Wisdom, the Gift of God

"Wisdom, the Gift of God" – Proverbs 2:6 After being saved through faith in Christ we find ourselves in the position of a pupil; and a pupil of the Lord, which is a great privilege. What we must learn today is that wisdom is a gift of God, and that every believer must have it, because the evil day comes and the good day comes, and wisdom makes us know according to what we have to live. It is not that you were born with it, nor is it an intellectual capacity, nor a score: it is the man and the woman who decides to seek it. And we must understand, as a rule of doctrine, that when Proverbs speaks of Wisdom with a capital letter it is a veiled presentation: the veil is lifted and it lets us see that it is the Lord.

I. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction (Proverbs 1:7).

A. We are pupils of the Lord.

1. After being saved through faith in Christ we find ourselves in the position of a pupil; and if we are pupils, He is the Teacher.

2. God gives us of Himself little by little; He will never give you an overdose of Himself, because we would not understand or take it in: the mind is still too narrow.

3. The Word is the way the Father corrects us; and when He points out what we must correct, the one who works the effect comes, the Holy Spirit, and convicts us.

4. In the end it is God who begins to work this great effect in us, because we ourselves put in very little.

5. And if we are learning wisdom, it is something we must apply in our daily living; for if we are guided by wisdom, life takes a turn and our mouth begins to speak wisdom.

6. There is much we say that is not worth saying, many sayings of father, of mother, of the cousin; and our speech becomes so ordinary that the hearer says: I do not care.

B. Divine wisdom, not human experience.

1. By sayings and by what I was told much is spoken; but it is the divine that produces an effect. Everyone wants to mark people with what he knows.

2. We must open the heart to receive the wisdom that comes from above, through the Scriptures and through whatever it pleases God to teach us today.

3. God teaches us to think rightly, to weigh, to value, and to discern the truth; for you have your truth, but your truth is yours and to your own convenience.

4. Often error is spoken to you and forced down your ears: it reaches the ear, rises to the mind, and out of the mouth flows the error we were taught. Know the truth, but know how to discern the error.

5. True wisdom does not come from human experience alone. Many speak of what they have lived, but that is not wisdom: those are each one's own experiences.

6. It is a gift of God to those who seek Him. If you have no wisdom, it is because you have not given yourself to seeking God; and if you do not seek, it is because you do not have the Lord.

C. Prudence, and the fear of the Holy Spirit.

1. We must develop prudence, that way of acting with care; a prudence that must be wholly divine, as one says: I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.

2. If we give place to the flesh, it tears us apart. The flesh is always at war with the spirit and with the soul; and since the soul is very vulnerable, the flesh leaps first upon the soul.

3. But there is a spirit joined to the Holy Spirit, and that is what strengthens you, what governs you, and what tells you: not that, take care.

4. And when the Holy Spirit convicts us, what must we do? Go to prayer and ask forgiveness.

5. To blaspheme against the Holy Spirit has no forgiveness: it is the one sin that will never be forgiven, and it is said that it were better never to have been born.

6. Yes, we are under grace; but grace has a point that is least seen and most severe of all. That is why we must be people who fear.

D. Baptism: death and new life.

1. Going into the waters is not a party: it is to say that one is dead and must rise. It is not that your name is written on a list: it is you with God.

2. One buries his flesh: how bad, how selfish, and how untruthful one can be. That is death, and one rises to new life; and there the Holy Spirit begins to work in you.

3. If you are carnal, you are half and half: spiritual today and doing a string of things tomorrow. One must die in order to understand.

4. I was baptized, I was converted, so I have entered into being wise: it is an obligation to enter into being wise. If you have not, ninety-nine percent of you is carnal, and you will speak, live, and opine carnally.

5. That is why churches have so little effect on the world, and I mean this one too: because wisdom is lacking and we know a great deal of our own.

6. The most reasonable thing is that the creature trust his Creator; and the most senseless is that a man reject the Word of God. Fools are void of prudence and of good judgment.

II. Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding (Proverbs 3:13).

A. One is not born with it: it is acquired.

1. It is not that you were born with an intellectual capacity, nor is it a score; it is not mastering science or numbers. It is not that subject.

2. It is the man and the woman who decides: wait, I must seek wisdom, I must seek understanding.

3. The conceited man is the one who feels a worth above what is natural, who already believes himself able and believes he knows everything; and he cannot be dealt with.

4. And what should a father or a mother do? Feed the child so that he loves wisdom. When you govern your life, you will govern your children's and all that is around you.

5. As the child grows, when he comes to be a grown man he will be soaked in wisdom from head to foot. We will have a good man on the earth.

B. Wisdom with a capital letter is Christ.

1. When Proverbs speaks of wisdom, understand it as a rule of doctrine: it is a veiled presentation. There is a veil, the veil is lifted, and it lets us see that it is the Lord.

