I. Introduction
A. Series
1. We began this series on Proverbs on January 13 talking about the quest for wisdom from Proverbs 2: the importance of seeking after wisdom
2. Today: OK, I see that I must be a seeker of wisdom. But what do I do? Where do I start?
B. After the introduction to the book of Proverbs, which tells us why the book was written, the first thing said is 1:7 “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom & instruction.”
1. It is said again in Proverbs 9:10 “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.”
2. And again in Pr 15:33 “The fear of the Lord is the instruction for wisdom, And before honor comes humility.”
C. Here is the wisest man in all the world writing a book of wisdom, chapter after chapter of wise sayings. What is his first piece of wisdom given? What does he choose as his first principle of wisdom? To what does he give first place in his long list of wise things to say?
1. Something so wise that it is repeated three times in Proverbs and is referred to as the motto of the Wisdom writings, and two other times in Job and in Psalms.
2. The first thing this book of wisdom has to say about wisdom is that it comes from fearing God.
D. There are many times in our lives when one step in a process is missed and it ruins everything, because that step is so basic, so fundamental that without it the whole process breaks down.
1. That is what is going on in these verses before us this morning: In the pursuit of wisdom, there is one thing that must not be missed: the fear of the Lord.
II. Explanation
A. Fear: What does fearing the Lord really mean?
1. Some will tell you that fear is a bad thing and that people who talk about fearing God are just trying to scare you so that they can control you, and that Christianity is bad because it teaches that people should fear God.
a. And fear is a bad thing when it is fear of something that does not exist. E.g. zombies or aliens.
b. But everyone agrees that it is good and right to fear something. The question is, “Do you fear the right things?” Do you fear things that are truly dangerous? Or do you fear things that are silly to fear?
c. And the more dangerous something is, the more we should fear it, right?
d. In Luke 12:4-5 Jesus tells us who to fear. "And I say to you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear the One who after He has killed has authority to cast into hell; yes, I tell you, fear Him!”
e. The real reason that some people say Christianity is bad is because they don’t want to fear God. But one day all men will fear Him. One day when He comes those who don’t fear Him now will be terrified.
2. Some will tell you that fearing the Lord was something in the OT but that now in the NT we are not supposed to fear the Lord. But the apostle Paul says in Philippians 2:12 says “...work out your salvation with fear and trembling.”
3. Some people will tell you that God wants us to love Him, not fear Him, as if love and fear are opposites. But they are not opposites in the Bible. In the Bible the man who loves God most is also the One who fears Him most.
a. Psalm 2:11 Worship the LORD with reverence, And rejoice with trembling.
b. Prov14:26 In the fear of the LORD one has strong confidence, and his children will have a refuge.
c. In one sense, fear of God is more basic than love for Him. You realize He’s God before you realize He’s gracious.
4. How can I explain the idea of the fear of the Lord?
a. Lev. 19:3 “Every one of you shall fear his mother and his father...” This will help us understand how God's children should fear Him.
(1) Think of young children growing up in a godly home.
(2) Those children fear their father - they fear his discipline and his disapproval.
(3) They pay attention when he is speaking to them in a serious way.
(4) BUT, they know very well that they’re loved, they don’t have nightmares that Daddy is coming after them with an ax or that he will throw them out in the cold snow and lock the door.
b. Now there are children who do not fear their parents. They don't care what their parents say — they have turned their parents off. We’ve all heard children say to their parents, "I'm not afraid of you. You don't scare me."
(1) A child who does not fear his parents in this way also is the one who does not love them — he does not take them seriously.
c. Certainly there is a kind of fear that a child can have toward a parent that is harmful.
(1) And there is a bad kind of fear that we can have toward God: a fear that He will not keep His promises, that He is actually against me. A fear that maybe God really hates me and is going to smash me. But this is not what the Bible means when it speaks of fearing God.
d. I hope that the parent/child relationship helps us to understand the combination of fear and love in our relationship with God.
e. The fear of God isn’t an unfortunate thing we have to do merely because God hates sin and we’re sinners.
f. Fear is one way you must relate to One who is supreme and holy and righteous and all-powerful.
g. It is the way the sinless saints in heaven and the angels joyfully and gloriously relate to God.
5. Now many would prefer it if this verse just said “religious experience” instead of “the fear of the Lord.” This would be far more acceptable. But this verse doesn't say "religious experience." That which is being referred to here is not just some nebulous religious idea or feeling, as if it doesn't really matter what you believe in as long as you believe in something. This is the fear of Yahweh!
a. Fear, not just believing in the existence of God, not just agreeing that Jesus was the Son of God who died on the cross. Not just a knowledge of the Bible, not just knowing Christian doctrine, but a living, knowing, intimate, personal, childlike fear of the only true God, here referred to as...
b. Yahweh: This is the name of the God of the Bible: the God who created the universe, the God of Moses, the Holy One of Israel, the God & Father of our Lord Jesus, the God to whom every knee shall bow, the God who will judge every man according to what he has done here on the earth.
c. This verse is talking about fearing the one true living God - THAT is the beginning of wisdom.
B. What does it mean that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom?
1. It means many things...
a. It means that the fear of the Lord is the first step of wisdom.
b. It means that the fear of the Lord is the first and controlling principle of wisdom.
c. It means that the fear of the Lord is the source of all wisdom.
d. It means that the fear of the Lord is the gate that opens access to wisdom.
