Give Ear To Wisdom's Voice

Proverbs 1:20-33

“Give Ear To Wisdom’s Voice”

To begin the preparation for today’s message, I came up with a list of 12 things I think are stupid.

You may agree or disagree with some or all of my list.

You may want to add your own perceptions to my list.

At any event, here is my list.

1. Hurling oneself on a motorcycle over a row of 15 tractor trailers to beat the record jump of 12 tractor trailers and ending up crashing into the 13th tractor trailer while your motorcycle and your body crash all at the same time.

2. Jumping onto the railing attached to a flight of steps while riding a skate board and crashing onto the cement without wearing any safety pads or a helmet.

3. Voluntarily entering into a plastic box and allowing someone to cover you with poisonous snakes.

4. Entering a live worm eating contest.

5. Robbing a bank and smiling at the cameras taking your pictures.

6. Asking for an aisle seat on an airplane so your hair doesn’t get messed up sitting too close to the window. (Really happened.)

7. The following label on a Sears Hair Dryer: “Do Not Use While Sleeping”

8. The following label on a child’s Superman Costume: “Wearing This Costume Does Not Enable You To Fly”

9. Setting up a business in Las Vegas in which men pay $10,000 to hunt and shoot naked women with paintball guns. The pellets travel at 200 mph and cause welts and bleeding when they hit the naked women’s flesh.

10. Women who want to participate because they get paid $2,500 if they are able to evade the paintballs, and $1,000 if they are hit.

11. Playing the arcade game at the shore in which you pay money to hold onto two metal rods while jolts of electricity are shooting through your body to see how much you can take.

12. Participating in a reality show to find the person you’re going to marry while competing against other contestants who want to marry the same Bachelor and then being told the Bachelor is not a Millionaire, and getting depressed because you were dumped.

Now I comprised this list because our sermon text from Proverbs, just happens to be talking about wisdom.

Wisdom is personified as a woman..

“Wisdom cries out in the street; in the squares she raises her voice.

At the busiest corner she cries out;

at the entrance of the city gates she speaks:”

I believe that the examples I gave from my list of 12 things that I think are stupid, proves that not everybody hears wisdom’s voice crying.

Or if they do hear wisdom’s voice crying, they choose to ignore it.

Now, I cannot say that I am exempt from doing stupid things.

If we’re honest, I believe that most of here today would admit to doing at least one stupid thing in their life.

In fact, in one of my favorite episodes of Stargate S.G. 1, a science fiction drama on the Sci-Fi channel, Colonial O’Neale is stuck in a time warp pattern and he keeps repeating a segment of his life.

How many of us would jump at the chance to redo a portion of our lives?

In fact, I heard on the radio that that is the theme of the next reality series…

Individuals are given a sum of money, and somehow given a chance to do a part of their life over.

I discovered in seminary, that Wisdom is a concept that I could spend the rest of my life studying.

To me, wisdom is fascinating.

My studies taught me that understanding is the key to wisdom.

Without understanding, words of wisdom have no voice.

One can say or shout words of wisdom to another, but unless the other person hearing the words of wisdom understands, the words are of no value to that person.

Most parents have probably said to their kids at one time or another, “Don’t touch the stove, it’s hot!”

But the concept and the lesson will probably not be learned until understanding is imparted…in other words, once the child touches the stove, the stove burns them, and they feel the pain from the burn, that is when they will understand why you teach them not to touch the stove because it is hot.

I’m sure almost any parent of a teenager could come up with a list of at least 12 items of wisdom to share with their son or daughter about growing up during the time of adolesence.

How wonderful it would be if we had the knowledge, wisdom, and experience we have in our 30’s and 40’s before we enter our teen years.

How many of our choices would have been very different?

And so as parents of teenagers, most moms and dads will try and impart their wisdom to their children in hopes that their children won’t make the same stupid mistakes they made when they were young.