I’m going to assume that you all are familiar with a popular little game show called “Let’s Make a Deal.” It’s been on for, like, ever it seems. The “contestants” are offered various “mystery prizes” to choose from. Some of the prizes are really amazing and some of the prizes … well, they’re pretty lame. The “choice” is what makes the game entertaining … watching the contestant struggle with their greed, basically. “Should I take what’s behind the curtain? It could be something really big. Or should I take the little box in front of the host? It could be something really valuable.”
Solomon, who wrote this particular proverb, knows about making choices. One day, God gave Solomon a choice. “At Gibeon the LORD appeared to Solomon in a dream by night; and God said, ‘Ask what I should give you.’” Can you imagine for just a moment what you would do if God made you such an offer? [Pause.] Solomon’s answer is pretty surprising. He doesn’t ask for long life. He doesn’t ask for power or for wealth. He asks for … “wisdom” … the kind of wisdom that we find in the Book of Proverbs, which … surprise, surprise … as you know, he wrote. God was so pleased with Solomon’s answer that He not only gave Solomon what he asked for, wisdom, but what he didn’t ask for … “riches and honor” … “IF” … if Solomon walked in God’s way, kept God’s statutes and commandments. If Solomon did this, God promised him not only riches and honor but a long life. “If” Solomon chose to walk in God’s way and keep God’s statues and commandments, “then” God would give him what was behind Door #1: wisdom, riches, honor, and long life. And, Solomon did that for awhile and received what God promised … until … well … we’ll return to that later. For now, let us get back to our game show, “Let’s Make a Deal.”
The beginning of Proverbs 2 says that we are to seek ‘wisdom’ like we would seek silver or hidden treasure. You may not know this … or you may … but the audience members … you know, those people all dressed up like Daffy Duck and God knows what … have to audition to be a part of the audience. They come “seeking” … hoping … to be selected to be a part of the audience. Once they are selected to be a part of the audience, they “seek” … they hope … that the host will select them to compete for prizes. Once they are chosen to compete, they “seek” to make the right choice … the money or what’s behind the curtain … what’s in the box or behind Door #3 … and then they hope to be chosen to compete for the big prize at the end.
What we “seek” reveals what we desire. We don’t “seek” pain or suffering … at least I hope you don’t. We don’t’ seek misery or failure, right? We “seek” … we search for … what our heart desires … fame, fortune, peace, joy, wealth, hope, popularity … right?
When Solomon tells us to “seek” wisdom like a hidden treasure … when he tells us to seek wisdom like silver, he’s speaking from experience because he made that choice and knows the rewards of choosing wisdom because he experienced them just as God had promised … and now he’s encouraging us to do the same thing … to choose what God has to offer over what the world has to offer. The difference between what God is offering us and what Wayne Brady on Let’s Make a Deal is offering us is that there is no mystery … no doubt … about what choice we should make and why.
In Proverbs 1, “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” (vv. 20-21). Here, in Proverbs 2, Solomon, speaking to us as a father would speak to his son, tells us to do the same thing … to “cry out” for insight … to “raise” our voices for understanding … to seek out Wisdom just like Wisdom is seeking us … and the image of Wisdom crying out for us and us crying out for Wisdom paints a beautiful picture of two lovers calling out and seeking the desire of their hearts … God’s heart desiring that our hearts would seek Him and desire him like a hidden treasure or a pearl of great price.
As I said earlier, the game … Let’s Make a Deal … is based on making choices. Believe it or not, the words “if” and “then” are the very basis of the game. “If” you pick Door #1, “then” you get … “if” you pick Door #2, “then” you get. And the same thing is happening in Proverbs 2. “If” you accept my words,” says Solomon (v. 1) … “if” you treasure up my commandments within you (v.1) … “if” you make your ear attentive to wisdom” (v. 2) … “if” you incline your heart to understanding (v. 2) … “if” you indeed cry out for insight (v. 3) … “if” you raise your voice for understanding (v. 3) … “if” you seek wisdom (v. 4) … “if” you seek wisdom like you would search for hidden treasure (v. 4) … “THEN” … “then” you will understand the fear of the LORD … “then” you will find the knowledge of God (v. 5).
