Wisdom’s Cry: Overcoming Fear Through the Fear of the Lord

"Wisdom's Cry: Overcoming Fear Through the Fear of the Lord"

Proverbs chapter 1, and when we arrive there in the first chapter, let's look in verse 20. Wisdom cryeth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets. She cryeth in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates. In the city uttereth her words saying, how long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity, and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge. Turn you at my reproof; behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you. I will make known my words unto you. Because I have called and you refused, I have stretched out my hand and no man regarded. But ye have set at nought all my counsel and would none of my reproof. I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh. When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind. When distress and anguish cometh upon you, then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer. They shall seek me early, but they shall not find me. For that they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord. They would none of my counsel, and they despised all my reproof. Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way and be filled with their own devices. For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them.

Heavenly Father, in these moments that we have around your word, we pray for your blessing. We pray that you'll help us to rightly divide the word of truth and apply it to our lives. Lord, we thank you for the opportunity. Thank you for the help that we have to be here, the desire you put in our hearts to be here today. And we pray these things in Jesus' name, Amen.

You know, we're living in times when people are afraid. People are afraid of a lot of things. I know that the Bible makes it very clear, as I've already mentioned this morning, that through fear of death, we used to be subject to bondage in our life past, right? But I've noticed that even in our world, increasingly people are afraid of many things. I think about our own country; people are afraid. I think people are afraid of each other. You notice something I've noticed; I don't know if this is just a local thing or not. But when you pull up to a stoplight, nobody ever pulls up directly beside you anymore. They're probably afraid they're going to be shot. People are afraid of each other. I believe in our world, we live in an increasingly divided country, certainly in our nation, we live in a different world. People want peace so badly on the earth, but it seems like the harder we try to achieve it, the farther it gets out there in the distance. We want peace, but there really is no peace. Jesus said there would be no peace until He brings it, right? In the world, you'll have tribulation, and there's going to be unrest. Jerusalem is going to be a cup of trembling, right? There's going to be fear. In fact, it's going to get worse before it gets better. In fact, we read that it will come to the point where men's hearts will be failing them because of fear when they see the things that are happening, the wrath of God being revealed in judgments upon the earth. We're getting a little tiny foretaste of all that is coming in the future in God's wrath. And yet, we read in the book of Revelation, at least in one if not two places, that they repented not still. They still did not repent even though the wrath of God was being poured out. And it will say that they repented not of their fornications, their sorceries. We talked about how that's tied in the word pharmakeia, you know, how the demonic realm and the illicit drugs tie in together that are going on. Even now we see it precipitating in our world. Where can you trust people? There's a fear.

That's a fear of events that unfolded even in the western part of our state. And not only our state, other states, I mean, whole towns are just about washed away. That's a fearful sight, right? That's a fearful thing. People are afraid of food shortages. People are afraid of what's going to happen with the election, government overreach, gun confiscation. People are afraid of death. It's a fearful time in which to live, just humanly speaking, right? There's a lot of fearful things. There's a lot of unknowns. And that's the general sentiment. I've heard liberal and conservative talking heads talk to people on the street. The general sentiment is we don't know what's about to happen next. We don't know. And we really never have known heavily, but it seems it feels more uncertain now than ever. And the reason I mention all of that is not to cause fear in you, is not to say that we need to be afraid. In fact, I'm here today to say quite the opposite, that be not afraid. Be not afraid. In fact, that's what wisdom is saying this morning.

Now you may say you just preached a few weeks ago on wisdom crying out, right? Wisdom in chapter 8, I preached from Proverbs chapter 8 about wisdom crying out. But this morning the Lord has laid it upon my heart again to preach from Proverbs chapter 1. And the cry of wisdom is how long, ye simple ones, will you love simplicity, and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge. Turn you at my reproof. Behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you. I will make known my words unto you. You know, we're in the last days, we're in the last hours of the last days, we don't know how much longer we have. But God is still speaking, wisdom is still speaking as we said the other week. Wisdom is still crying out. If anyone will listen, turn at my reproof.

What is it, we saw the other week that one of the things that we've said as a nation is we will rebuild, right? We will rebuild it. You're going to hear that a lot. Listen, you're going to hear a whole lot in the coming days. Let's hear how many times we hear turn to the Lord versus we will build back stronger as a community. Will we turn to the Lord as a community, or will we rebuild? Now we can rebuild, yes, I'm not saying don't rebuild, but are we going to turn to the Lord? You know, the Lord is the one that allowed this to happen. He didn't get taken by surprise, but if things have unfolded in recent days, He's the one that specifically sent that tornado exactly where it went. I thought to myself, we're going to see a tornado here at the church because I was here. Brother P was here at the church at that moment. And we saw the insulation falling down and the leaves and twigs and things falling out of the sky. And I thought the Lord really spared us here. What is the Lord saying? Not only to the community, what's the Lord saying even to His people?

