6. A Wise Life
6
A Wise Life
So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
Psalm 90:12
I saw a book advertised that promised to answer the question, “Why do smart people so often do dumb things?” I haven’t read the book, but one simple answer is that there is a great difference between knowledge and wisdom. One of my professors, a brilliant man, walked into class one day totally unaware that he was wearing two hats. We thought he was doing it to illustrate some profound economic principle, but we were wrong. He simply took off both hats, put them on his desk, and began to lecture. When the class ended, he put both hats back on and walked out. I forgot the lecture but I cannot forget the hats.
Wisdom is not another name for knowledge. A great deal of knowledge is available today at the touch of a finger, thanks to the electronic devices available, but you may not find much wisdom that way. Wisdom comes from truth, and you pay a price to find it. “Buy the truth and do not sell it” (Prov. 23:23). Factual knowledge is very important, but it takes wisdom to identify it, categorize it, evaluate it, and apply it. Wisdom costs something! When I have a physical, my doctor gathers all kinds of data because he and his staff know how to run the equipment in the examining room, but it takes wisdom for him to put the facts together and evaluate them before he can tell me what they all mean. Where does his wisdom come from? It comes from training and a lifetime of experience. He’s spent his life thinking, reading, listening, growing, making mistakes, and achieving successes. Wisdom is the correct use of knowledge for the right purposes. Wisdom is living skillfully by the principles our God has given to us. If anybody should be living a life of wisdom, it is the Christian who is following Jesus.
We Worship a Wise God
“With Him are wisdom and strength, He has counsel and understanding” (Job 12:13). People with wisdom but no strength are unable to put their wisdom to work, but people with strength and no wisdom will make a mess of everything. Our God can do what He wills and He never makes a mistake. After God revealed to Daniel the meaning of the king’s dream, Daniel praised Him, saying, “Blessed be the name of God forever and ever, for wisdom and might are His” (Dan. 2:20). Through Jesus Christ, God’s wisdom and power are available to us so that we can know what He wants us to do and know that He will help us do it. “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!” (Rom. 11:33).
Wisdom is the practical use of knowledge for accomplishing the will of God. The will of God is not only an expression of His love (Ps. 33:11), but it is also an expression of His wisdom. The Israelites were suffering in Egypt, but God didn’t send Moses there immediately. He kept this brilliant man in Midian, taking care of ignorant, stubborn sheep. God was preparing Moses to lead a nation of sheep! In His divine knowledge, God knew what Moses was like and what the Israelites were like, and in His divine wisdom He prepared the one for the other. Wisdom has to do with values and priorities, and this keeps us from wasting our time fussing with trivial matters. We can look back now and better understand why certain people and events came into our lives, and we can thank the Lord for His wisdom. If I had insisted on getting my way, everything would have gone wrong and I would have missed so much.
We Live in a Universe Created and Commanded by a God of Power and Wisdom
Science is the organization and application of the wise principles and laws that God built into His creation. “The LORD by wisdom founded the earth; by understanding He established the heavens” (Prov. 3:19). “He has made the earth by His power, He has established the world by His wisdom, and has stretched out the heavens at His discretion” (Jer. 10:12). Were it not for this, the astronauts could never have made it safely to the moon and back. Man built the machine, but the Lord supplied the unchanging laws that made it work.
If we look up at night, we behold the stars that directed ships’ pilots before the invention of compasses, radios, radar, sonar, and GPS. We look around and see the vitality and variety of plant life, animal life, and human life, from the tiniest seed to the gigantic sequoia and from the microscopic amoeba to the elephant or the skeleton of a dinosaur. If we examine an x-ray or watch a hospital TV screen, we see our inner machinery functioning and we are amazed. As I lay on the examining table, the hospital technician asked me if I wanted to see the inside of my stomach. “I’d rather see the inside of my room,” I replied, but when I looked, I was speechless. “I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made” (Ps. 139:14). As for the human species, we are kept alive by the minerals, plants, animals, and other resources that God has put into His creation for our good and His glory. Everything in creation shouts, “We praise a God of wisdom and power!”
