at the end of his life after he had forsaken the directions of our Adoni Yahweh, Father God, he penned the book of Ecclesiastes where he looks at his life and freely admits that he blew it. As he matured as a Father, we see his thoughts of passing along truths and wisdom to his children in the form of Proverbs.

As a professor with eager students Solomon expresses to his readers the conditions that are needed in acquiring this wisdom. First of all one needs to be ready and willing to receive God’s Wisdom.

1 My son, if you receive my words, and treasure my commands within you 2 So that you incline your ear to wisdom, and apply your heart to understanding; 3 Yes, if you cry out for discernment, and lift up your voice for understanding 4 If you seek her as silver, and search for her as for hidden treasures; 5 Then you will understand the fear of the LORD, and find the knowledge of God.

Some of you who have gone to college can relate to my thoughts here. I think to a large degree all colleges and universities rip the students off by having us all go through the first two years as freshmen and sophomores. They make us take what I would call advanced high school courses. As you know the last two are where you can finally get down to the courses in your field of interest.

Solomon points out to us that you have to have a keen interest in obtaining God’s Wisdom. If you do not have this in effect you are just wasting your time.

Please take note here that the purpose in seeking wisdom is to be in order to understand the fear of The Great Holy Adoni Yahweh, and in order to find the knowledge of God, and that great effort must be exerted to that end. A key thing to remember is that The Holy Spirit is interested in the ‘serious’ not the ‘curious’ to impart His Wisdom and Knowledge to.

Men like to make lists so our Wonderful Holy Spirit gives us the steps to take if we truly want to obtain wisdom. Please note the progression of thought.

1. ‘incline his ear and apply his heart/mind’ to wisdom and understanding;

2. then he is to ‘cry after’ discernment and understanding

3. ‘seek’ and ‘search for’ wisdom and understanding as men seek silver and search for buried treasure.

In our last study we looked at Proverbs 1. Remember the greedy and violent men in verse 13 who sought ‘all precious substance’ and to ‘fill their houses with spoil’. There they wanted ill-gotten gain and would do anything to obtain it. But here the search is to be for the precious substance of truth. The seeker after truth is to have the same eagerness for truth as the sinner has for wealth, but in his case it is to be an eagerness to obtain the discernment and understanding which will enable him to understand the fear of Almighty God.