THE CHARACTERISTICS OF GOD‘S WISDOM (Proverbs 8:1-13)

Our message today is about the characteristics of God’s Wisdom.  The things about God’s Wisdom that makes it so beneficial and good for our lives.  

During the week as I work on these messages, I sit in an office at home that is mostly quiet.  My wife doesn’t make much noise, and there are no kids living with us anymore to make a racket.  The only real noisemakers are our dogs, and one in particular, that cannot stand to have people walking up and down the sidewalk in front of our house.  He especially can’t stand it when a package is delivered to the front door.  So, for most of the time that I am studying, it is real quiet.  Sometimes too quiet and I will turn on a selection of piano solos of hymns in the background to give a little bit of noise to focus my mind.  

I have learned that most of us can operate at two levels of thought, one of direct focus, and another in the background.  For example, most of us can have an instructor behind us walking us through how to do something while we concentrate on the task at hand. However, if a third person tries to talk at the same time, we cannot manage it.  For me, I can be focused on studying and composing the lessons with God speaking as my instructor, but in the background, the activity of the day wants to intrude on my mind and distract me.  So, I will play a selection of piano solos of the old hymns that I grew up with and love so much.  I don’t have to concentrate on them because I know them so well, and they don’t distract me, but they do help to shut out the events of the day that are trying to distract and take over my mind.  It is like having God speaking to me through His word and His music at that same time.  It fills up my two levels of thought and I can study.

Now, I study very differently than how my father did.  He used books and hand wrote everything.  I do all of my work on a computer.  I hand write very little.  All of my notes are on the computer.  I have 26 versions of the Bible on the computer.  I have all of my reference material, commentaries, inter-linear Bibles, sermons, Greek and Hebrew translations on the computer.  They are all available to me at the touch of a button.  Yet, that same computer puts at my disposal all the news of the day, entertainment, and connection with my friends and family via the airwaves and the internet.  All in a machine that I work on in my quiet office, in my quiet home.  Often the only sound is the clicking of the keys as I type.

It is all available to me, but as I type my lessons, I’m not even aware that all of that communication and entertainment is there. If the music gets too loud or distracting, I can turn the volume down, or up, or even off.   

Yet, I also have a different kind of receiver in my room. The highest and holiest wisdom is as close as that computer, but it is not on that computer.  This different receiver sits on a table right next to me and it is my old Bible.  The one my parents gave to me 40 years ago as a graduation gift.  It is still very special to me.  The Bibles on my computer are just study tools, there is nothing special about them, I never use them to really open my mind to God.  However, there is just something special about being able to reach out my hand and take up that Book of books, turn its pages, and open my heart and mind to the words of the Holy Spirit. The wisdom of the Word—the revealed and inspired wisdom of the living God—is right there in my room.  God’s Wisdom is never farther away than that Book.  It calls to each of us.  It says, “Unto you, O men, I call.”  God speaks to me when I listen to the words found in His book and apply them to my heart.

God’s Wisdom says that “All the words of my mouth are in righteousness; there is nothing froward or perverse in them.”  All the words of the God’s book are inspired by God, they are true, righteous, and nothing twisted can be found in them.  We may not understand all of the Bible, and we may not always interpret it properly. Nevertheless, every word of the Bible is God-breathed, divinely inspired, inerrant, infallible, and wholly dependable. All of God’s words are righteous. All of God’s words are right. We may not like them, and we may not want to obey them, but they are right.

The Scriptures contain unfathomable depths. How could it be otherwise when the words are those of an infinite God? A man can study the Bible all his life and still feel he has but touched the fringe of Inspiration’s garment. At the same time a little child can read and understand the Bible. It is that simple.

There is enough truth in the Word of God to save a soul and truth enough to occupy the sharpest mind for a lifetime.

Click on the link below to hear a message on the characteristics of God’s Word.

Amen.