I’m saying all of this to lead up to one thing: If our God is so wise and powerful that He can control the entire universe, is He not able to guide our little lives, care for us, and use us to fulfill the purposes for which He created us and saved us?
I think He can.
Then why do we waste time and energy by fretting and worrying? Can we not each day obey Romans 12:1–2 and Ephesians 6:10–18 and trust our Creator, Savior, and Father to equip us for each day and meet our every need?
I know He can.
We Find God’s Wisdom Clearly Expressed in God’s Word
The wisdom of God that we see operating in creation and in history can also work in our personal lives so that we delight in God’s Word and God’s will and seek to fulfill the purposes He has ordained for us (Eph. 2:10). “See that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil” (5:15–16). We must make the best use of our time because we can never recall wasted hours and days. The Word of Christ must dwell in us richly (Col. 3:16) so that the indwelling Holy Spirit can use it to minister to us. The Spirit of God does not work in a vacuum, and if we want the Spirit’s fullness, we must feed on the Word of God. Physical maturity is a given, but spiritual maturity is an opportunity that we can only grasp day by day as we walk with the Lord.
Psalm 119 focuses on the importance of the Scriptures in the believer’s life, and these verses are especially significant. Read them carefully.
It is my meditation all the day.
You, through Your commandments, make me wiser than my enemies;
For they are ever with me.
I have more understanding than all my teachers,
For Your testimonies are my meditation.
I understand more than the ancients,
Because I keep Your precepts.
I have restrained my feet from every evil way,
That I may keep Your word.
I have not departed from Your judgments,
For You Yourself have taught me.
How sweet are your words to my taste,
Sweeter than honey to my mouth!
Through Your precepts I get understanding;
Therefore I hate every false way. (vv. 97–104)
This passage tells us several ways in which we can grow in wisdom and live successfully to the glory of God. One is by experience, both good and bad. Even our enemies can teach us if we pay attention to the Holy Spirit. We must be “God taught” and not “man taught,” even though God may use people to instruct us. The psalmist didn’t say that he knew more than his teachers, his enemies, and his elders, but that he understood more. The enemy had the facts and knew what was going on, but the psalmist had the truths behind the facts and knew why it was going on. “He made known His ways to Moses, His acts to the children of Israel” (103:7). I recall listening to some brilliant university professors who had mastered the facts involved in their courses, but they had completely missed the truths and principles behind those facts. If we don’t see the hand of God in history, hear the voice of God in literature and the arts, and marvel at the wisdom of God in science, we have missed the most important lessons.
A knowledge of the Word of God is not only basic to a successful Christian life, but it is also basic to a good education. Almost all of the arts in Western civilization are based on the Bible. Herman Melville’s classic novel Moby Dick opens with, “Call me Ishmael.” If we don’t know Genesis 16 and 21, we will miss what that important brief sentence contributes to the story. I once re-read Moby Dick and marked every quotation from and allusion to the Bible and found over one hundred! Christians who know the spiritual truths in the Bible can listen to the evening news and read the morning paper with more insight and discernment than the most popular newscaster. One of our best-known television anchormen used to end each program with, “And that’s the way it is on________” and he would give the date. Vance Havner would often say to the television set, “No, that’s the way it seems!” He saw world events through different eyes. Campbell Morgan used to say that history was His story, and he was right.
