If any man speak, let him speak as the Oracles of God; if any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth: that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion for ever and ever. Amen. .. 1 Peter 4: 11
Doth not wisdom cry? and understanding put forth her voice? Proverbs 8: 1
There is a general perception backed by substantial evidence that there are increasing shortages in many of the world's valuable resources - animal vegetable and mineral.
There is a shortage of money from governments. Industry is cutting back on jobs. Almost everywhere we look we hear of or experience cuts, cuts, cuts. Decisions are almost always like a great chain saw cutting away at the forests of man's substance. We are like trees waiting to be cut down or cut back to the roots. Technology has become the grind stone sharpening this chain saw of cuts impacting on every aspect of our lives and environment. One of the few things escaping these cuts is man's greed and his sin. Indeed cuts are often required because someone has had more than their fair share or wasted or plundered or stolen.
There is also one good thing that there is no shortage of and it may come as a complete surprise when I tell you that this thing is Wisdom. Wisdom ? This seems like a complete contradiction, doesn't it . If there was an abundance of wisdom then things ought not to have been like they are or wisdom isn't working or worthwhile.
Practically all governments agree that we need to improve education, drive up the average literacy of the population and this is likely to lead to an improvement in the economy, living standards and that elusive 'feel good factor'. Get everyone trained. Improve minds. Make information available to the masses. Provide easy access to education and the Internet !
Now these are all noble ideals but rather simplistic and unrealistic when you consider that you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink it. The horse may not even possess the horsepower required to get there. How many times have you experienced this attitude in people. For every x person who will do the 'right thing' There are a good x9 * x9 persons who won't.
This is a simple example of the fact that people won't follow basic practical good advice even when it has been 'scientifically' proven that they should. Example 1. It is not good to smoke. Government Health Warning - 'Smoking can damage your health'. Reaction from hard-line smokers: it's my right to smoke. This interferes with my choice. Result: continue smoking no matter what. No matter that smoking in pregnancy can kill the child you claim to love.
Example 2. Drugs can destroy you, your family and friends - Now this one gets widespread backing. Reaction: Sell more drugs and take more drugs: Result: drug barons and peddlers get richer and richer, addicts die, families grieve.
Well the list could go on and on to include the ill effects of many vices like race hatred, pornography, self righteousness, boasting, pride, deceit, sodomy, murder, drunkenness, wealth and pleasure worshippers, gambling, idolatry, adultery, fornication, oppression, witchcraft etc.. Each time the answer will be the same - Man stubbornly continues against the wisdom of truth to his own detriment. Truth and sense are like interfering old aunts that patronise 'intelligent' man. Wisdom is itself a prudish notion to be kicked about like an old football bladder punctured and gone out of fashion.
People question its relevance as if it were a mother superior turning up to a raving disco for a night out on the town or a hippopotamus attending an opera with nouvelle cuisine dining to follow .
The fact that there is such a negative attitude to wisdom and truth illustrates directly the authentic reliability of God's Word. It is because wisdom is so visible that it is rejected - since men love darkness rather than the light. They will not come to the light because their deeds are evil. They do not wish God's truth to shine on them in a discerning way. They want a religion and way of life that at best scratches the surface to secure ongoing respectability and morality. God's truth is therefore far too uncomfortable to tolerate.
Yet the Bible teaches - Does not wisdom cry ? It is saying in spite of the fact that wisdom has got its voice raised in the market places of this world, in full view and wide publicity, we choose to ignore it and then we say where is wisdom ? If only someone showed me the way. If there is a God why doesn't he speak to me and deal with me face to face? The simple answer is, if we ignore the basic truths of life how can we square up to the Ultimate Truth and Light ? We have willingly turned to ignorance and stupidity which has lead us to confusion and pointlessness and then we ask ' What is the meaning of this life ?'
Man is prepared to go on extremely long journeys in the WRONG direction to find his own version of the truth. He has been travelling this way for a long time. He is determined to become a master of his own fate. He believes that he can face death and eternity with the most ridiculous and sparse inventory of his own wisdom. There is a way that seems right to man but the end thereof are the ways death. Proverbs 16:25
Even a cartoon recognises when it has been foiled. In a leading Tom and Jerry cartoon, the Dog is fooled by Tom the cat into going down the wrong path. A bubble appears to Dog . What do we see inside this bubble ? Yes, you guessed it - it is a rather silly looking jack ass. Satan and man's sin have made a jack ass out of him. Satan has this rather experienced view of man and the hosts of hell have come to know it rather well.
From the time that Adam and Eve rejected God's wisdom and fell for the Serpent's view, that same old Serpent - the Devil, has been using the same old ploy again and again. Has God said no to this ? Why shouldn't you do it ?
The Devil has his own version of wisdom. The best ploy used by Satan today is: I am not real, I am the invention of religious fanatics. After all, do you really believe there is some red creature with horns and an arrowhead tail holding a pitchfork ?!
