Seeking The Wisdom Of God

Wisdom is good with an inheritance,

and profitable to those who see the sun.

For wisdom is a defense as money is a defense,

but the excellence of knowledge is that wisdom

gives life to those who have it.

Ecclesiastes 7:11–12

Wisdom is better than weapons of war;

but one sinner destroys much good.

Ecclesiastes 9:18

            Wisdom may come to a person through experience; in fact there is a wisdom that comes from experience but the experience may be painful and extols unprofitable results which a wise person learns not to do such and such again. Wisdom may come from study a knowledge learned and the best knowledge is the wisdom of God learned through study of His word for it is His wisdom that gives life; life eternal. Wisdom used by a sinner may cast forward atrocities for that wisdom comes by the means of his own thinking, his own self–centered presuppositions: i.e., Hitler, Pol Pot, Jim Jones, and others who have done much harm by leaning on themselves as the center of their universe; their own wisdom. Faith is necessary in life. There is a faith that has as its foundation some knowledge that enables a person to do a thing, or not to do a thing. When a person drives their car across the Golden Gate Bridge there is a measure of faith that is needed, but there is knowledge that it would be ok to cross as the foundation has knowledge of the many cars that cross it each and every day. But until a person crosses the bridge the faith is faith potential, not faith exercised. Faith must be tested. A wise person has some knowledge and foundation for their faith but faith is not faith until it is tested and proved. This is the case with the original pair, Adam and Eve. This original pair had their faith tested  and a way to exercise their faith: don’t eat of the tree of good and evil, the tree of knowledge. Adam and Eve had their faith tested by exercising their willingness to be obedient, a willing submission to the will of God. Was this an impossible feat to keep, to be obedient too? No! Until they ate of the fruit they only experienced the good and this was their knowledge and as a wise person they would not eat of the tree of knowledge because God, their creator asked them not to do so and before them was eternal life, immortal life. By Adam and Eve eating of the fruit the disobeyed God and employed His wrath upon them, the world, and all that would come after them, children, and the world without the chaos that now entails the world as we know it. This was huge thing to disobey God, willfully disobey God. God being just and having the need for His justice to be met due to the giving of this command to not eat of this tree of knowledge, one that could easily be kept demanded that the sentence be placed upon the world and upon man: death, destruction. How could Adam and Eve be so easily tempted and seduced to listen to the Serpent? Now, don’t get caught up in the debate as to what this Serpent was or looked like, it was Satan disguised as an acceptable being that Adam and Eve would listen too and then speak against God, but more so, fueled the pride of man into being disobedient, willfully disobedient. Did they need to listen to the Serpent? No! But the did, and it was pride a self–centeredness that made them sin, to miss the mark, a mark they could have avoided even shooting at for all they needed was already supplied. The fall of man has its origin, not in just listening to the Serpent, but had its origin in disobedience: “For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous” (Romans 5:19). Thank God for His mercy and for the One obedient Man: Jesus Christ.

            When the word of God is despised, all reverence for Him is gone! How is it possible to give to God the majesty due Him as God, as Creator, as Savior, and as Helper, if we do not obey His word? When we put ourselves, our presuppositions that are making God to be what we want Him to be, and to make God the giver of things as though He is a vending machine, that He must do what we desire are we not usurping the authority of God? Yes! Are you a man or woman of integrity? If so, why not do what His word says we should do? Why do we make excuses like Adam did: “Then the man said, ‘The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave men of the tree, and I ate’” (Genesis 3:12). Adam put the blame the fault onto God and shunned his responsibility to follow God’s command. Are you doing the same? I ask myself the same question. When God say to keep the Sabbath, and for Christians that is the first day of the week, Sunday, holy, are we? Or, are we finding ways to disobey God? Are we pushing the ox into the ditch so that we cannot do what God has commanded. Is our desire so great that we will willingly disobey God? This is monstrous impiety! The greatest impiety, in a large sense, is that the Son of God, the Wisdom of God, God Himself would come to earth to pay the debt that no man can pay for himself and this was done by Jesus Christ upon the cross after living on this earth and not sinning. Oh, He was God you say, yes, He was God, but He was fully man and experienced all the sorrows of that man has to endure. He did not turn aside as man to do the will of man, rather He came and did the will of the Father who clothed His wisdom in flesh, to experience all that man experiences, to die in place of man who could by the inherited sin from Adam was not able to save himself. Oh, there are those who teach that man has just enough goodness in him that he can save himself. Really, man is not totally depraved? Huh! Show me a man who can save himself, who has enough goodness in him to make cause in him to not sin, to not be willingly disobedient. There are none: “As it is written: ‘There is none righteous, no not one; there is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; they have together become unprofitable; there is none who does good no, not one”(Romans 3:10–12). Gain wisdom from this knowledge found in His word, that disobedience to God bring wrath, and obedience gives life, a wisdom that gives life.

Blessed are those whose

            Lawless deeds are forgiven,

And whose sins are covered;

            Blessed is the man to whom

The LORD shall not impute sin.

                        Romans 4:7–8; cf. Psalm 32:1–2

Love God, Live life!

Richard L. Crumb