In Jewish society, old age was equated with wisdom, and the psalmist claimed that he knew more than the ancients (119:100)! Generally speaking, wisdom and old age do go together, but there are exceptions. Some people grow old but never really grow up; they made a living but never learn how to make a life. They have gone through events in “the school of hard knocks” but fail to make the most of them. Alas, there are old fools as well as young fools! If you know the Bible, one of the benefits of old age is being able to look back and see the wonderful ways God kept His promises and accomplished His purposes. Someone has said that it matters not what happens to us; it’s what we do with what happens to us that really matters. We may not be able to help it when people plow up our backs (129:3). What we can help is the kind of seeds we plant in the furrows, because that determines what kind of harvest we will reap. As we grow older, our eyesight may get dimmer but our insight must become clearer. “But the path of the just is like the shining sun, that shines even brighter unto the perfect day” (Prov. 4:18). To the obedient Christian, the things that count are not getting darker; they are getting brighter!
We Must Walk in the Fear of the Lord
The phrase “fear of the Lord” is found twenty-seven times in the Bible, fourteen of them in the Book of Proverbs alone. It is a key concept in biblical theology. I especially like the definition that Charles Bridges gives in his masterful exposition of Proverbs: “It is that affectionate reverence by which the child of God bends himself humbly to his Father’s law.”1 It is not a paralyzing fear that stuns us but an energizing fear that stimulates us and motivates us to seek to please the Lord in everything. If you want to understand the fear of the Lord, start by reading and obeying Proverbs 2:1–5. I suggest you pause right now and do it.
The fear of God must always be joined with the grace, love, and mercy of God. If we are honest with ourselves, we know what sinners we really are. That God should love us and in His mercy and grace save us is astounding. The longer we walk in the light, the easier it is for us to see the sinful blemishes in our lives and the more we realize how undeserving we are to be called the children of God. But there is another consequence. The more we see ourselves, the more we love the Lord and want to do everything to please Him. The fear of the Lord is not only a healthy fear of divine discipline but also a fear of missing the wonderful blessings God has prepared for us. I like the phrase “affectionate reverence” that Bridges used. Wrapped up in that word “affectionate” is our feeble understanding of the cross of Christ and the love that put Him there. He loved me! He gave Himself for me! Psalm 2:11 says it perfectly: “Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling.”
“No one can know the true grace of God,” said A. W. Tozer, “who has not known the fear of God.” The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews wrote, “Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. For our God is a consuming fire” (Heb. 12:28–29).
We Must Share God’s Wisdom with Others
If you want to know what God thinks of the wisdom of this world, read 1 Corinthians 1:14–2:16 and take it to heart. God calls it foolishness—not that knowledge itself is foolish (although some popular ideas and theories are absurd), but the world is foolish in the way it applies knowledge. It has always been God’s plan that the older generations teach the younger generations what they need to know about the important matters of life, and I fear our older Christians have been remiss in doing this. Paul told Timothy, “And the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also” (2 Tim. 2:2). We call this mentoring, but the Bible calls it discipling. In Greek mythology, when Odysseus went off to war, he entrusted his son to the wise teacher Mentor, and that is where our word mentoring comes from.
One of the joys of my so-called retirement years has been the privilege of mentoring some fine young men who are today serving the Lord and building Christ’s church. One of them started a new church in a nearby city and I had the privilege of mentoring the church board over a series of weeks. I have also met one-on-one with high school and university students and we have studied the Scriptures verse-by-verse. If we don’t disciple the younger generation, we have only ourselves to blame if our churches become worldly and fall apart. Not only must we teach the living Word, but we must live the Word that we teach and be encouraging examples to the young people. It’s especially important that Christian parents and grandparents exercise spiritual influence on their children and grandchildren. The children and grandchildren are not only the future of the church but also the future in the church right now.
The Lord taught Paul the truth and he passed it along to Timothy. Timothy passed it along to others, who in turn shared it with the next generation. Here we have four generations of believers! If every generation were faithful in the home and the church, teaching God’s truth to children and young people and new believers, false doctrine and worldly practices would not be able to get a foothold in the house of God.
“So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” (Ps. 90:12). Life is swift and short, and the time to start walking in wisdom and mentoring others is—NOW!
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1. Charles Bridges, An Exposition of Proverbs (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1959), 3–4.