07 Wisdom Delivers (Proverbs 2:11-22)
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Last episode we talked about the ‘why’ for wisdom, found in verses 6-10. We discussed the reasons why Solomon says we should even care about the condition given in verses 1-4, and those reasons were compelling.
We learned that it is the LORD who gives wisdom, that He stores it up for the upright, a shield to those who walk in integrity, helping us to understand righteousness and justice and equity, every good path.
In other words, there is life, LIFE to be found with wisdom, LIFE to be found in pursuing and possessing her, which Solomon amplifies in verse 10, when he says that wisdom will come into your heart and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul. But, as Solomon is about to show us today, as we close out Proverbs 2, there are two groups of people, two collective voices, that can pull you away from the wisdom that brings life and toward the way of evil, of perversity, of sin, that leads to ruin & death.
Who are those groups of people? Who are those voices? Let’s talk about it.
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Our text today closes our time in Proverbs 2, and like you heard in the intro above, it includes and introduces two illustrations, or two groups of people to us that can pull you and me away from the life wisdom brings and toward the way of evil that brings ruin and death.
Now I’m going to read our text starting in verse 10, because the illustrations found in verses 11-22 are amplifying the why, or the reason for wisdom which is found in that verse. Better put, they are amplifying the reason why the if/then the condition/result argument is both reliable and practical.
So starting in verse 10 and finishing in verse 22, Solomon writes
‘For wisdom will come into your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul; 11 discretion will watch over you, understanding will guard you, 12 delivering you from the way of evil, from men of perverted speech, 13 who forsake the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness, 14 who rejoice in doing evil and delight in the perverseness of evil,15 men whose paths are crooked, and who are devious in their ways. 16 So you will be delivered from the forbidden woman, from the adulteress with her smooth words, 17 who forsakes the companion of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God;18 for her house sinks down to death, and her paths to the departed; 19 none who go to her come back, nor do they regain the paths of life.
20 So you will walk in the way of the good and keep to the paths of the righteous. 21 For the upright will inhabit the land, and those with integrity will remain in it, 22 but the wicked will be cut off from the land, and the treacherous will be rooted out of it.’
Now this text is best broken down into a few parts, breaking up the two illustrations and the two groups of people and voices that can pull us toward ruin and death. So
The first group of people, the first voice that Solomon introduces to us in verses 11-15 that could pull us away from wisdom and toward ruin, is that of evil men. Shocker. Haha.
And then,
The second group of people, the second voice that Solomon introduces to us in verses 16-20 that could pull us away from wisdom and toward ruin, is that of evil women.
So we need to watch out for everybody basically, given what Solomon is saying, which makes me laugh, but it's important to remember that Solomon is providing these illustrations to amplify what we’ve talked about in previous episodes on wisdom. And if you’ve forgotten Solomon is providing these illustrations to amplify the immense value of wisdom.
And when you look at our text, what you’ll see and what Solomon is teaching us is that
Wisdom delivers.
We haven’t talked that about yet in this chapter, so Solomon is further adding to the value of wisdom. Because wisdom doesn’t just guard or watch over you, it also delivers you.
And isn’t that fitting because Jesus is wisdom.
It is Jesus who guards us, Jesus watches over us, and it is Jesus who delivers us, from our sin and from those who can draw us into it.
So it is Jesus ultimately who delivers us from the way of evil men and the way of evil women. And that word ‘deliver’ is the exact word that Solomon uses to introduce both illustrations.
He says in verse 12 that wisdom will ‘deliver you from the way of evil’, and then similarly in verse 16 he says ‘you will be delivered from the forbidden woman’.
So looking more at the first illustration in verses 11-15, we see that wisdom delivers us first from evil men,
‘From men of perverted speech, 13 who forsake the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness, 14 who rejoice in doing evil and delight in the perverseness of evil, 15 men whose paths are crooked, and who are devious in their ways.’
Looking at the beginning of that illustration in verse 12, Solomon says that wisdom delivers us from men of perverted speech.
Now what is perverted speech? Perverse speech is speech that rivals the voice of God. Perverse speech is speech that calls sin ‘good’. People with this kind of language justify their sin or just claim that it's not sin when it is.
For example, if you come across a man who believes that love is love and that marriage is made for two people who love each other, regardless of sex, and they don’t see it as a covenant relationship between one man and one woman for a lifetime, then that is perverted speech because it goes against the word of God.
That same man may think that being unhappy with his wife is legitimate grounds for divorce, but the Bible says otherwise. That's perverted speech.
A boy may think he has legitimate grounds to do evil to someone who did evil first to him. And he may rationalize it saying it’s okay and it’s warranted because of the evil that was done to him, but that goes against the Word of God. The Bible says in Romans 12:17 to ‘repay no one evil for evil, but rather to give careful thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all’.
And the thing is these people may genuinely believe that what they are saying and doing is right and true and helpful, they may not recognize their own evil, but that doesn’t make them any less evil or any less perverse, because what they say and do goes against the word of God.
And anything that goes against the voice of God…anything that calls sin good and right, is perverse.
I like one commentator’s advice on this: He says,
‘Any person who will counsel you in such a way as to justify sin in your life is someone of perverse speech, and someone to avoid’.
For them truth becomes error and error becomes truth. Right is branded wrong and wrong is praised as right.
And the depth of evil men’s perversity is evidenced by the following verses, shown by their preference for darkness over uprightness in verse 13.
In verse 14 we see that what should break their hearts rather rejoices and delights their hearts, as they choose to rejoice and delight in evil, rather than to rejoice and delight in the law of the Lord, as the Psalmist in Psalm 1 talks about.
