Sermon Tone Analysis

Pastoral Prayer:

If you have been one social media lately…, you may have seen reports about a revival breaking out at Asbury University.

From my understanding a routine chapel service ended on February 8th, but the students present did not want to leave the room.

Students began to stand up and give testimony to God’s saving work in their lives.

They confessed sin and publicly repented.

That only propelled more worship…, and students started returning to the chapel.

Yesterday, 11 days later… the worship still had not stopped.

Thousand of people have now driven to Kentucky from all over the united States just to sit in the chapel and worship with this student body… people are lining up for hours just to get inside and experience the Spirit of God in such a palpable way.

As with just about everything in the world, this event has sparked considerable debate on social media.

Everyone wants to give their hot take on the legitimacy of the movement.

Is it real?

Is it of God?

I don’t aim to offer any commentary on that… I am not there.

I don’t know exactly what is happening in that chapel.

But I do know this… Spiritual awakening is a real thing.

Spiritual revival is real thing that God does according to his own sovereign will.

Every individual salvation is a spiritual awakening of sorts.

It is a miracle… and sometimes according to God’s good plan… he multiplies the number of salvation happening at once in one place.

But even more than that, there is a precedent in scripture for unique, concentrated, manifest outpourings of God’s Spirit.

The Bible never uses the word revival…, but it does use the word “filled”… God sometimes uniquely fills a group of people with the tangible presence of God’s Spirit.

Introduction:

If you have your Bibles let me invite you to open with me to the book of Proverbs chapter 1.

We will begin reading this morning in verse 20 and we will, Lord willing, complete chapter 1 of Proverbs this morning.

Lets Pray

If you are new with us this, we are progressing through the book of Proverbs verse by verse.

It is a book about God’s Wisdom.

In Proverbs chapter 1 verses 8-19 we heard the voice of a loving Father urging his son not to be enticed by the foolish voices of the world that would allure him into evil.

We saw that the family unit is God’s design for passing wisdom from one generation to the next.

In verse 20, however, the voice changes.

God’s Wisdom is now personified, not as a gentle Father coaching his son…, but as a lady loudly crying out in the street.

By way of reminder, The word Wisdom in the book of Proverbs is the Hebrew word “hochma”

Hochma is the wisdom that exists in the very fabric of creation… its the way God made the world to operate.

To live a wise life, therefore, is to live according to this wisdom that is intrinsic to the worlds order.

Wisdom is living God’s way in God’s world.

It is to live according to his design.

It is to be submissive to his word.

But here…, Hocma is given a A ladie’s voice to help us understand the wisdom of God that is available to us in his world.

Whereas, in verses 8-19, wisdom is portrayed as being lovingly passed down from a father to a son….

wisdom is now personified as desperately, loudly, overwhelmingly, screaming out.

- She cries aloud And raises her voice.

That phrase, “raises her voice” is an emotion packed phrase.

It is used in other places in the Old Testament to describe the roaring of a lion.

- She cries out and speaks.

- She calls and she stretches out her hand.

One commentator writes this.

“Lady Wisdom is no gentle persuader.

She shouts, pleads, scolds, reasons, threatens, warns, and even laughs (see vv. 24–33).

Pulpit bashing and hell-fire preaching if ever there were!

All quite unladylike; and nowadays also quite unfashionable, even frowned upon.”

Why?

Why portray wisdom as a loud and overwhelming call?

Why not portray wisdom’s voice like that of a still small voice?

Isn’t that how we know wisdom?

Aren’t we supposed to listen to that faint inner prompting of the conscience or the tug of the heart that is ever so slight?

Of course there is something to be said about being still in prayer as you sit in the presence of the Lord…

But the choice between the path of foolishness and the path of wisdom is not a matter of still small voices or emotional tugs.

Truth #1 God’s Wisdom Calls Clearly

The question of how to live a godly and wise life is not an Easter egg hunt.

God has spoken.

God is speaking.

His wisdom is knowable.

It is found in his word and it has been made available by his Spirit.

As we will notice in the fools response later in the passage…, he chooses the foolish path, not because he couldn’t hear wisdom’s voice crying out…

rather he hears wisdom’s loud cry…, and he simply chooses to ignore the voice.

Now, lets be honest…, most of your sinning, most of your foolishness, most of your complacency, and spiritual Laziness, is not because you don’t know the wiser path.

It is not because no one told you.

It is because you have chosen to ignore wisdom’s call.

Most of the sin that i counsel people through didn’t happen because they had never heard that there was a better way.

The apostle Paul says that this is true even when it comes to the very existence of God.

You have to wonder if Paul was reading Proverbs when he spoke of all humanity in this way in Romans 1.

God is not hidden.

Wisdom is not hidden.

Lady wisdom is beside herself calling out for anyone to listen and this is no middle of the wilderness outburst.

Notice in Proverbs 1, where she is doing this.

The text clearly articulates where she is doing all of this:

She is crying out:

“In the street”

“at the head of noisy streets”

“at the entrance of the city gates”

Why?

Why would Solomon portray wisdom as such a loud and desperate call in the busiest places of commerce and society?

Truth #2 God’s Wisdom Calls to Every Person in Every Situation

This is so important for us to grasp if we are to walk in the Lord’s Wisdom.

There is no situation,

There is no setting, no time of day, and no group of relationships where you do not need to listen to and walk in the wisdom of God.

There is no context in your life where you should simply turn off your spiritual radar and leave God and his wisdom at the door.

Listen to what commentator Bruce Waltke says about the setting of Lady Wisdom’s crying voice:

“This setting symbolizes that Solomon’s proverbs pertain to commerce, the court, and administration that could not be mastered without wisdom, not to the temple, which was located on a hill quite apart from the daily life of the city.

- Bruce Waltke”

You need the wisdom that only God provides and you need it every single day as you work your job.

You need it every single day as you navigate conversations with your spouse.

You need it every single day as you navigate conversations with your children.

You need it as you date and as you look for a future spouse.

There is no part of your life, where God’s wisdom should be put on a shelf to be picked up at a later time.

Christian, there is no shadowy place where the light of God’s kingdom does not touch.

And there is no place where you do not need to heed the words of an eternally wise God.

his word speaks to all of your life.

Thus, you have a choice.

You can live a life that listens to the cry of lady wisdom… or you can shut her out.

Truth #3 The Fool Ignores Wisdom’s Call