Posted on 01/08/2021 11:44:48 PM PST by Pilgrim's Progress
“Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars: She hath killed her beasts; she hath mingled her wine; she hath also furnished her table. She hath sent forth her maidens: she crieth upon the highest places of the city, Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither: as for him that wanteth understanding, she saith to him” (Proverbs 9:1-4).
This wisdom is personified as a woman, and we will see another woman in this chapter that is not so wise. Wisdom is building her house, and in this case, it is a woman and she is building her house and hewing out her seven pillars. I don’t know if anyone knows exactly what those seven pillars of wisdom are. We can certainly know that one of them is that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” right? We can say that something that's foundational to wisdom is knowledge and understanding, and we can back that up with the Bible. “He that winneth souls is wise,” is a pillar of wisdom; but by the time we add all the wisdom passages together, we have too many pillars, so we’re not exactly sure what the precise pillars are, but we can be sure that God knows what they are.
One thing you can say about wisdom is that she is prepared. She’s well prepared. She has been laid out for a long time, and you can say this, the Lord has laid out a table for you, and there is a lot of preparation that's gone into making you a wiser man, woman, or child.
Verse 2, “She hath killed her beasts; she hath mingled her wine; she hath also furnished her table.” Okay, she's set her table. She is going to feed you. She has mingled her wine. Now, I hope that you know that not all the wine in the Bible is alcoholic wine. I'm certain that a Christian doesn't have any business drinking alcoholic wine.
Wisdom can mingle her wine. It’s not wine that is going to make you drunk, because drunkenness is not very wise. It apparently has to do with taste and all that kind of thing.
“She hath also mingled her table,” so, here's the thing with all this. She's killed her beasts, she’s mingled her wine, and she has furnished her table. The Bible says in First Corinthians 10 that there are two tables. There is the Lord’s table, and there's a table of Devils. Deuteronomy says that there's two rocks. There is the Rock (capital R Rock) which is the Lord, and then there's another rock: the heathen’s rock. Then, there is two kinds of wine. There is the drunk’s wine, and then there is God's wine, right?
What you find here is kind of interesting because in verse 4, you have wisdom crying, right? 9:1, this is wisdom. In verse 4, “Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither.” Well, go down to verse 16 and notice that the context is found in verse 13: “a foolish woman is clamorous: she is simple, and knoweth nothing.” This is a harlot, and who does she call over in verse 16? “Whoso is simple.” So, guess what? The poor simpleton is the target of both of these women: both wisdom and this old harlot.
Okay, verse 4, “Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither,” who is he? “As for him that wanteth understanding,” and go down to verse 16 again, “as for him that wanteth understanding.” Both of these women are crying out for the same simple man who lacks understanding. Well, perhaps we can say that one is praying for, and the other is preying after him. One seeks to defile him even more, and wisdom is trying to get to him to save him.
Okay, so you are the target. The question is which are you going to respond to?
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