2. Just as birth is the beginning of life, so fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.
a. The fear of the Lord is not just part of wisdom, it is not just one principle of wisdom, it is the very entrance to wisdom, the foundation of wisdom, the source of wisdom.
b. It’s not as if there are 100 principles of wisdom and this is one of them, but if it is missed that you are still 99% wise.
c. Without this first step of wisdom, you can’t get to the rest of it. In fact, the fear of the Lord is the place where you get all the rest of wisdom. Without this, all the rest is useless.
3. ILLUSTRATION: Every once in a while they have to call in bomb experts to disarm the bomb so that it doesn’t blow up and hurt people. Fear of bombs is the beginning of wisdom about bombs. A man might know everything there is to know about bombs, except the fact that they’re dangerous, and all his knowledge would be useless. Imagine if you called in the bomb expert and he said, “I’ll just throw this thing in the trunk of my car and bring it home to work on in my spare time.”
4. Your whole life will have been in vain if you miss this one truth: that “our God is a consuming fire.” (Heb.12:29)
a. True knowledge of what it’s all about, true wisdom about how to live in this world, they spring from a relationship — a relationship with the one true living God, a relationship of fear and trust and love.
5. Wisdom and worship go together; they cannot be separated. We will never learn wisdom until we first learn worship. That’s what this verse is saying!
6. There is so much to know in this world. The greatest mind in all of the world only knows a minuscule amount of what there is to know. And yet there is one thing more important to know than anything else, and that is to know God.
7. Christianity contains many ideas and many principles, but it is much more than ideas & principles. Becoming a Christian is not simply an intellectual decision, it is a surrender of one’s life.
a. Where do you go to get wisdom? Do you go to the university? Do you go to the guru in India? Do you go to your friends? Do you go to the library? No! To get wisdom you go to your knees!
8. Wisdom starts with fear. Those who don’t fear God cannot be wise. A simple person without a gigantic IQ may well be wiser than the greatest minds of the world.
a. Psalm 119:99 “I have more insight than all my teachers, because I meditate on your statutes.”
b. This explains why so many very smart people are not Christians. It doesn’t start with smart. It starts with afraid. It starts with the realization of Someone much bigger and smarter than me.
c. What are the two first principles of Christian theology?
(1) There is a God.
(2) I am not Him.
(a) I am not on the throne of the universe, but there is Someone on that throne who is perfectly righteous and holy, who is all-powerful and all-knowing, and who is my creator and judge.
9. Those who don’t fear God may at times be much smarter than we are. Their brains may have many more facts in them than ours ever will. But without the fear of God there’s no wisdom.
10. The verse does not say that fear of the Lord is merely helpful in obtaining wisdom. Nor does it say that it is merely important. It actually says that fear of God is the way to get wisdom and knowledge, and the only way to get it.
III. Why is the fear of the Lord the beginning of wisdom?
A. Because the Lord is the source of all wisdom and knowledge - Col. 2:3 "in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." And therefore wisdom is something God gives — but only to those who bend the knee to Him.
B. Because the one who fears the Lord is the only one who will listen to Him, because he recognizes that God is all-wise and the giver of all wisdom.
C. Because if you don’t fear the Lord, you don’t understand who He is. And if you don’t understand who He is, everything else is skewed, since He is the center of the universe, and the universe's ultimate cause and final purpose.
1. Romans 11:36 says that “From him and through him and to him are all things.”
2. If that’s true, how could you possible understand things without understanding Him?
3. E.g. What is right and wrong? Who am I? Why do bad things happen in this world? Why am I the way I am? What is life all about? And what happens next?
4. The Bible tells us God made the universe to teach us about Himself. The trees, the sky, the ocean, the sun, the moon, the stars, the rocks, the rain, the order of it all, the beauty of it all, the vastness of it all, the complexity of it all, it's all here to reveal Him. “The whole earth is full of His glory.”
5. If that first principle is missed, then you can still learn a lot about things, but you’ll never grasp the point of it all.
6. Rightly perceiving the world is an essential ingredient in a life that is balanced, stable, sane and meaningful.
a. And you can’t rightly perceive the world if you leave out the One for whom it was made.
IV. Conclusion
A. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” This verse tells us that in one very real sense everything in life is religious. Everything a man does in his life, everything a man thinks, is an expression of what he thinks about God. You cannot take God out of the picture in any area of life without ruining the picture, and in one sense losing the picture altogether.
1. It’s like cutting Mona Lisa or Whistler’s Mother out of the painting. You still have a nice frame and a nice background. But what’s the point of the rest of it without the central character?
B. Some people react to this with real hostility.
1. God says that the fear of the Lord is where wisdom comes from.
2. In Gen. 3:1-6 Satan said in the garden that fearing the Lord prevented you from obtaining wisdom, and that if you discard your fear of God you would obtain wisdom.
3. Man is still convinced that wisdom comes from breaking away from God and going your own way. Satan's deception still rules mankind.
C. The real question is: Whose knowledge do we trust? Our own, or God's? Prov. 3:7 - "Do not be wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord and turn away from evil."
D. Rom.1:22 says of those who reject God's wisdom - "claiming to be wise they became fools"
E. Do not be deceived, my young friends! Fear God and live! Fear God and become wise!