Welcome to our evening series as we continue the application of the truth that we’re learning in the teaching section of Proverbs from chapters 1 to 9, and the evening session we’re dealing with chapters 10 through to the end of the book. And this evening we’re going to be looking at the issue of correction and instruction under the title Remedial Wisdom. We all have historic negative internal narratives.
The harsh overbearing parent, the nasty teacher, the critical boss, the bullying friend. We all have our own versions of, if you don’t eat your meat, you won’t get any pudding. We’ve all got those voices in our head that trigger negative and defensive reactions.
And even when the criticism’s intended constructively, it often feels wounding rather than restorative. At least it does to me. And our culture encourages us to be defensive.
It absolutely despises being corrected. Don’t tell me how to live. Validate my choices.
Don’t judge me. And although we may secretly admit our failures and weaknesses to ourselves, it’s quite a different gravy if someone else takes that position and points them out to us. But the wisdom literature of Proverbs knows very little of political correctness as we understand it.
Scripture, as it always does, and Proverbs is no exception here, although it’s a genre of its own, it has a way of cutting into uncomfortable territory like a razor. And Proverbs presents to us a radical remedial truth. To refuse correction is a mark of utter and absolute folly that will carry in your life catastrophic consequences.
So this evening we’re considering four Proverbs about what I’ve entitled remedial wisdom. Wisdom that provides correction and instruction. There are many more than four in Proverbs, but these four provide us with a framework for understanding how the others work, but also how our human hearts react to instruction and correction, and how our hearts are intended to react to instruction and correction.
So we’re going to look at these four Proverbs under three headings. One proverb in the first heading, two in the middle, one and one at the end. Let’s think in three areas.
A stark diagnosis we’ll look at first, then we’ll look at a sobering dichotomy with those two in the middle, and then a secure destiny to wrap up at the end. So let’s think firstly about the stark diagnosis. And I’ve called this knowledge versus ignorance.
We’ll find that in Proverbs 12 verse one. So let me ask you to turn in your Bible if you have one there, or switch on your Bible if you’re using a device to Proverbs chapter 12, and we’ll read verse one together. A stark diagnosis.
Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof or correction is stupid. And the text is presented to us here with characteristic proverbial bluntness. If you hate reproof, you’re stupid.
The Hebrew word here though, that’s translated for us as stupid is an interesting one, because it actually refers to an animal. It refers to a brute, stubborn beast. A beast that just is not for budging at all.
But Solomon isn’t simply saying if you hate being corrected, you’re an idiot. He’s actually making a precise theological diagnosis here. Because you see, when a person hates reproof, what the text is saying is that that person descends from the dignity of being an image bearer of God, being human made in his image, to the level of a donkey.
Stubborn, rigid, unteachable. So why is it that we hate reproof so much? Why do the hackles rise? Why do we resist it? Pride. Pride.
We are the absolute centre of our own universe. And correction from anyone about anything, if we’re being honest, is an assault on our own self-esteem. In fact, if you were looking for some kind of pride-ometer, some measure of pride in your life, here’s a proxy measure.
The next time someone corrects you about something, see how you react. How you respond to correction is a reasonably good measure of our pride level. And in Proverbs, failing to respond to remedial wisdom is the single defining feature of a fool.
Someone who is aggressively opposed to God’s instruction and correction. Whereas the wise are presented in Proverbs as those who submit, even if it’s hard, submit to God’s instruction and correction. And of course, this is exactly the main difference between those who accept the gospel and don’t, isn’t it? Any religion or lifestyle based on human achievement must defend its own righteousness and its own self-effort at all costs.
If that’s your currency, that’s all you’ve got in life, you’re going to defend that. Think of the self-sufficient heart that says, as Colin reminded us this morning, and more, much more than this, I did it my way. Think of the difference between a self-sufficient heart like that and a vulnerable heart filled with the overflowing grace of the gospel that says, teach me your way, Lord.
Think of that as a comparison. I’ll submit to a wisdom outside of myself. And where do we find a wisdom outside of ourselves? Well, Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 1, the ultimate source of wisdom outside of ourselves.
He says in verse 23 of 1 Corinthians 1, we preach Christ crucified, the power of God and the wisdom of God. It’s God’s wisdom and God’s wisdom is found in the good news about Jesus Christ. And if you’ve grasped gospel wisdom and gospel correction, you know two things.
Firstly, you know that you are far more flawed, sinful, and foolish than you ever dare imagine, or that you’re ever willing to admit to another human. But you’ve also grasped that you are far more loved, far more accepted, and far more secure in Christ than you would ever hope to dare dream. And when the reality of these two things takes root in our lives, suddenly reproof and correction stop being a threat to your identity, do you see? If your identity is hidden with Christ and God, someone correcting you at a human level won’t destroy the essence of who you are, do you see? You’ve already confessed to God that you’re bent and broken and twisted by sin and you need straightened out.
