Proverbs 8:1-10,  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.  Hear; for I will speak of excellent things; and the opening of my lips shall be right things.  For my mouth shall speak truth; and wickedness is an abomination to my lips.  All the words of my mouth are in righteousness; there is nothing froward or perverse in them.  They are all plain to him that understandeth, and right to them that find knowledge.   Receive my instruction, and not silver; and knowledge rather than choice gold.   For wisdom is better than rubies; and all the things that may be desired are not to be compared to it.

The first 9 chapters of the book of Proverbs contrast good and evil.

They are the father’s instruction to his son in order to win him to a life of virtue and devotion to God.

They are, in the main, concerned with the son’s conduct in his early life.

In presenting this instruction to his son the father wishes for him to successfully pursue his duties toward both God and man.

In this the father lifts up virtue as the essential wisdom, and vice or wickedness as the essential folly.

The wise man is declared to be the truly good and virtuous man.

He is the man who fears God, a man who reverences God.

He is compared to a man of vice and wickedness who is described as a fool, a perverse man, and overall, an abomination to God.

The good is described by words like instruction, understanding, justice, judgment, equity, knowledge, discretion, learning, counsels, but the word most used is the word wisdom.

Verse 1:7,  The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, is the theme verse of the book of Proverbs.

The word wisdom is used 53 times in this book.

In past lessons in Proverbs we have studied chapters 1-7 in detail.

I would like to study chapters 8 and 9 for the next few weeks before we begin a new series in one of the bible books.

Let us again read Proverbs 8:1-10,  Doth not wisdom cry? and understanding put forth her voice? ²She standeth in the top of high places, by the way in the places of the paths. ³She crieth at the gates, at the entry of the city, at the coming in at the doors. ⁴Unto you, O men, I call; and my voice is to the sons of man. ⁵O ye simple, understand wisdom: and, ye fools, be ye of an understanding heart. ⁶Hear; for I will speak of excellent things; and the opening of my lips shall be right things. ⁷For my mouth shall speak truth; and wickedness is an abomination to my lips. ⁸All the words of my mouth are in righteousness; there is nothing froward or perverse in them. ⁹They are all plain to him that understandeth, and right to them that find knowledge. ¹⁰Receive my instruction, and not silver; and knowledge rather than choice gold. ¹¹For wisdom is better than rubies; and all the things that may be desired are not to be compared to it.

The seventh chapter of Proverbs began with the father’s admonition to the son to keep his commandments.

He was told to keep his law so close that it would be as if it were the apple of the son’s eye which means the pupil of the son’s eye.

You cannot get any closer than that!

There was instruction to the son to keep wisdom as if wisdom was his sister and to have understanding as though understanding were his kinswoman.

This calling of wisdom and understanding a woman, continues in chapter 8 where we read of wisdom and understanding putting forth her voice.

This is an interesting description of wisdom and understanding for it follows the description of another woman of chapter 7, a woman with the attire of an harlot, a woman subtle of heart.

She, like the lady wisdom, is also out in the streets but she lies in wait for her prey.

The lady wisdom in our passage calls the simple to forsake sin, but the harlot calls him to indulge in sin.

As I said chapters 1-9 is a contrast between good and evil and this contrast is most evident as we compare these two women.

The harlot, catering to the flesh, has much to offer the one she catches, and is quick to announce the preparations that she has made to meet his needs.

She has decked her bed with coverings of tapestry, and perfumed it with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.

She has perfected the art of flattery, and with her much fair speech she causes her prey to yield and we are told he goes with her as an ox goes to the slaughter.

The son learns here that sin always wears makeup.

For sin, in order to hide its ugliness must cover itself with that which makes it appear other than what it really is.

Sin at the outset always appears beneficial but in the end it always devours.

So this proverbs father presents to us the call of two women.

One is wisdom and understanding and the other is a harlot, the antithesis of wisdom and understanding.

This father warns the son that the harlot’s house is the way to hell and leads to the chambers of death.

It is easy to hear the call of the harlot for her call is loud and brassy.

But this father wants his son to know and to hear the call of the Lady Wisdom and Understanding for she too calls as we are told in chapter 8 of Proverbs.

So we see two women crying out.

One issues a call to godliness, catering to the spirit, and the other issues a call to sinfulness, catering to the flesh.

The question is what is the son’s ear attuned to?

What training has the son’s ear received?

What call will the son yield to, for there are two calls.

One thing you can be sure of is that every son, your son and my son, will receive these two calls.

It is the responsibility of the father to so prepare his son that he only answers the call of Lady Wisdom.

Now this statement of chapter 8 of Proverbs that wisdom cries out to be heard, is not new to the Proverbs.

We learned this in chapter one where we were also told that wisdom cried without, uttering her voice in the streets, in the chief places of concourse, in the openings of the gates of the city.

The word cry as used in this proverb means to shout out aloud for joy, a triumphal shouting.

It is not a begging cry, it is not a mournful cry, but a triumphant shout.

It is a public shout in the manner of the shout that the Lord in:

1 Thessalonians 4:16 shouts,  For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:

God does not intend that his wisdom be confined.

