AP

Proverbs 1:26-29  “I in turn will laugh at your disaster; I will mock when calamity overtakes you – when calamity overtakes you like a storm, when disaster sweeps over you like a whirlwind, when distress and trouble overwhelm you.  Then they will call to me but I will not answer; they will look for me but will not find me.  Since they hated knowledge and did not choose to fear the LORD, …”

How my heart ached when I read this chapter for today!  As we reflect on the mess our world is in today – a world which, on its completion, the Creator proclaimed as “very good” (Genesis 1:31)! – we can’t help asking, “How did this disastrous state of affairs come about?”.

Throughout his divine, infallible revelation in the Scriptures, God answers our question very, very clearly; and these verses in Proverbs summarise his reply on the lips of ‘Wisdom’.  When we come to the NT we find that this ‘Wisdom’ is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ, the ‘Logos’ (‘Word’ – John 1:1,14), God the Son, “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3).

Our world in general, our pervading culture, is in a state described all too accurately in Psalm 2!  Our culture refuses to acknowledge God as Creator in terms of his clear revelation in Genesis 1, and it refuses to submit to the Lordship of Christ, because it prefers to derive its ‘wisdom’ from the [fallen] human mind alone as its source.  Sadly, the description, “they hated knowledge and did not choose to fear the LORD” (29) fits our present case exactly – and all ‘Wisdom’ is doing is spelling out the inevitable consequences.

But the truly SAD consequence is “they will call to me but I will not answer; they will look for me but will not find me” (28).  Derek Kidner comments: “The forceful verbs of 20-24 … the verbs of rejection in 22, 24, 25, make the issue hinge solely on the individual’s choice.  If, elsewhere in the book, fool and scorner appear to be fixed types, it is their FAULT, not their FATE: they are eating ‘of the fruit of their own way’ (30-31)”the (emphasis added).  And he comments further on verse 26: “‘I … will laugh [mock]’ is not an expression of personal heartlessness, but of the absurdity of choosing folly, the complete vindication of wisdom, and the incontestable fitness of the disaster (cf Psalm 2:4)”.

We, of course, can see this truth most clearly in the Cross, and rejecting the provision of ‘eternal salvation’ a loving Heavenly Father offers to ALL.  Let all of us who HAVE “listened to ‘Wisdom’”, and  acknowledged Jesus as both SAVIOUR and LORD, continue earnestly in crying out to him in prayer for the ‘healing’ of our broken world, while taking hold of his promise: “but whoever listens to me will live in safety and be at ease, without fear of harm” (33).