“If” you don’t accept Solomon’s words, “if” you don’t treasure up God’s commandments, “if” you aren’t attentive to wisdom, “if” you don’t incline your heart to understanding, “if” you don’t cry out for insight, “if” you don’t raise your voice for understanding, “if” you don’t seek wisdom like silver, “if” you don’t search for wisdom like you would search for hidden treasure … “then” you will never understand the fear of the LORD nor will you ever find the knowledge of God … and God really, really, really wants you to make the right choice. When we choose “wisdom,” says God, He will pour His heart out to you and make His thoughts known to you (Proverbs 1:23).
“If” we seek His wisdom, says Solomon, He will not only give us “sound wisdom” (Proverbs 2:7) but will shield those who walk blamelessly … He will guard the paths of justice … He will preserve the way of His faithful one … and “then” … when God does those things … shield those who walk blamelessly … guard the paths of justice … preserve the way of His faithful ones because they have chosen wisdom … “then” we will understand righteousness and justice … “then” we will understand equity … “then” we will understand and follow every good path … and not the path of evil … we will not be taken in by the lure of the world. So long as we accept God’s words, so long as we treasure up God’s commandments, so long as our ears are attentive to wisdom, so long as we incline our hearts to understanding, so long as we seek wisdom like silver and search for it like we search for hidden treasure … so long as we continue to do that, the LORD will give us “sound” wisdom, He will shield us so long as we continue to walk blamelessly, He will guard the paths of justice and preserve the way of His faithful ones … so long as we continue to seek wisdom, He will make it possible for us to understand righteousness and justice and equity and we will be able to clearly see every good path … and, as we continue to seek wisdom and travel down every good path, wisdom will come into our hearts, knowledge will be pleasant to our souls, prudence will watch over us, and understanding will guard us (Proverbs 2:10-11).
Let me … well, let God … tell you what’s behind the door marked “Wisdom.” The Hebrew word for “sound wisdom” “denotes clear, proficient thinking in the exercise of power and practical operations” that suggest “stability, efficacy, confidence, and resilience” (van Leeuwen, R.C. The New Interpreter’s Bible: A Commentary in Twelve Volumes. Volume V. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press; 1997; p. 43). I like the way that Solomon describes it better. Wisdom will come into your heart … knowledge will be pleasant to your soul … prudence or discretion will watch over you … and understanding will guard you.
When Solomon says that “sound wisdom” will come and dwell within your heart, he is describing God touching your heart and stirring you to the very core of your being … not tickling your ears like the world tends to do. “Prudence” or “discretion” is the capacity for private, hidden thought … thought that comes from the wisdom that God has planted in your heart. “Understanding” is the ability to bring heart and mind together so that we don’t make the wrong choice, or go down the wrong paths of power and/or privilege.
Wisdom “will save you from the way of evil, from those who speak perversely, 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; those whose paths are crooked, and who are devious in their ways” (Proverbs 2:12-15). In other words, “if” you chose to “forsake the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness” (v. 13), “then” you will end up like those who speak perversely or “topsy-turvy.” In other words, without wisdom we can’t tell nonsense from good advice and we will be fooled by those who are good at fooling themselves. They rejoice in doing evil and delight in the perverseness of evil and “if” we don’t have wisdom … “if” we don’t have knowledge and insight and understanding that comes from the wisdom that comes from God, “then” we are likely to walk with them on crooked paths and justify in our hearts our devious ways because we won’t have God’s wisdom in our hearts to “walk in the way of the good, and keep to the paths of the just” (Proverbs 2:20).
Just as Wisdom calls to us in the streets and in the squares, the busiest corners, and the city gate, there is another voice calling us … the voice of Pleasure. Solomon describes Pleasure as an “adulteress,” a “loose” or “strange” or “alien” woman. When you pick what lies behind the door marked “Pleasure,” says Solomon, you will forget the promises you made to God in your youth. With her smooth words, Pleasure will lead you down a path that ends in death and “those who go to her never come back nor do they regain the paths of life” (Proverbs 2:18-19).