The problem is that man naturally fears death, but not God; fears the consequences of sin, but not sin itself; hates the consequences, but not the sin itself. I see this always when a hurricane comes; people write obscene phrases on plywood that they screw to their building, saying profane things against the storm that's about to come. The implication is that the storm doesn't have any responsibility. It's just doing what God's told it to do. The storm, God is the one that's sending the storm. Instead, maybe we need to turn to Him because of the storm.

The Proverbs teaches us that we must make a choice between wisdom and foolishness. Wisdom and folly, and folly is foolishness bound up in our own heart, isn't it? It's bound up in our own heart even from a child, the scripture says; the rod of correction, Proverbs will tell us, will drive it far from him. But even in our lives as the children of God, we see that He chastens us. The things that to the world are fearful sights, to us are tests, a faith, tests sent to purge our faith and call us to trust and lean wholly on the Lord and not on our own understanding, not to be afraid because fear is simply the result of us not trusting the Lord like we ought to. What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee, David said. We do have fear come to us, but we must lay aside those fears. There's 103 times that I've seen that the specific phrase either be not afraid or fear not is given through the Old Testament, through the New Testament in our Bible. And there's more times than that, several hundred times where it's implied, maybe not those exact phrases, but be not afraid or fear not in the sense of an exhortation to us to not be afraid, but instead to look to the Lord, to trust in Him. Wisdom teaches us not to be afraid. Wisdom teaches us not to be afraid of the things that can happen to us horizontally, but instead to fear God. Fear God. Keep His commandments. Remember what Solomon said at the end of Ecclesiastes? This is the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God. Keep His commandments. That's the whole duty of man. That's the whole purpose.

Well, the book of Proverbs reveals that there's really two groups of people, the foolish and the wise. And then there's those that go along with the foolish, the simpletons. The simpleton is one who is more naive. The simpleton is one, you think of your child. He might follow the foolish person, someone who knows better, who ought to know better, because they don't know better, but they go after it. The natural tendency is kind of like, you know, the little boy's natural tendency might be to run out into the road. Well, if we call out, I think I gave this example recently, we call out to the little boy and say, hey, come back here. He turns around, comes back; he chose to listen to that voice, didn't he? He chose to listen. And that's what Solomon is writing to his own sons here. He says, he compares wisdom to a woman, one beautiful and desirable, attractive. Choose wisdom. Listen to wisdom. Turn away from the strange one. Turn away from this world, turn to wisdom and listen and hear. Well, the simpleton is often easily influenced and persuaded by the crowd. There's no governing principle, no conviction of life to keep away from the folly. So the only way that the simpleton who is void of understanding can get understanding is he must receive it. He must hear it. He must hear wisdom. He must get understanding. And he must buy it up and lay hold of it and keep it, not let go of it. That's what the book of Proverbs is talking about.

Well, what did David say in Psalm 34? Let's look over there, Psalm 34, verse 11. It's there that we read these words: come, ye children, hearken unto me. He says, I will teach you the fear of the Lord. We don't naturally fear the Lord, do we? We naturally fear things like death and the consequences of our sins. We fear what might happen to us, but we don't naturally fear God. There is no fear of God with man naturally. We have to be taught to come to an understanding and learn the fear of the Lord. We have to; it has to be revealed to us. There's a God behind all of these circumstances. There is a true story about all this happening in your life. This is not just random, unrelated, unpredictable circumstances. There's a God who sends the storms. There's a God who is judging righteously. There's a God who has made a provision for you to be free from your sins. And He's waiting. He's longing for you to come to Him, to turn at His reproof, and hear His words and believe them, and to believe there will be great rest to your soul if you'll just believe the word of wisdom, that we must receive wisdom and be taught the fear of the Lord. Naturally, we are simpletons. We are naturally without understanding.

Proverbs 15, let's look there in verse 32. Proverbs 15, verse number 32 says, he that refuseth instruction despiseth his own soul, but he that heareth reproof getteth understanding. The fear of the Lord is the instruction of wisdom, and before honor is humility. In other words, we need to humble ourselves before God. That's the whole point of this. The only way that Nebuchadnezzar was able to get a proper worldview was he first had to be humbled. He first had to be brought very low and realize the world doesn't revolve around me. It revolves around God, and I must bow before Him, the one true God, and I must acknowledge that He's the God in heaven that rules over it all, and that my life is responsible to Him as my Creator and also as the one who is desiring that I worship Him. He has made provisions. I might turn to Him, and so we either refuse Him or we receive His word. We refuse His word or we receive it.