And you need his correction and you need his healing and you need his transforming grace. So why do we find it so difficult when others point out the things that are wrong in our lives since God hasn’t finished with us yet? But isn’t it just such great news that God remains willing to correct sinners instead of writing them off? Isn’t that great news for all of us? And as we work through Proverbs, we will find an interesting thing emerges. It’s not God who gives up correcting the sinful in Proverbs.
The sinful give up accepting God’s correction. And part of that correction is God’s ongoing instruction and words of correction from preachers, from authors, from spouses, from friends, from work colleagues, from elders. So let me ask you, just as we get our heads into this, how do you respond to those ongoing corrections on a daily basis? Do you feel that bristling defensiveness driven by self-justification and ultimately pride? I confess, as I have to because my wife’s here, that I often do.
I often do. But I, like you, need to hear the warnings and heed the warnings about ignoring correction, which will inevitably lead to spiritual ruin. And that’s hard because becoming a lifelong learner requires humility.
You see, in order to learn something in any field, but certainly here, in order to learn something, we need firstly to acknowledge there’s something we don’t know, right? You’ll only learn something if you open your heart to acknowledge that you don’t know it. And to change something, we need to firstly acknowledge that there’s something we’ve been doing that’s suboptimal. That’s why change is so difficult.
We hear a lot about culture change in the NHS, culture change in the workplace. Why is it so hard to change cultures? Well, firstly, we have to acknowledge that there’s something that we’ve been doing that’s suboptimal, or wrong, that could be better. And that is not easy.
Change is emotionally expensive for human beings. And we sang words as a prayer in our hymn that talk about this. Let me ask you if you meant it when you sang it.
Ancient words ever true, changing me, changing you. We have come with open hearts. Oh, let the ancient words impart.
What does an open heart look like? An open heart is vulnerable before God and open to change, right? The father speaking to his children, those made in his image, wisdom’s calling out in the street. Listen, can you hear her? Open your heart. Open your ears.
Acknowledge you need to change. Yeah, you. Rather than identifying all the things that everyone else needs to change and sitting in judgement above all of that.
You need to change. I need to change. But we’ll never change if our heart remains hard.
Do you see? If you are still the same today as you were 30 years ago or 47 years ago today, since I came to this church, if I’m the same today as I was 47 years ago today, there’s something wrong. Something wrong with me. I’ve not been listening to God.
I’ve not been open to his word, changing my heart. I’ve not had an open heart. We’ll never change if our hearts remain hard.
And you can have a hard heart for 47 years or longer. So let me give you the warning of Hebrews 3.15. Today, today, if you hear his voice, hear the words of instruction today. If you hear his voice, don’t harden your heart.
If you came in with a hard heart, go out with a soft one. The way of wisdom you see demands a decision to change direction in a thousand different areas. If we are to grow, the way of folly demands nothing.
You go out the same way as you came in. That’s the way of folly. So that’s the start diagnosis.
Then we have a sobering dichotomy. Let’s look at the next chapter, Proverbs 13, verse 18, and then 15.5. So turn to 13.18 first. He who ignores discipline comes to poverty and shame, but whoever heeds correction is honoured.
And 15.5, a fool spurns his father’s discipline, but whoever heeds correction shows prudence. What I want you to notice here is the sobering spiritual alternatives within remedial wisdom that Solomon sets before us. There’s no middle ground here.
There’s no fence to sit on. You’re either moving towards wisdom and honour, or you’re adding to your folly with every decision that you make in your life, with every voice you listen to. And scripture’s intensely realistic about consequences.
So in Proverbs 13.18, we find that ignoring instruction leads to poverty and disgrace. Poverty and disgrace. Now, remember that Proverbs are not always absolute guarantees.
We were thinking a bit about this this morning. It takes a bit of work to get your head around the genre of Proverbs, because they’re Proverbs, not promises, right? And yet they have some predictive element within them. They give us general principles that describe God’s moral order.
So for example, train up a child in the way they should go. There’s not 100% guarantee that when they are old, they will not depart from it. Because we’ve all seen children who were brought up in the way that they should go, and then they have, let’s say, abandoned the faith, for example.
Because you see, the child has to embrace the wisdom that they were taught for themselves. But the principle is sound. Unless a child receives good instruction and understands boundaries, there may be trouble ahead.
But more than that, Proverbs requires wisdom in their application. This is really important. You see, Proverbs are there to teach us how to think, not what to think.