These men walk on crooked paths, their ways are not straight, in fact in all their ways they are devious. They love wickedness rather than wisdom. They love darkness rather than light. These are people whom Jesus denounced in John 3:19, saying
‘And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.’
But again Jesus doesn’t just denounce, He also delivers. And praise God for that. Jesus delivers us from these men.
And He also delivers us from the forbidden woman. Solomon continues in verses 16-19 to say that
‘You will be delivered from the forbidden woman, from the adulteress with her smooth words, 17 who forsakes the companion of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God; 18 for her house sinks down to death, and her paths to the departed; 19 none who go to her come back, nor do they regain the paths of life.’
Now I like how the Christ-centered exposition frames this illustration. Their exposition says,
‘This is the first time we meet the forbidden woman in Proverbs and she will be a major character in this book. She is the subject of a father’s warning many times, and her voice is a clear competitor to the voice of Solomon & the voice of the Lord.’
Now I think this is important to note because we will see the forbidden woman over and over again the more we study Proverbs as a subject of warning, and that’s not by chance. This woman is a serious, SERIOUS threat to Solomon’s son. And to all the men listening she is a serious threat to you too.
In fact the reason why Solomon knew the forbidden woman was such a threat is because he of all people, the man who was full of wisdom, who is teaching you and me how to discern good and evil, this man fell for the forbidden foreign women in 1 Kings 11 who led him into idolatry and ultimately destroyed his dynasty.
So if the wisest man to ever walk this earth not named Jesus is telling you and me to take the forbidden woman seriously, then we better take her seriously.
Now how does the forbidden work? How does she reel you in?
Well Solomon is clear in verse 16…she flatters. The forbidden woman flatters with her smooth words. She’s a talker, that forbidden woman.
Now this doesn’t surprise me and I don’t think it should surprise you. I think I can speak on behalf of all men when I say that we are suckers for flattery. We are suckers for it.
Adultery doesn’t start in the sheets, it starts in a more subtle way. It starts with a woman who laughs at his jokes and lends a listening ear to what’s going on his life…which then builds to what people call ‘harmless flirting’. Before you know it the man is starting to long for this woman and their conversations, and before he can even come to his senses sure enough he is cheating on his wife with this woman. And it all started with a little flattery.
And I love what one commentator says about this. He says this can happen with women too. Solomon here is teaching his son, but if he were teaching his daughter he could warn about forbidden men who flatter with their words to get women to do what they want!
And amen on that! Both the forbidden man and woman use flattery to pull you away from the voice of wisdom & toward their voice which leads to death.
Verses 18 and 19 says the forbidden woman’s house,
‘sinks down to death, and her paths to the departed; 19 none who go to her come back, nor do they regain the paths of life.’
Man. Hello. This is serioussssssss. The wages of sin, the wages of sexual sin, is death. DEATH! Verse 19 says for those who fall into this trap that there is no hope of return...none who go to the forbidden woman come back, nor do they regain the paths of life.
That said this is not Solomon giving us a one off warning on adultery and sexual sin….no no no. This is a further description of wisdom’s ability to, as one commentator puts it, to ‘shield and to guard’ in verses 7-8 and to deliver, to deliver from life’s temptation.
Wisdom delivers from evil men.
Wisdom delivers from evil women.
Wisdom delivers from the forbidden woman whose paths lead to death.
But wisdom doesn’t just deliver us from these people, wisdom delivers us to another people. Solomon continues in verse 20 saying
‘So you will walk in the way of the good and keep to the paths of the righteous’.
Many versions of this verse say ‘You will walk in the way of good men or good people, and keep to the paths of the righteous’.
So with wisdom we won’t just be delivered from evil men or women. We will be delivered to good men & good women, who love the Lord and will walk with you as you walk with Him.
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Now to close this chapter of Proverbs Solomon provides another antithetic summary, which we had last chapter as well, where Solomon again emphasizes the intent of his speech by providing contrasting outcomes.
He says in verses 21-22
‘For the upright will inhabit the land, and those with integrity will remain in it, 22 but the wicked will be cut off from the land, and the treacherous will be rooted out of it.’
Now why is Solomon giving us a summary of this chapter on the value of wisdom?
Well he’s doing so because the conditional clause at the beginning of the chapter in verses 1-4, the condition that contained all those “IFs”... ‘IF you receive my words and treasure up my commands…IF you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding…IF you seek wisdom like silver and search for it as hidden treasures’...we had all these “IFs” in our condition in verses 1-4, and they spell out the need for choice.
And these last two verses serve as a motivation to us because the consequences, or results of our choice are made clear…it is life or death.
Solomon says in verse 21 the upright will inhabit the land. What land Solomon? You think he’s talking about some land down by the river in Tennessee? NO! We can interpret what Solomon is saying here is that we will inhabit the land of God; to dwell with Him for eternity in Heaven. The upright will inhabit that land, a land full of streets of gold, with voices constantly crying out ‘Holy holy holy is the Lord of hosts..the whole earth is full of His glory’ (Isaiah 6:3).
But the wicked, they will not inhabit this land, Solomon says. Rather, he says they will be ‘cut off from the land’, and ‘rooted out of it’ (verse 22).
Life or death. Heaven or hell.
You can either be delivered by wisdom, delivered by Christ, or you can be denounced by wisdom, denounced by Christ.
I want the former not the latter. And I know you do too.
My challenge to you is to take wisdom’s value seriously. As we’re about to see here in Proverbs 3, which I’m super excited to go through with you all, because it is just amazing, nothing you desire can compare with wisdom (Proverbs 3:15_.
I promise you won’t be on your deathbed wishing you took wisdom & the pursuit and possession of her less seriously. You won’t. You won’t regret taking the value of wisdom seriously. And that’s part of Solomon’s charge to us and it’s my charge to you.
I love you all.
See you next week.