2. It is plain and exact: Wisdom is our Lord Jesus Christ. And the more you live for the Lord, the more wisdom you have.

3. And whom does that wisdom benefit first? You. Because I have the Lord Jesus Christ, who is wisdom.

4. And in Jesus Christ and in His death the Holy Spirit came into our life; and there is the third person, who convicts us and says: what you did, no; take care.

5. To me the Bible is the most sacred thing there is; I am not a one-day-a-week Bible reader. For there is the wisdom, and if it is there, I must find it every day.

III. Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding (Proverbs 4:7-9).

A. The first step is motivation.

1. You want wisdom, you want to learn it and you want to live in it: take a motivation, that inner force.

2. Wisdom is an inner force that shows itself outwardly. In the way life grips you and in what presses you, you will have strength because you have wisdom, and that drives you to act.

3. Your tire blew, and the spare is not there and neither is the jack. That happens to anyone; but the one who already has wisdom says: Lord, I need thy mercies.

4. And the second is determination: for when someone expects you to do something in which there is no wisdom, but deceit.

5. In life we obtain what we pursue. If you want a new car, you look for the loan, you sell the old one, you do the paperwork. That is wisdom.

6. Otherwise the trouble will drown you, will take you over, and will carry you to a despair that destroys you.

B. Learning to choose.

1. When you already know wisdom, you know what is a yes and what is a no. And understanding shows you that there is no sentiment and no drama there: there is a reality, and that is all.

2. As we grow and come to know more, we will be people of a higher quality.

3. We will learn to choose between good and evil, between the good and the better, between the physical and the spiritual, between the temporal and the eternal.

4. It is like saying: let us lift the veil. For sometimes what people expect of us lays a veil over us. A child says you do not love him and that he is leaving: there is no understanding there, and no conversation should be had.

IV. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom... for by me thy days shall be multiplied (Proverbs 9:10-11).

A. Wisdom gives moral beauty.

1. If you love wisdom, it will give you moral beauty: it adorns you with grace and crowns you with glory.

2. If you have not wanted wisdom because you want to live according to this world, you are an ugly person: in gesture, in movement, in hatred, in strife, and in indifference.

3. Life goes faster than we think. The strength of this year belongs to this year, and next year's to next year. Do not waste time: fill your life with wisdom.

4. The starting point of all true wisdom is the fear of the Lord. To know the Deity is the meaning of knowledge: to know the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is the greatest knowledge on earth.

5. And the true believer, by knowing the Holy One, can see more on his knees than others manage to see on tiptoe.

B. Multiplied days and years of life added.

1. It provides not only a long life but also a good and productive way of living. One is of use for something; we are not useless.

2. That young person of whom it is said: what is he good for? He does nothing, he settles nothing. What is the matter? There is no wisdom.

3. And besides, the life that will never end; and of that life I am speaking: eternal life, for which we must fight.

4. To be wise is for one's own good: one benefits himself more than others. The wise one sees how his child moves without anyone having to tell him.

5. The wise one knows how to order the house and how to guide each one, and not everyone by the same rule. And people will tell you that you are lucky; no: wisdom.

C. The scorner.

1. The scorner is the person who delights in cruel mockery, the haughty person and therefore the proud one. There is an absence of Wisdom there, who is Christ.

2. For if Christ is in us, He is meek and lowly. And did Jesus not know all He had to do? He knew it; but that fell to Him for your sake.

3. And yet, when they wanted to cast Him down the cliff, He wisely said that His hour had not come.

4. A church is not a scorner. Perhaps here you keep up appearances, but your neighbor knows and everyone knows. We are one body: the body of Wisdom.

5. In the end, according to how you carry what you have been taught, you are the winner or the loser. It is not that they made it hard for you nor that anyone took it from you: one decides.

V. If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not (James 1:5).

A. We do not face life with human wisdom.

1. And what is the day of testing? The evil day, the hard day, the day of the trouble; that day when you need favor to come from somewhere.

2. If in that time we lack discernment, we must go to God and confess to Him all about our ignorance.

3. You are ignorant of what is being plotted by the one thinking how to destroy you; you would never think that person is thinking that against you. But you do know something is affecting you.

4. Then ask God for wisdom, that He let you see things plainly; and God will come out on your behalf and deliver you. For when someone plans how to destroy you, if you are not alert, he destroys you.

5. Sometimes the best wisdom is to get up and leave. Another word of wisdom is: I do not have to speak about that. You do not have to speak on every subject put before you.

6. God does not upbraid us for not knowing what to say; He knows our limits and gives liberally. But how will you receive it? By asking for it.

B. Wisdom excels, in that it giveth life to them that have it (Ecclesiastes 7:12).

1. Wisdom is like money in that both offer protection and security, in a certain sense.

2. With money one can insure against physical and financial loss; while wisdom provides protection against moral and spiritual harm.

3. That is why wisdom is superior: it preserves not only the material fortunes of those who have it, but also their life.

4.

And that is when we remember that Christ is the wisdom of God made manifest, personified, and that everyone who finds it finds life.

5. In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Colossians 2:3). Amen.