Proverbs 9:1–6
Wisdom has built her house. She has carved out her seven pillars. 2 She has prepared her meat. She has mixed her wine. She has already set her table. 3 She has sent out her servant girls. She calls from the highest point in the city, 4 “Whoever is naïve, let him turn in here.” To someone who lacks sense she says, 5 “Come, eat my food, and drink the wine that I have mixed. 6 Abandon your naïve ways and live. Travel the road to understanding.” (EHV)
If you’re like me, you’ve been watching the news and events of the past few years and thinking, “The whole world’s going mad.” And that is to be fully expected, since St. Paul wrote, “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.” That’s what happens when people refuse to listen to God. But as for us, Solomon’s advice is timeless: “Travel the Road to Understanding.” That road begins with God’s Word and ends in the great feast of salvation.
God’s Word Leads to the Great Feast of Salvation.
Chapter 9 of Proverbs could be titled “The Invitations of Wisdom and of Folly.” Our brief text includes only the invitation to wisdom, but Solomon contrasts it with the alternative—the invitation to folly:
13 The woman Folly is boisterous. She is deluded. She knows nothing. 14 She sits at the doorway of her house, on a throne on the heights of the city, 15 in order to call to those who pass by on the street, those who are simply going along on their way, 16 “Whoever is gullible, let him turn in here.” To someone who lacks sense she says, 17 “Stolen waters are sweet, and food eaten in secret is delicious.” 18 But he does not know that the souls of the dead are there, that her guests are in the depths of hell.
Our children and grandchildren are bombarded by Folly’s invitation every day of their lives. They are tempted to sin by friends. Those in public schools are tempted by their teachers. They are tempted to sin by TV and social media. In fact, their own hearts tempt them daily! We know, because ours do too! We were all born sinful. The old sinful flesh in us isn’t gone, just because we’re Christians, or because we’re older now. The world around us didn’t turn into a God-friendly place when the Holy Spirit brought us to faith.
We’re faced with choices every day, some simple, some complex. The majority of them are morally neutral—What to cook for dinner, or which pharmacy to use, how to invest. But not all choices are neutral. Solomon portrays Folly as a loud liar, trying to hook us with all kinds of false claims and promises. In the face of so many temptations, David asks in Psalm 119, “How can a young man keep his path pure?”—or a young woman, or an older person? His inspired answer? “By guarding it with [God’s] words. 10 With all my heart I seek you. Do not let me stray from your commands. 11 I have hidden your sayings in my heart, so that I may not sin against you. 12 Blessed are you, O Lord! Teach me your statutes” (Psalm 119:9-12).
Wisdom and Understanding begin with God’s Word. Unlike Folly, Wisdom is not loud. She is not a liar. Like an understated advertisement, she offers the way of life: “Whoever is naïve, let him turn in here.” To someone who lacks sense she says, 5 “Come, eat my food, and drink the wine that I have mixed. 6 Abandon your naïve ways and live. Travel the road to understanding.”
It’s not a level playing field—Folly shouting lies and Wisdom softly speaking truth. The Father of Lies never stops bombarding us, our children, and our grandchildren with false advertising. We have to fight the devil by turning off the noise and running away from the lies. We have to toss the junk food and eat the steak and drink the wine of wisdom. In simple terms, we need to turn off the TV, put down the phone and open our Bibles. We need to encourage and help our children and grandchildren to do the same. To read to them if we have that opportunity! (Sara gets to do that this weekend!)
We need to begin each week in God’s House, where we totally tune out the messages of the world around us and just listen to God’s Word. How wonderful that we have Meditations to help us begin each weekday with God’s Word. I hope you’re using them! What a privilege that we have Bible Classes on Sundays and weekdays too, where we not only study God’s Word together, but share our joys and our trials with each other as we seek to apply God’s Word to our daily lives. Solomon wrote just a few verses after our text: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”
While all God’s words in the Bible are important, the most important of all are those words that present God’s gift of salvation—the Gospel. There are many who are ready to acknowledge the Bible as a wise book, yet don’t really understand what it’s about. They think it’s mainly a book of laws and principles to follow. But looking at it as primarily Law and missing the Gospel at its heart leads to either self-righteousness or despair. The Scribes and Pharisees in Jesus’ day had a high view Scripture, but they missed the point. They missed Jesus and didn’t even see their need of a Savior. Jesus said to them: “You search the Scriptures because you think you have eternal life in them. They testify about me! And yet you do not want to come to me in order to have life” (John 5:39-40).
Jesus—true Wisdom Himself—makes us an incredible, free offer: “Come, eat my food, and drink the wine that I have mixed. 6 Abandon your naïve ways and live. Travel the road to understanding.” Jesus used the same food metaphor when He said to the crowd in today’s Gospel: “I am the Bread of Life. The one who comes to me will never be hungry, and the one who believes in me will never be thirsty (John 6:54). It’s not enough to acknowledge Jesus as a wise man or a great teacher or a wonderful prophet. Even Muslims and agnostics are willing to do that! Jesus asks us to trust in Him as our Savior and He promises us the gift of eternal life. True Wisdom means abandoning the folly of trusting ourselves and instead feasting on the food Jesus prepared for us—the banquet of salvation. Jesus is the Bread of Life. The Gospel is like fine wine in a world of artificially sweetened drinks that cause cancer.