And the most remarkable part of that ploy is that the Devil is right, there isn't such a person. This effigy of the real danger only lives in the superstitious imagination of many Westerners and in the other versions created by those who occupy the rest of Earth. What Satan left out was that he is a real spiritual entity of Evil - such evil that even man's iniquity cannot fathom. Man is physically wicked. Satan is spiritually and powerfully wicked. He has the power and ability to advance wickedness. He grants to his obedient servants the strength to do so. Man is therefore a very efficient and capable sinner.
Isn't it strange that Wisdom cries in the market places. God pleads with man and provides Divine revelation. The Bible is the most prolific and dispersed book on earth and yet despised and unheeded. In it God pleads with man to return to Him for deliverance and salvation and new life. God sets out his character and Person, His likes and dislikes. Satan on the other hand is always careful not to publicise who he is or what his intentions are. He has no widely dispersed book and yet he is widely read and obeyed with ardent, blind reverence by men everywhere.
No one questions his dictates. Those who do are ridiculed and despised and even destroyed physically. Satan is truly the god of this world. Yet the Book of Books has declared that when a stronger than he shall come:
He will cast out the devils with the finger of God
He will overcome the strong man i.e. the Devil and Satan
He will take the armour in which he trusted from him
And he will divide up his spoils i.e. goods Luke 11: 20-22.
How much does this wicked master - the Devil care for his tragic subjects? He cares for them. He provides all the fuel of lust they need to drive them on in wickedness and rebellion against the King of Kings and Lord of the Universe. But how much does he care for them eternally and in real terms ? He rewards them with death and hell - a place of torments. In this life he drives them into the blind alleys of confusion and wilful disobedience - destroying families, villages, cities, towns, continents and a world of the souls of men and women, boys and girls.
His desire toward them is that they should all share his own destruction and banishment from a truly loving caring God. He wants every soul to writhe with him in the place of hopelessness and unending suffering called 'Gehenna' - Hell.
The Lord Jesus Christ describes that place as a place 'where their worm does not die'. The picture here is of a worm destroying not the physically rotting dead flesh, putrefying in the grave but a spiritual entity constantly cannibalising and unceasingly hacking at a mans soul in the unbearable heat of supernatural torments. No language can describe the living death of hell. No suffering on earth can begin to compare or approach the best moment in hell.
Jesus Christ whose name is blasphemed and ridiculed daily - How much does He care ? He cared, He cares. His care like wisdom cries in the open places of this world despite the attempts of wicked men and Devils to hush it. His care has cried throughout history. Wherever we go or look there is mans poor replica of his care - in the crucifixes that litter the religious establishments now much removed from the true reality of Christ's death upon the wooden stake. Christ's care does not come through history in the picture of one curled up within himself - it comes with One whose arms are outstretched. One who is impaled to a Roman cross as a travesty of justice. Written above this cross as an international statement is His title 'King of the Jews'. This picture is an inaccurate picture of the real Christ, if it is taken as a static picture.
Note we see no prolific emblems of a risen Jesus Christ worn around the necks of some of those who claim to profess him and by those making a fashion statement. They wear no emblem of a triumphant Jesus Christ sitting upon a throne in Glory or ascending into the Heavens having broken the chains of death. It is a dead Christ that they portray and hence a dead religion, lifeless, pathetic and inaccurate.
The good news of the Gospel is not the crucifix in static form. It is that an aggrieved God rescues rebels and defeats death through the power of the resurrection from the dead. The death of Christ is a statement about our sins that must be punished by a righteous, blameless God. It is a statement about One who has endured the ultimate sacrifice of dying for his blameworthy enemies to win them as friends. Without the shedding of blood there can be no forgiveness of sins, Hebrews 9:22. It is a statement of the Love of God which destroys the dark lie of a Devil. For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. John 3:16. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world but that the world through Him might be saved. This is a statement of real sacrificial LOVE.
Be not deceived by a wrong understanding of that last statement concerning condemnation. Wisdom also cries that all who reject this great statement of love will be rejected in the judgment by a loving God who patiently longed to love them. We must all without exception, appear in the Courtroom of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
Wisdom cries in the market places, turn you simple and foolish ones. Turn and live. Do not turn to hypocrisy. Do not turn superficially. Turn not partially. Turn solemnly, completely, genuinely and repent. Trust exclusively in the perfection and acceptability of Christ's life and work. Bring no goodness of your own - It will be rejected by One too holy to abide the stench of it. Be true and own up to God in complete honesty saying, 'Oh God I am a hopeless and helpless guilty person whose sins will destroy me unless you forgive me. I have offended against Your Holy Person. I desire your forgiveness above all things. I desire to be right with You my Lord and my God. Forgive me and change me. Please God do this for me and I will love, serve and obey you, by the power , strength and new life that you give me forever'.
Will you hear the cry of Wisdom and Obey ?
Proverbs 8:1- 5
Doth not wisdom cry? and understanding put forth her voice?
She standeth in the top of high places, by the way in the places of the paths.
She crieth at the gates, at the entry of the city, at the coming in at the doors. Unto you, O men, I call; and my voice is to the sons of man. O ye simple, understand wisdom: and, ye fools, be ye of an understanding heart.
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