Jesus, Wisdom Incarnate, advised us to enter through the narrow gate, “for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Matthew 7:13-14). And the few who find it don’t find it by blind luck. They don’t find it by stumbling upon it. They find it, says Solomon, because they have wisdom … they have God’s knowledge, they have God’s prudence, they have God’s insight, they have God’s understanding guiding them, protecting them, shielding them, watching over them. Wisdom, says Biblical scholar Michael V. Fox, “will protect you from the temptations of the wicked man and woman …, because when they try to seduce you to their ways, you will be able to look inward, maintain independence of thought, and stand up to their inveiglements” (cited in The New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. V., p. 44). The voice of the “adulteress,” the “strange” or “alien” woman are smooth but it is not as powerful or as convincing as the voice of Wisdom but you can’t look within, you can’t listen to the voice of Wisdom if you don’t seek the voice of wisdom, amen? If you don’t treasure up or store up God’s commandments within your heart, if you don’t incline your ear and your heart towards wisdom.
Imagine that you are now playing the ultimate version of Let’s Make a Deal. God has told you what’s in the box marked “Wisdom.” He has also told you what’s behind the door marked “Power” and the door marked “Pleasure.” Now it’s time for you to choose. Some shout, “Pick Power.” Others shout, “Pick Pleasure.” You look at the little box. You look at the two big doors … and you go with the little box … you go with Wisdom.
Some in the crowd groan and others shout their disapproval.
“Okay,” says the Lord of Hosts, “before we show you what’s in the box, let’s see what’s behind Door #1 and Door #2.”
You hold your breath as Door #1 … Power … opens. The crowd gasps. It’s a brand-new car … and not just any car but the car of your dreams. Everything about the car is perfect … the make, the style, the color. Again, there is an audible groan of surprise and disappointment. A few chuckle because they would have chosen Door #1 and gotten the car and you didn’t. You look at the box and begin to wonder if you made the right choice. What if there’s nothing but air in the box?
At this point, a beautiful angel walks over to the car and touches it and it falls over. You and the audience gasp in surprise. It turns out that it wasn’t a car but the picture of a car … a cardboard cutout. The Lord of Hosts smiles: “I told you what was behind Door #1 … Power … nothing but vain, empty promises. Let’s see what’s behind Door #2, Pleasure.”
The curtain goes up and out steps the most stunning and beautiful person that you’ve ever seen. Your jaw drops. The audience “ohs” and “ahs.” And then the angel walks over to them and removes the mask that is hiding a scarred, grotesque face. The audience draws back in horror.
The room falls silent as the Lord of Hosts prepares to open the box marked “Wisdom.” For some reason, it looks a lot smaller than it did before. You hold your breath. The Lord opens the box and it contains … [pause] … the knowledge, the understanding, the insight that is truly pleasant to your soul because it will shield you, protect you, watch over you, guide you and keep you from the way of evil and save your from the adulteress with her smooth words.
“All this wisdom is yours,” says the Lord of Hosts, “so long as you accept my words, so long as you treasure or store up my commands within you, so long as you keep turning your ear to wisdom, so long as you keep inclining or applying your heart to understanding. So long as you continue to do these things,” promises the Lord of Hosts, “you will continue to walk in the way of the good and keep to the paths of the just and you will remain upright and abide in the land. ‘For the upright will abide in the land, and the innocent will remain in it,’ says the Lord of Hosts, ‘but the wicked will be cut off from the land, and the treacherous will be rooted out of it’” (Proverbs 2:21-22).
Solomon should know. Remember, so long as he treasured up God’s commandments, so long as he listened to Wisdom, so long as he sought wisdom and understanding like hidden treasure or silver, he was able to walk upright, blamelessly … he understood righteousness and justice, and equity. Prudence watched over him until … [pause] … he stopped and listened to the smooth words and seductive voice of the adulteress. “When Solomon was old,” says the Bible, “his wives turned away his heart after other gods; and his heart was not true to the LORD his God, as was the heart of his Father, David. … So Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, and did not completely follow the LORD, as his father David had done” (1st Kings 11:4, 6) and he began worshipping the gods of his wives and, as a result, the LORD said to Solomon: “Since this has been your mind and you have not kept my covenant and my statues that I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom from you and give it to your servant. Yet for the sake of your father David I will not do it in your lifetime; I will tear it out of the hand of your son” (1st Kings 11:11-12).
When we make the right choice, when we make what should be the obvious choice, this is what we win [point to Communion table] … or, more accurately, this is what Jesus won for us … our salvation … a great treasure worth more than all the silver, all the treasure, all the power, and all the pleasure that the world has to offer, amen?
