Wisdom Crieth

"Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets: She crieth in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates: in the city she uttereth her words, saying, How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge?" Proverbs 1:20-22. We are told in Romans 1:18-22, that God has clearly shown Himself to all people by His creation, so that anyone who truly wants to know Him, may know Him. The Spirit of God, which "lights" every man who comes into the world (John 1:9), has innately given each person that knowing, or conscience, which is made to seek after God. This passage also says that men have no excuse for not recognizing, glorifying, and thanking God, so their hearts become dark. "God also gave them up" to all sorts of evil (v.24 ff.) because they did not want to think of God and fear Him. Proverbs 8:13 tells us that the fear of God is to hate evil. We do not fear the Lord if we do not hate the things God hates. A "feeling" about the awesomeness of God is certainly appropriate, but that is not what the Word calls the fear of the Lord.

God’s wisdom cries out in the streets. The street is the place where we find all the rich, the poor, the sick, and the afflicted, both the saints and the sinners. God’s wisdom speaks to all these people without discrimination on grounds of race or color. Today the glorious gospel is preached to all these people. But they do not listen to it. These days, the children of God flock to the meetings of popular evangelists or to the church pulpits of megachurches. But wisdom still cries out in the streets. We tend to ignore somebody preaching a message from an obscure corner of a street or from a blogger of the social media/internet who has no church pulpit or an evangelical dias. We may assume him to be a mentally deranged person.

But wisdom cries out through this man/woman who stands in the corner of the street. There is no pulpit or dais for him/her. Today we find that a small group of true ministers of God cry out in the streets. There is no place for them either in the popular small churches, or the large mega-churches.

The chief place of concourse is a place where people make a loud sound, or a great commotion.

Normally, in our Indian vegetable or fish or meat markets, the hawkers make a loud noise to sell their merchandise. At times, they offer very good discounts. Still, many buyers would not heed them, thinking that these traders are only fooling them. The same buyers would prefer to spend more money in shops where they are taken for a ride. But wisdom exhorts us to heed the hawkers in the chief place of concourse. Similarly, there are true ministers of God in our midst who make a loud sound about their message. We do not heed them at all.

In the openings of the gates, we find many true ministers of God. But we do not notice them at all.

We rush to go inside the city where we find preachers who give messages to our itching ears, and where we can indulge in sin. The openings of the gates are important places where God set His watchmen to warn us against the deceptions in the city. Ultimately, we find wisdom only cries out only in the streets of the city, the chief place of the concourse, the openings of the gates, and finally in the city. Had we listened to the watchmen in the openings of the gates, we would not have entered the city at all. When wisdom cries out in the street, wisdom follows after them when they enter the city and warns them in unambiguous terms. However, these multitudes did not listen. In the city, wisdom calls these multitudes, "simple ones" who love simplicity; "How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge?" The multitudes do not heed the truth. Since these simple ones do not heed the truth, they have become scorners who delight in their scorning. They have scorned the true ministers of God who had stood in the streets, in the chief place of concourse, and in the openings of the gates.

Next....REPROOF FOR OUR GOOD