According to the Washington Post, “Many junk foods today [are] made and marketed by Big Tobacco. For decades, tobacco companies hooked people on cigarettes by making their products more addictive. Now, a new study suggests that tobacco companies may have used a similar strategy to hook people on processed foods.”[i] The devil, whom Solomon calls “Folly” personified in Proverbs 9, does the same thing! Don’t listen! Don’t fall for it! Eat what is spiritually healthy and live. What makes God’s Word such a feast, is the peace and joy it brings by the Gospel reassurance that all our sins are truly and completely forgiven for the sake of Jesus; that He earned heaven for us by His perfect life and shed His blood as the sacrifice for all our sins. That’s what builds strong healthy spirits, so that we want to also follow the wise advice Scripture gives—such as the Proverbs—and grow wiser.
Solomon’s Experience
King Solomon, who wrote these Proverbs, was known far and wide for his wisdom. His reputation brought the Queen of Sheba for a prolonged visit to see if the rumors were really true. She said to the king, “The report I heard in my own country about your accomplishments and your wisdom is true. 7 I did not believe the report until I came and saw it with my own eyes. The truth is, not even half of it was told to me! Your wisdom and wealth surpass the report which I heard” (1 Kings 10:6–7).
Do you remember how Solomon got so wise and rich? When he was about to succeed his father David to the throne of Israel, the Lord came to him and said, “Ask for whatever you want me to give you.” Solomon prayed to the Lord and asked that the God would give him wisdom to govern the Lord’s great people, and the Lord responded: “Because this was on your heart, and you did not ask for riches, possessions, and honor, or for the lives of those who hate you, or even for many days of life, and because you have asked for wisdom and knowledge for yourself so that you can judge my people, over whom I have made you king, wisdom and knowledge will be given to you. I will also give you riches, possessions, and honor, the likes of which the kings before you never had, nor will those who come after you.” (2 Chronicles 1:11-12).
Sadly, though, Solomon became proud over time. Surrounded by the temptations of wealth and power, he began to trust in himself. The one who wrote “Pride goes … before the fall” got proud and fell. He ran after women who believed in other gods. In order to keep them happy, he imported false priests from their home countries and erected shrines to their false gods, instead of listening to and teaching them about the True God. In the Book of Ecclesiastes, he describes all the different pursuits he ran after as he neglected God’s Word and fell further and further away from God. But by God’s grace, he was brought back to his senses in his old age. God humbled him, and then lifted him up again until, as an old man, Solomon could write from the heart that all the devil’s lies, and all the wealth and fame in the world are “Nothing but vapor.” … “I have no delight in them,” … the dust goes back into the ground—just as it was before, and the spirit goes back to God who gave it,” said Ecclesiastes, the speaker. “It is all vapor.” — He had relearned that eternal life through the Savior is the only thing that lasts.(Ecclesiastes 12:1,8,7).
If only Solomon had continued throughout his life and reign to listen to the wise and eternal words of God, he would have been spared so much regret! Israel would have been spared division had he not neglected to raise his child Rehoboam in the fear and instruction of the Lord! Running after worldly learning and earthly pleasures, Solomon wasn’t a very good father, and his son succeeded in foolishly, permanently dividing the kingdom of Israel in two.
God’s wants us to learn from both Solomon’s good words and his bad mistakes!
“The Conclusion of the Matter”
Travel the road to understanding. Pursue wisdom and truth. Do it for God. Do it for others. Do it for the world. Do it because it’s right. But also, do it for yourself! “Abandon your naïve ways and live,” says Wisdom. Learn the Gospel well, and then moved by God’s love, learn His Law and His Proverbs. This is Solomon’s conclusion to Ecclesiastes—his final inspired words as an old man: “This is the conclusion of the matter. Everything has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments. For mankind, this is everything” (Ecclesiastes 12:13).
How great is the temptation to believe that if we follow God’s ways, life will be less enjoyable! “Who has time for Bible reading, anyway?!” So we pursue temporary pleasure to our own detriment and miss out on the real and lasting joy and peace God pours out on those trust Him and strive to put Him first in their lives. We forget that far more than today or tomorrow is always hanging in the balance. Folly leads to death, Proverbs warns. It’s all about eternity. Yet it is also about today. There is nothing more satisfying, nothing more lasting, more wonderful in all this earth than being reassured daily that God is our dear Father and we are His dear children, who guides and gives us true understanding and wisdom on our way to heaven. Want to be wise? Put God’s Word first. Trust Him. Live for Him. Travel the Road to Understanding, and you will arrive at your heavenly home! Amen.
[i] September 19, 2023.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2023/09/19/addiction-foods-hyperpalatable-tobacco
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