Let me explain. By way of illustration, this is a bit of a sidebar, but I think it’s important to understand how this works. Turn to Proverbs 26 for a second.
And we’re going to read two back-to-back verses in Proverbs 26, verse 4 and verse 5. Verse 4, do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you will be like him yourself. Verse 5, answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes. You see the problem here, right? Verse 4, do not answer a fool according to his folly.
Verse 5, answer a fool according to his folly. In the very next verse, make your mind up, Solomon, which is it? Which is it? It’s like Sophie’s Choice, isn’t it? I can’t choose. I can’t choose.
But remember, this is wisdom literature. It’s not law. It’s about being able to read a situation, not just being able to read a book.
Okay, let me say that again. Proverbs teaches us about reading situations wisely, not just reading a book. We don’t like the hard work involved in that because we’re lazy people.
We’re sluggards, going to meet those characters later in the book. But God wants us to be intellectually engaged, to be thinking all the time. We’re a bit lazy with this.
We want God to tell us what to do in every situation we face in life, don’t we? It would be a lot easier, we think, if that were the case. And we look for wisdom and guidance in Scripture, and we’re facing a situation, we can’t find it in Scripture. Why is that? Because God doesn’t hand you advice on a silver platter.
It’s not how it works. He’s not a helicopter parent God. He wants you to think it through for yourself.
Work it out from first principles, work it out from the principles of wisdom that he’s given you. And then apply that wisdom to the actual situation that you’re in. So in some cases, it may be entirely appropriate to answer a fool according to his folly and say, you’re talking like a clown.
But it may not be the wisest thing to do that if the person talking rubbish is the CEO of the company, and you’re sitting there in a one-to-one. Maybe it would be better to say nothing in that occasion and find another way to point out the problem. Do you see? Situational wisdom.
That’s what Proverbs is there to teach us. So back to 15.5. Because in 15.5, this is taught to the covenant community. A fool despises his father’s instruction.
And when I say it’s taught to the covenant community, that’s another important thing to learn. It’s not just one father talking to one son. It’s not just me talking to my son or Solomon talking to his son.
Remember, Proverbs is a compendium of wisdom from multiple sources, like a handbook for the whole Hebrew community. It was written primarily for adolescent boys in the Jewish community, preparing them to enter public life and to take on leadership roles where they would require wisdom to rule well. Adolescent boys.
What’s presented in Proverbs? Women. Lady wisdom. Lady folly.
Right, lads? Which one looks nicest to you? Which one’s the most attractive? Well, she may look attractive. She’d do a lot of harm. That one there.
Really beautiful. You’ll find her properly in chapter 31. Right at the end.
The wonderful wife. It’s not just a picture of a wife, you see. It’s a picture of lady wisdom in all her glory, presented to young adolescent Jewish boys to say, you want to go after that girl.
Do you see? Notice two things about this instruction. It’s the instruction of the father, reflecting the gentle, patient, truth-filled nature of God’s perfect fatherhood. There is no human father perfect in any sense.
It’s just a scale of how good or bad they are, but none of them are perfect. But here’s the instruction of God, God’s fatherhood, the gentle, patient, truth-filled nature of God’s perfect fatherhood. The father’s discipline.
The father’s instruction. But notice it’s instruction. The word here is discipline in the NIV and the ESV and various other versions.
The word used is instruction. I like instruction as a concept here, because it carries with it the idea… I mean, discipline’s fine, but it’s got a kind of petulant, hard-edged beat you over the back of the head with a stick thing on it, hasn’t it? That discipline thing going on. No, instruction’s better, I think, because it’s not petulant.
It’s not impatient. It’s not unrighteous outbursts born of anger and frustration that human dads are so prone to. I remember when my daughter was learning to play the violin.
It was quite a painful process for all of us, actually. Often the violin teacher would gently stop and take hold of her hand or her wrist and change the angle or show her how to hold her bow in a different way. Stop doing it that way and start doing it that way.
And it felt awkward, probably, at first. It’ll sound a lot better if you stop doing it that way and start doing it that way. Gentle instruction.
And surprisingly enough, it did. And that was a great mercy for all of us. It improved her playing and our listening immensely.
Benefits all round. But there are consequences if you ignore instruction, aren’t there? A worker who refuses feedback, they’re not going to last long, are they? They’re going to get fired or they’ll end up on a supported improvement plan of some kind. A husband who consistently ignores his wife’s advice and treats her with contempt will functionally destroy the marriage.
May not end the marriage, but it won’t function. A spiritual leader who thinks they know it all will fall into all kinds of difficulties, frequently including moral ruin, if they think their teaching only applies to them out there and not me in here. You see, in God’s economy, an unteachable spirit bankrupts a life.