Proverbs 19 verse 8 says, he that getteth wisdom loveth his own soul. The man, woman, boy, girl that gets wisdom loveth his own soul. He that keepeth understanding shall find good. So there can be the same set of circumstances in our world happening, but for those that get understanding and the fear of the Lord and are humble before Him, it is going to be well with them. It's going to be good. It's going to be fine. It's going to be well, but for those who don't receive understanding and the fear of the Lord, it is not going to be well for them. It is not going to turn out for good to them. And the simple difference is this, whether we receive or reject God's words, God's truth.

That's outdated, isn't it? That's outdated. Brother George and I were chatting about that this week. Outdated. You know, we are outdated. It's old-fashioned to believe the Bible, isn't it? It's old-fashioned. And yet the people who think that it's outdated are going to be outdated very soon. They're going to be outdated, and there will be a new heaven. There will be a new earth. And all this that seems so new and modern is really leading to death, isn't it? And it's going to be replaced with the renewed earth. And only those, what does the Bible say? Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. The meek will inherit the earth. Those who bow before the Savior will inherit this new earth.

Wisdom is presented as this woman here, and she is speaking once again as we saw the other week. And she is saying, notice back in our text here something specifically, what a powerful indictment: because I have called, verse 24, and ye refused. Because I have called and ye refused. How many times will God call upon our nation? How many times will God speak to us? How many storms? How many 9/11s? How many whatever you can say? Will God open the door for us to humble ourselves? How many times? How many times will He speak to the individual? Well, because I called and ye refused, I have stretched out my hand and no man regarded, but ye have set at nought all my counsel and would none of my reproof. There is coming a time where the Lord will laugh at your calamity. I will mock when your fear cometh. And you know, it says that they will call upon me in verse 28, but I will not answer, not because the Lord is harsh and callous and insensitive, but because even the calling upon Him is, Lord, save us from our circumstances. Save us from this terrible situation, and wisdom is telling us you've brought it upon yourself. You have brought it upon yourself.

Well, if we refuse wisdom and the fear of the Lord, we will live in fear. We will live in fear. And I believe the increasing uncertainty and division and fearfulness that is gripping our nation is because we have refused the word of the Lord. I'm not saying everyone has, but I'm saying as a nation, we have turned our back on the God of the Bible. We have turned our back upon Him. The Bible doesn't inform our policy-making. In fact, it's very clear increasingly that the policies made in this nation are informed by Satan. Everything, we're running as fast as we can anti-Bible. Thank God there is a remnant left that believes in the Bible. And God, I believe, has extended His mercy as long as He has because there is a remnant. And that's what we see the pattern is throughout history, because there's a remnant of godly believers in this nation. But in general, we pay lip service to God, but we follow our own hearts. And this is why the Lord says to those who do that, I will laugh at your calamity. We've shut God out of everything. I can't help but see that we're, you know, I don't want to sensationalize things, but I think the tragedies that are happening on many different levels in our country are coming with more and more rapid succession. They're happening on so many levels: the school shootings, the natural climatological, ideological events that are unfolding, the invasion of hundreds of thousands of illegal, even criminal illegals that are pouring into our country. That doesn't happen by accident. That doesn't happen without there being some reason that God has allowed all of that to happen. I mean, we could just go on and on: the sex trafficking that is rampant in our country, from the lower all the way to high levels, there's just fornication that is rampant in our land.

And yet, look, I've been in Proverbs 3, verse 25 with me. We're told this, those who trust in the Lord are told these words in verse 25: be not afraid of sudden fear, neither of the desolation of the wicked when it cometh. For the Lord, the Lord in whom you trust shall be thy confidence and shall keep thy foot from being taken. Be not afraid. This is not a suggestion. This is a command.

What is the most important thing for us to remember when all these things begin to happen even in our nation? And I think it's very clear that the handprint of God in judgment is upon these things. What are we to realize? Don't be afraid of sudden fear because God is behind it. Don't be afraid of sudden fear if your trust is in the Lord because this desolation is coming upon the wicked. In fact, the Lord shall be thy confidence, verse 26 says, and shall keep thy foot from being taken. We see this pattern in the prophets where the people would pray in the midst of wrath, remember mercy. In the midst of wrath, remember mercy.

The safest place for us to abide is in the center of the wisdom of God and the wisdom of God's word and the will of God. We don't need, we've got to use the noggin God gave us. We need to make some necessary preparations, but that's not our confidence. Our confidence is the Lord. It is the Lord Himself. It's the one who has told us what's going to happen if we turn our back on Him as a nation, as a people, as an individual. God has told us very clearly. Wisdom has declared it. And yet, for those who trust in the Lord, we've been commanded a very simple command: Be not afraid. Be not afraid. Be not afraid for the Lord shall be thy confidence.

