Grace Evangelical-Lutheran: Proverbs 8,22-36. Jubilate

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The Word of the Lord Endures Forever

Verbum Domini Manet in Aeternum

Proverbs 8,22-36 2919

Jubilate (3. Sonntag nach Ostern) 038

Pancratius, Martyr at Rome 304

12. Mai 2019

1. O Lord Jesus Christ, Victorious Prince, like a true and mighty Sampson, You did powerfully lift up and destroy the gates of the portals of hades, so that we might pass our days in everlasting liberty. Amen. (Löhe 478)

2. »The Lord possessed me, Wisdom, at the beginning of His work, the first of His acts of old. Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth. When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water. Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth, before He had made the earth with its fields, or the first of the dust of the world. When He established the heavens, I was there; when He drew a circle on the face of the deep, when He made firm the skies above, when He established the fountains of the deep, when He assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress His command, when He marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside Him, like a master workman, and I was daily His delight, rejoicing before Him always, rejoicing in His inhabited world and delighting in the children of man. And now, O sons, listen to me: blessed are those who keep my ways. Hear instruction and be wise, and do not neglect it. Blessed is the one who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, waiting beside my doors. For whoever finds me finds life and obtains favor from the Lord, but he who fails to find me injures himself; all who hate me love death.«

3. King Solomon exhorts us: »Blessed are those who keep wisdom’s ways. Hear instruction and be wise; do not neglect wisdom.« And again: »The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight« (Proverbs 9,10). One of the reasons the Holy Spirit inspired the writing of the Bible is to give people wisdom and knowledge about God, and in the Old Testament 5 books are commonly described as wisdom literature: Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon.

4. Human beings have an insatiable quest for wisdom and knowledge. God created this desire in us by making us in His Divine Image and Likeness. It was also this quest for wisdom that led to our great Fall. The Serpent tempted Eve with knowledge, for there was a tree planted in the garden that held the knowledge of good and evil. This was the one tree God had forbidden Adam and Eve to eat from, and thus it is the very tree the Serpent tempted them with. Recall the story from Genesis: »Now the Serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the board God had made. The Serpent said to Eve: „You will not surely die, for God knows that when you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil« (Genesis 3,1.4-5). Therein was the temptation: the tree was desired to make one wise (Genesis 3,6). Created in God’s Image and Likeness, Adam and Eve already had the knowledge of what is good: good is loving and trusting in God, rejoicing that He created them with every good blessing provided to them by His hand and carrying out His exhortation to be good stewards of the earth and the animals. They did not need the knowledge and evil to be any more in God’s Image and Likeness than they already were.

5. Here is the craftiness of the Devil’s temptation: God is holding back on you; He is not providing you with everything that there is. God has held back the knowledge of evil because He knows that when you discover that knowledge, then you will be like Him, You will be His equal and that you can overthrow Him and become a god yourself. The Serpent’s temptation worked, and it still works today. Mankind’s great Fallen boast is pride. It manifest itself in many ways, but ultimately it is a boast that we do not need God; we can be independent and succeed without Him. Indeed, people can accomplish great things without faith or trust in God. We are still creative, smart and industrious people; our arts and sciences testify to the things humanity can devise.

6. Saint Bernard of Clairvaux wrote (circa 1115): he’ll is full of good desires, and Virgil wrote (circa 29-19 bc) in his Aeneid: the decent to hell is easy; from these proverbs come our own: the road to hell is paved with good intentions [hell is full of good meanings, but heaven is full of good works]. Time and again, throughout history and in our own lives, this proverb is proven true. Consider two examples from the Gospels: Peter and Judas Iscariot.

7. After He had been teaching and preaching for a time, Jesus asked His 12 apostles this question: Who do you say that I am? (Matthew 16,13). Peter replied: You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God (Matthew 16,15). Then Jesus explains what this confession means: He must suffer many things from the Jewish religious leaders, be killed and rise on the third day (Matthew 16,21). At that point, Peter took Jesus aside and began to rebuke Him saying: This shall never happen to you! Then Jesus said to Peter: Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to Me, for you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man (Matthew 16,22-23). At another time, many disciples turned back and no longer walked with Jesus. So He asked the Twelve: Do you want to leave as well? Peter answered: Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed and know that You are the Holy One of God. Jesus answered them: Did I not choose you, the Twelve? And yet one of you is a devil. He spoke of Judas Iscariot who was going to betray Him (John 6,66-71). Jesus called Peter „Satan“ because he attempted to stop Him from going to His suffering and death; He also called and Judas a „devil“ because he was the one who betrayed Him.

8. The actions of both Peter and Judas pave the way to hell, and had they remained on that path they would end up there. Peter walked down that path twice: he tried to hinder Jesus from dying and then outright denied knowing Him. Judas walked down that path too: he betrayed Jesus to the Jewish religious leaders. Judas walked the path all the way to hell: he turned aside from the apostleship and ministry to go to his own place (Acts 1,25). But, Peter did not remain on the way to hell.

9. Psalm 23 promises us: »The Lord leadeth me in paths of righteousness for His Name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me (Psalm 23,3-4). A wise person realizes when they are on the wrong path, thus the Holy Scriptures exhort us to the wisdom of God. Solomon wrote: »For whoever finds wisdom finds life and obtains favor from the Lord.« The Scriptures teach that Jesus Christ is the main point of wisdom. Psalm 23 tells us that Jesus is our Good Shepherd who puts us onto the path of righteousness. Jesus is the one who saved Peter from his despair and forgave him. Three times Jesus asked him before He ascended: Do you love me?, and three times Peter confessed: yes, Lord, I love You; three times Jesus told Peter to feed His sheep, that is, be a shepherd to His Church. Jesus is about changing the path people are traveling. Another man who was on the path to hell was Paul. Jesus put him onto the path of righteousness and salvation while he was on the path to Antioch to persecute Christians. The Bible is full of stories about men and women whom Jesus set upon a different path, a Godly path.

10. From the moment men and women were created we have sought what our first father and mother, Adam and Eve, sought: knowledge and wisdom. The Bible tells us that we don’t want the wisdom that the Serpent offers, but the wisdom that the Savior gives. In Jesus is life, and the life was the light of men and women (John 1,4). The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it (John 1,5). Mary was another one on a different path: she was going to be the wife of Joseph the carpenter from Nazareth. The Archangel Gabriel appeared to her and said the Lord is altering your path a bit: you will also be the mother of Jesus, the Son of God. So even God saw fit to have an earthly mother. They are His gift to us, for our mothers taught us the faith, shaped us in the way of Christian righteousness and prayed for us. They have passed down to us their wisdom so that we can become wiser and better people. So we give thanks to God for His great wisdom who has given us a Savior and a mother who points us to that Savior. Amen.

11. Let us pray. O Lord Jesus Christ, who preserves our lives; daily remind and enable us to seek Your wisdom and hate evil, so that we may trust upon Your death and resurrection to be the greatest wisdom taught by Your Holy Scriptures. Amen.

To God alone be the Glory

Soli Deo Gloria

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All Scriptural quotations are translations done by The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind using the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 4. Edition © 1990 by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, and the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 28. Revised Edition © 2012 by Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart.

Löhe, Wilhelm. Seed-Grains of Prayer: A Manual for Evangelical Christians. Wartburg Publishing House, Chicago circa 1912. Concordia Publishing House; Concordia on Demand.

Grace Evangelical-Lutheran

Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church

Thursday, May 16, 2019

Proverbs 8,22-36. Jubilate

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