Professionally, socially, relationally, and catastrophically, spiritually. The person becomes a fool. But what happens if you listen? Well, look at the second half of Proverbs 15, 5. Whoever heeds correction or instruction shows prudence.
When you take on board the correction that God brings into your life, you’ll build prudence into your character. Now, prudence isn’t a word that’s in common use in 21st century English in the West of Scotland. Unless you listen to the Beatles’ back catalogue, they have a song about prudence that was covered by Suzy and the Banshees in the 80s.
That’s just a sidebar, don’t pay any attention to any of that. But it’s not a common word. Prudence, what does it mean? Well, in Proverbs, prudence is one aspect of wisdom that has a number of functions that help us understand why wisdom’s so desirable.
Firstly, let’s pop over to chapter 22, verse 3, and we’ll do a little mini study on prudence. 22.3, a prudent man sees danger and takes refuge, but the simple keep going and suffer for it. Prudence has a protective function, let’s call it a radar function.
Taking instruction develops your spiritual antennae. It helps you sense the consequences of harmful choices, your spidey senses are alert to danger, spiritual danger, helping you to take evasive action before they hit you. So prudence has a radar function, it has a filter function, go back to chapter 12 and we’ll drop down a little bit in that chapter to verse 16.
A fool shows annoyance at once, but a prudent man overlooks an insult. Prudence has a filter function. Taking instruction helps you learn to evaluate things calmly rather than jump to an angry response, which might be unwise.
We saw last week that this is particularly true with words. My grandfather had a saying that I remember yet. Words like eggs should be handled with care, for words once spoken, like eggs once broken,
are not the easiest things to repair. And so adopting prudence or finding prudence as a filter to our speech and our reactions is a mark of wisdom. I wish I’d learned that a long time ago.
It has thirdly, a privacy function. Look at verse 23 in chapter 12. A prudent man keeps his knowledge to himself, but the heart of fools blurts out folly.
Taking instruction and becoming wise develops confidentiality and discretion. Do you see that? Gossips aren’t wise. People who treat sensitive information confidentially are wise and prudent.
And not everything needs to be shared widely and to everyone. That’s catastrophic, isn’t it? Especially if you’re not sure what you’re talking about and you don’t have all the background information and you’ve just got one side of the story and it goes all over the place. And this is particularly true of course on social media.
The prudent keep their knowledge to themselves, but a fool’s heart blurts out folly. These are challenging lessons and they’re not lessons learned quickly because the rewards of prudence and honour don’t happen immediately. The book of Proverbs, as we go through it, you see Colin touched on this this morning, it’s a journey.
It’s never in a hurry. There’s a measured pace about it all because it always has an eye on the future. These are young men, remember? Remember who it was written to? Adolescent boys with a life ahead of them in the goodness of God.
So the wisdom writer is thinking in the long term in their lives and in what’s left of ours. And that takes us to our final point, a secure destiny. Let’s pop over to chapter 19 verse 20.
Listen to advice and accept instruction. The ESV says that you may gain wisdom in the future. Your version may say in the end you will be wise.
But you see that both of these translations are telling us the ongoing correction in our lives is presented here as an investment that will yield a dividend. But not today. It’s future wisdom.
And so often we struggle with this, don’t we? We want wisdom instant, pre-packed and painless. We want the spiritual maturity of a person who’s walked with God for 50 years, but we want it now by Tuesday afternoon and without any correction or hardship. I want it all and I want it now.
But God doesn’t work that way. The way of wisdom requires us to accept instruction over a lifelong process of being reshaped, pruned and corrected. So that we may end up at our desired destination.
This ending up at our desired destination is like the end result of constant small recalibrations on a regular basis. Let’s think of a Cunard ship leaving Southampton in order to get to New York. No stopping off point between.
It’s a transatlantic voyage. There is a route to follow. And the navigation officer on the bridge every so often will check where the ship is in relation to where it should be and will make a small adjustment to the course.
And then in about half an hour or less, maybe even, we’ll check again and make another small adjustment to keep the ship on course. Now, let’s just assume for a minute that this is a recalcitrant worker and he decides he or she are going to have an unscheduled nap for the afternoon. They just disappear to their cabin up there on the bridge and they fall asleep.
And they fall asleep for one hour and two hours and then suddenly waking up and rush back to the bridge in a panic because you and I know what’s happened. Where’s the ship now? Well, it’s not just a little bit off course, it’s probably 60 miles off course blown by wind or current or goodness knows what. And it won’t require a small recalibration to get it back on course now, will it? Now we’re into catastrophic territory.