Habakkuk, it could say, he was fearful when he realized, look at this bitter and hasty nation, the Chaldeans coming in. The Lord, I knew you were going to judge, but I didn't know you were going to use the Chaldeans. They are a wicked people. Maybe some other means of judgment, besides the Chaldeans. No? He came. The Lord brought him in His patience. He brought him to the conclusion, even though there's a famine in the land, even though there's no, you know, maybe the marauding armies are going to take away some of the produce of the growth of the vine and the ox and the stall, yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will rejoice in the Lord, because He's in control. That's our worldview as those who humble themselves before God, and fear His worth, fear Him and trust His word, trust His wisdom, not leaning to their own understanding, not leaning to our own understanding, acknowledging Him in our ways. What are we to do? Don't be afraid. Trust in the Lord. He's your confidence.

Well, God has commanded His people throughout the centuries not to be afraid. So look at Deuteronomy 20, verse 1. It says, when thou goest out to battle against thine enemies and seest horses and chariots and the people more than thou, be not afraid of them for the Lord thy God is with thee, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. So here's the principle: God's been with you. He'll keep on being with you. Just trust Him. Don't be afraid. Don't let sudden fear, don't let overwhelming odds cause you to be afraid. Trust in the Lord. In Joshua 1:9, we know that word: Have not I commanded thee? Be thou strong and of a good courage. Neither be thou afraid, neither be thou dismayed for the Lord thy God is with thee, whithersoever thou goest. Don't live in fear. Don't live in fear.

Well, there's so many passages that we can look at that talk about this. Let's look at 2 Chronicles 20, verse 15. It says there in verse number 15: And he said, Hearken ye, all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem and thou king Jehoshaphat. Thus saith the Lord unto you, be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude for the battle is not yours, but God's. We see that the Spirit of the Lord came upon them in the midst of the congregation, and He spoke these words to them. If we had the time, we probably could take an hour of just reading times where God has, through the prophets or His teachers, the apostles, told the people not to be afraid. Jesus Christ Himself: be not afraid. Remember what Jesus said? He said, let not your heart be troubled. Neither let it be afraid. He said, peace I leave with you. My peace I give unto you, not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled. Neither let it be afraid.

You know, fear keeps us from proclaiming God's truth. Fear keeps us from doing what is right. Fear keeps us from being a blessing to others. We use all our energy to be afraid of what's happening. And I'm not sitting here saying that you are afraid this morning, but if things continue the way they are, we're going to see some fearful things. We're going to experience some fearful things. There's a whistleblower that was in the FBI. And he, with quavering in his voice, recently testified before Congress and said, in so many words, arm yourselves, have four months of food stored up, and be ready for anything. That was a former FBI agent testifying before Congress. And the man, you can hear it in his voice, he's quavering as he's speaking before Congress. I don't say that to make you afraid. I just say it to say that we haven't seen anything yet, folks, at what may be ahead. It's okay. The Lord is our confidence, right? The Lord is our confidence. And as the scripture says, fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul, but rather fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

Let your conversation, in Hebrews 13:5, be without covetousness and be content with such things as ye have, for He hath said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. So that we may boldly say, the Lord is my helper, I will not fear what man shall do unto me. Remember, it's a command. Remember, I'm Pastor Daniel. Remember, it's a command. Those who have families, those who have others that look to you to take care of them. What might happen to me? Don't worry about that. It's a command to fear not, but to fear the Lord. Wisdom teaches us those who reject the fear of the Lord, He will be their confidence.

Let's pray. Thank you for these words from your word this morning, Father. We're thankful that we do not have to, and we should not live in fear. As we live in this earth, we know that tribulation and uncertainty is certain, but Lord, we have the promise that you will not leave us. What a promise. What a confidence. You will never leave us nor forsake us. You will not abandon us, but instead your word will continue to be the lamp to our feet. It will be the light to our path. We want to hide your word in our hearts, Lord. We want to love your word. We want to not only memorize it for our minds, but we want to live it out in our lives. Help us to do that, Lord. Help us not to sin against you by getting our eyes off of you and upon the circumstances of this world. Lord, we see those things, and we must respond to those things biblically, but the number one thing that we must do as it relates to the world is we must not be afraid of this world. We must fear God. Keep His commandments. We must trust that what you said is true and venture wholly upon you, Lord. Bless us as we conclude this service now. We pray that everyone gathered here today will just meditate upon these truths as we go out and apply them. May we apply them to our lives. In Jesus' name we ask, Amen.