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Wisdom believes in God (WW#9/Prov 1:7).
Prayer
Mighty God, full of compassion and grace, I worship you. On this new day, I look again to you, from whom all my help and supply of strength and grace comes. O Lord, please lavish your love upon once again today for the sake of Christ my Saviour. Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law. I rest my soul in you. In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.
Reading
Proverbs 1:7.
“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge...”
Meditation
So what is the Fear of the Lord? As we embark on this series of meditations on the fear of the LORD, the very first thing we need to realise is that the fear of the LORD is to acknowledge God. That’s where it starts. In Psalm 14:1 we read: “The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”” The essence of folly and the opposite of wisdom is to deny that God is there, to suppress the truth of his existence (Rom 1:18). Everybody has this knowledge of God, “For what can be known about God is plain to all people, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honour him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened”(Rom 1:19-21).
Just as the heart of foolishness is basically characterised by denying God exists, so the beginning of wisdom finds it’s opposing starting point in acknowledging that he is there. Fools live as if there was no God. Wisdom perceives and acknowledges his existence, and then lives life in light of that. A wise person lives in the awareness of God, and makes his decisions in light of who God is.
Be ye doers of the word…
Two applications follow on from this insight. First, don’t deny God exists. It is the heart of foolishness. For those who persist in denying the God who is there, their foolishness will be shown up, and they will be answerable in the end. Thus we read in Psalm 2:10: “Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth. Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him.” If you are living a life where you do not acknowledge God, and you continue on that road, you too will perish in the way. Come instead to Christ, kiss the Son, and you will find refuge in him in the day of judgment. And as Christians, we must flee from sin, for every sin is, in a sense, a statement of denial as to the existence of God. But God is not mocked, we must fear the folly of denying God in the way we live.
The second application flowing out of this is: don’t doubt that God is there. There is immense pressure from the world against our faith. Christians are mocked as simpletons who supposedly believe in an imaginary friend. Atheists, whom the Bible calls fools, demand that we make the case for God – as if the case needed to be made. The tragedy, however, is that many Christians are actually tempted to buy in to this worldview and answer the fool according to his folly. But when an unbeliever asks us to prove God exists, Proverbs 26:4 gives us an important insight to keep in mind: “Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes.”
When a fool demands evidence for God, we must not answer him according to his folly by trying to prove God exists. God is not subject to our scrutiny, and he is not beholden to stand in the dock of human reason to be proved or otherwise (to borrow, I think, an image from C S Lewis). He is rather the very precondition of every breath that we take. Do not answer the fool according to his folly, instead answer him according to his folly by calling him to repent and kneel before the God of heaven who made him. Likewise we must also lovingly, patiently, and gently destroy his worldview. As 2 Corinthians 10:5 says, we must “destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ”. I think that it was Greg Bahnsen who commended the practice of repeatedly asking the question “Why?” of unbelievers. Let no unstated assumption of folly remain uncovered. A “why” on repeat will unravel the folly of their worldview and reduce them to making ridiculous and unprovable statements based upon their groundless, atheistic faith (e.g. “Everything came from nothing”). And in all, pray. For they will not see their folly unless the Lord opens their hearts to do so. To fear the Lord is to acknowledge God. SDG.
Prayer of Confession & Consecration
O Lord, I am sorry for the many times when I live out a lifestyle of practical atheism, making sinful choices as though you were not there. Please forgive me for my folly, and lead me in the way everlasting. Lord, please make me to live my life fully before your face, aware that you are with me, and seeking to please you in all things. I pray too that you would forgive me for my cowardice before unbelievers. Help me to testify powerfully to your grace, that souls may be saved from eternal wrath, and your glory may shine all the brighter in this sin-dark world. These things I pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Get full access to Old things New. at rcbhpastor.substack.com/subscribe
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By Reformed devotions from all of scripture.Prayer
Mighty God, full of compassion and grace, I worship you. On this new day, I look again to you, from whom all my help and supply of strength and grace comes. O Lord, please lavish your love upon once again today for the sake of Christ my Saviour. Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law. I rest my soul in you. In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.
Reading
Proverbs 1:7.
“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge...”
Meditation
So what is the Fear of the Lord? As we embark on this series of meditations on the fear of the LORD, the very first thing we need to realise is that the fear of the LORD is to acknowledge God. That’s where it starts. In Psalm 14:1 we read: “The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”” The essence of folly and the opposite of wisdom is to deny that God is there, to suppress the truth of his existence (Rom 1:18). Everybody has this knowledge of God, “For what can be known about God is plain to all people, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honour him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened”(Rom 1:19-21).
Just as the heart of foolishness is basically characterised by denying God exists, so the beginning of wisdom finds it’s opposing starting point in acknowledging that he is there. Fools live as if there was no God. Wisdom perceives and acknowledges his existence, and then lives life in light of that. A wise person lives in the awareness of God, and makes his decisions in light of who God is.
Be ye doers of the word…
Two applications follow on from this insight. First, don’t deny God exists. It is the heart of foolishness. For those who persist in denying the God who is there, their foolishness will be shown up, and they will be answerable in the end. Thus we read in Psalm 2:10: “Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth. Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him.” If you are living a life where you do not acknowledge God, and you continue on that road, you too will perish in the way. Come instead to Christ, kiss the Son, and you will find refuge in him in the day of judgment. And as Christians, we must flee from sin, for every sin is, in a sense, a statement of denial as to the existence of God. But God is not mocked, we must fear the folly of denying God in the way we live.
The second application flowing out of this is: don’t doubt that God is there. There is immense pressure from the world against our faith. Christians are mocked as simpletons who supposedly believe in an imaginary friend. Atheists, whom the Bible calls fools, demand that we make the case for God – as if the case needed to be made. The tragedy, however, is that many Christians are actually tempted to buy in to this worldview and answer the fool according to his folly. But when an unbeliever asks us to prove God exists, Proverbs 26:4 gives us an important insight to keep in mind: “Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes.”
When a fool demands evidence for God, we must not answer him according to his folly by trying to prove God exists. God is not subject to our scrutiny, and he is not beholden to stand in the dock of human reason to be proved or otherwise (to borrow, I think, an image from C S Lewis). He is rather the very precondition of every breath that we take. Do not answer the fool according to his folly, instead answer him according to his folly by calling him to repent and kneel before the God of heaven who made him. Likewise we must also lovingly, patiently, and gently destroy his worldview. As 2 Corinthians 10:5 says, we must “destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ”. I think that it was Greg Bahnsen who commended the practice of repeatedly asking the question “Why?” of unbelievers. Let no unstated assumption of folly remain uncovered. A “why” on repeat will unravel the folly of their worldview and reduce them to making ridiculous and unprovable statements based upon their groundless, atheistic faith (e.g. “Everything came from nothing”). And in all, pray. For they will not see their folly unless the Lord opens their hearts to do so. To fear the Lord is to acknowledge God. SDG.
Prayer of Confession & Consecration
O Lord, I am sorry for the many times when I live out a lifestyle of practical atheism, making sinful choices as though you were not there. Please forgive me for my folly, and lead me in the way everlasting. Lord, please make me to live my life fully before your face, aware that you are with me, and seeking to please you in all things. I pray too that you would forgive me for my cowardice before unbelievers. Help me to testify powerfully to your grace, that souls may be saved from eternal wrath, and your glory may shine all the brighter in this sin-dark world. These things I pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Get full access to Old things New. at rcbhpastor.substack.com/subscribe