Now we’re into massive changes. We’re into big stuff to get that ship back on course. Lots of fuel, lots of energy, lots of panic, lots of pain.
And in the time there was no one making the small adjustments, my goodness, the ship may even have run aground in the rocks. Do you see? In the same way, dear brothers and sisters, regular, small, daily corrections in the direction of your life will prevent the need for massive change later. I know what that looks like in my life to find yourself off course and having to make some pretty big changes to get back to where you should be.
I could have avoided all of that and set out to get there. No one does. No one ever sets out to be miles away from where they should be.
Small decisions not made at the right time, ignored, not listened to, drift, drift, drift. And that’s how spiritual shipwreck happens. Every single action and decision matters.
Friends, can I say this lovingly? There are no small decisions in life. That was the big message that jumped out to me during this last few days of preparation. Proverbs wants you to know that there are no small decisions in your life.
None. Even the ones no one sees. Maybe especially the ones no one sees.
Because over a lifetime, they are the decisions that make us what we are. They determine our destination, do you see? Sow a thought, reap an action. Sow an action, reap a habit.
Sow a habit, reap a character. Sow a character, reap a destiny. And as we embrace wisdom, we saw in chapter three, verse 18, that she becomes a tree of life to those who take hold of her.
Let’s pop back to Proverbs three and verse 18. Colin didn’t get that far this morning. Wisdom is a tree of life to those who embrace her.
Those who lay hold of her will be blessed. Wisdom’s a tree of life. We’ve seen the tree of life before in the Bible, haven’t we? Where have we seen it? Genesis two.
We’re introduced there to the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Adam and Eve had access to the tree of life. Wisdom.
They had access to God’s wisdom freely. But they, and by extension we, lost access to it after the fall. Because God’s wisdom wasn’t enough.
In our fallenness we lost wisdom, do you see? We became fools. One writer describes the fool in Hebrew thinking as being marked by aggressive perversity. That’s a great phrase, isn’t it? Not an attractive one, but it’s powerful.
Aggressive perversity. Has there ever been a culture in human history, maybe apart from the Roman Empire in the first century, that has been marked by such aggressive perversity as we face in our culture? That’s the mark of a fool opposed to God. Aggressively so.
But as we embrace wisdom, as we embrace lady wisdom, we roll back the effects of the fall in our lives, do you see? We find again the tree of life. We embrace the tree of life again. But of course Genesis 2 isn’t the only place we find the tree of life, if you can be patient with me for a few more minutes.
We see it again in Revelation 22, at the end of the Bible, in the eternal city of God, where wisdom once again fills the new creation with healing and joy. You see, we were created to be wise, and we will be forever wise. And we’re called to grow in wisdom now, by embracing wisdom, by embracing the tree of life.
And where are we to find that wisdom? Well, in Proverbs it was presented to young Hebrew men in the feminine form as someone attractive, someone to be desired. And in the New Testament, we also have someone attractive and someone to be desired who is presented to us. And that picture is none other than Jesus himself.
In 1 Corinthians 1.30, Paul tells us, you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. He became to us wisdom from God. We talk about his righteousness, sanctification, and redemption being imputed to us.
Paul tells us his wisdom is imputed to us too. So this is the way we get wisdom. We listen to wisdom, we store up future wisdom by listening to him, by loving him, by obeying him.
And we do that knowing that one day we’ll be fully like him. We’ll be wise where our first parents were foolish. We’ll explore all that God has prepared for us within the boundaries of wisdom, acknowledging that he is God and we are not.
So that’s what future wisdom looks like for all who believe in Jesus. So the big question tonight is, where are you resisting correction and wisdom? Where are you choosing folly instead of wisdom? Turn away from your pride. You know the areas that are leading you to spiritual disaster.
Embrace wisdom, bow the knee, drop your defensive shields and say, Lord, teach me, instruct me, correct me where I’m wrong. My heart is open. I long to change and be more like Jesus.
That’s the beginning of wisdom now and the storing of a future wisdom that will last forever. Let’s then ask the Lord to grant us soft hearts, teachable spirits and the grace to love the discipline and instruction he sends to shape us into the image of his son. And let’s do that by praying the last verse of an old hymn by George Matheson.
Let’s pray. Make me a captive Lord and then I shall be free. Force me to render up my sword and I will conquer be.
My will is not my own till thou hast made it thine. If it would reach a monarch’s throne, it must its crown resign. It only stands unbent amid the clashing strife when on thy bosom it is lent and found in thee its life.
Lord, we submit now to your loving correction that we may win the wisdom that is Christ himself and that we may find our lives in him. Amen.
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