God’s wisdom is designed to cover the earth with refreshment and not only to cover the earth but to enable the earth to bring forth fruit.

God does not confine his wisdom to a building for Lady wisdom stands in the top of high places, she cries at the gates, and at the entry of the city.

Wisdom is not confined to the inside, wisdom is not confined by man made walls or man made fences.

Insides are made by men but outsides are made by God.

Lady Wisdom is not confined by stately church buildings or by the minds or hands of men.

Where does God point us to see his work which came by wisdom?

Psalm 19:1,  The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handiwork.

Jeremiah 51:15,  He hath made the earth by his power, he hath established the world by his wisdom, and hath stretched out the heaven by his understanding.

There is nowhere a man or woman can look and not see the wisdom of God for it is in the smallest of things extending to the largest of things.

It is in the atom as well as in the universe.

It is in the growing of a child in his mother’s womb.

All things that God has made operate by his hand of wisdom.

Everything is a success when conducted in wisdom and everything is a failure when operated outside of God’s wisdom.

The mind of man is not the source of Wisdom and man cannot confine wisdom.

Like the freedom of the word of God so is the freedom of wisdom.

As we are told in Romans 1:20, Wisdom insures that the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:

Notice what the things that are made, the things that God has created, are designed to do.

They are designed to reveal the invisible things of God.

The things that are made declare a maker but that maker is invisible.

They declare a designer, but that designer is invisible.

They declare a plan, they declare a beginning.

They declare a need for faith for that which can be seen must have had a maker.

What does the rejection of wisdom bring.

It brings theories which postulate no maker, no designer, no plan, with a beginning by chance.

But God shouts out his wisdom from the high places, from the places where men go and where men meet.

Wisdom insures her message is so broadcast that men are without excuse.

Who are they that wisdom aims her message at?

Wisdom carefully directs her message to a select group.

Wisdom is concerned that the individuals of this group be without excuse for all will stand before God with mouths shut.

Multitudes of mouths on this earth are open postulating all kinds of strange theories anathema to God’s word but at the judgment every mouth shall be stopped.

Wisdom takes every means to insure that her message be clear to the simple ones, that her message be clear to the scorners, that her message be known to the fools.

She shouts in a voice full of triumph: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you.

There is no excuse for ignorance of wisdom because God himself declares that he will pour out his spirit of knowledge to the simple, to the scorner or to the fool.

But today the call of the harlot is loud and clamorous.

It is designed to keep the son from the wisdom of God.

It caters to fallen man and that is the rub.

The wisdom of God to Adam was to not eat of the tree of good and evil but to enjoy the garden in innocence.

He chose to reject that wisdom and he therefore became the first sinner.

The sinner battles against all of God’s wisdom, for by tradition, for by science so called, by culture, God’s wisdom is set aside in favor of man’s ideas and ways regardless of how idiotic they are.

God’s wisdom is for a man to have a quiver full of children for the fruit of the womb is his reward but we decide through modern family planning the exact number that suits our taste for that is all the reward we can take.

Instead of children being a blessing they become a curse because we reject God’s wisdom concerning child rearing.

Some even decide to break the arrow before it fills the quiver.

Abortion of God’s heritage is man’s wisdom.

Man looks at the complexity of life and in simplicity ignores all that he sees and invents a scenario where life formed itself out of nothing.

Any man or woman of reasonable intelligence knows that the complex never forms from the simple without someone to form it.

It appears you would only believe otherwise if you are super-intelligent.

Modern men who wish to explain things without a creator envision all kinds of complex systems developing from the slime of some prehistoric bog.

But God be praised, the call of wisdom is for all men.

As we read in verse 4: Unto you, O men, I (wisdom) call; and my voice is to the sons of man.

God has given consciences to the sons of men that wisdom can be heard.

The sons of men are without excuse for wisdom is in all the prominent places.

There is nowhere on earth where wisdom does not do her work.

She stands in the top of the high places, she is at the intersections of the highways and the byways, she is in the seats of government, she is known coming in and going out of the door.

We should make all effort to find wisdom because God has so intensely filled this earth with his wisdom.

A man ignores it at his own eternal peril.

He calls us with wisdom through our parents, through our preachers, through our conscience, through his creation and through his gospel.

If a man or woman does not hear her voice it is because of shut ears, or because sin turns them away in favor of the allurements of the harlot.

The instruction is clear.

There is hope for all, for the father admonishes the simple and even the fools.

Proverbs 8:5,  O ye simple, understand wisdom: and, ye fools, be ye of an understanding heart.

God’s wisdom is powerful enough to redeem the simple and the fools.

They are both instructed to understand wisdom and to be of an understanding heart.

There is hope for the simple and the fools for the Lord always teaches unto profit for there is power and light in his words.

Isaiah 48:17 says,  Thus saith the LORD, thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel; I am the LORD thy God which teacheth thee to profit, which leadeth thee by the way that thou shouldest go.

We are taught that even though we follow the harlot there is pardoning mercy in God’s wisdom, there is converting power in the words of wisdom.

Isaiah 55:7 says,  Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.