Proverbs 8:3
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She crieth at the gates, at the entry of the city, at the coming in at the doors.
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You are blessed today! You are meeting a noble Lady as you read this sentence! Lady Wisdom is not hiding in some obscure place making it difficult for you to find her. She is crying loudly to get your attention by this paragraph. If the two of you do not become close friends and companions, she will not lose ... you will lose! You were born foolish and ignorant; she is trying to save you from a dysfunctional and painful life and eternity.
The blessed God through King Solomon employed various means in the book of Proverbs to get your attention and teach you wisdom. He used threats, promises, pain, reward, short proverbs, long parables, observations, rules, illustrations, analogies, comparisons, social phenomena, lessons from the animal kingdom, his father's advice, the teachings of Agur, and even a letter from a royal mother to her son. You are blessed!
But here he used personification - the literary tool of representing an immaterial thing by a person - to present wisdom to you as a noble and wonderful woman, Lady Wisdom. She introduces herself and appeals to you to hear her (8:1-10); she describes her benefits for you (8:11-21); she describes how God used her in creation of the universe (8:22-31); and she concludes by begging you to receive her or be punished horribly in life (8:32-36).
You are blessed today! Can you grasp that the Creator God of heaven has sent written instructions for you to share the knowledge, insight, prudence, truth, understanding, and wisdom that He has? Here is no vain religion of ceremonies, chantings, ritual prayers, superstitions, manmade traditions, dark mysteries, offering buffalo entrails to the Great Spirit, bathing in the filthy Ganges, kissing a meteorite in Mecca, or praying the Rosary.
Lady Wisdom is before you! She wants you to see her! She cries for your attention at the doors and gates of the entrance to the city, where you travel every day. She pleads to help you (8:1-5). She offers excellent and right things - the only ones you will find in this sin cursed world (8:6). Her every word is truth and righteousness (8:7-8). Her instruction is easy to learn (8:9), and it is better than wealth or anything else (8:10-11).
The natural creation teaches knowledge plainly in every language to all people (Ps 19:1-6)! But man rejected the Creator for his own idiotic hallucinations - you and everything else came from an explosion of cosmic gases in a purposeless universe; ocean slime chose to become tree frogs; and baboons taking self-improvement classes became your grandparents! From total ignorance at birth, man rushes downward to the institutionalized insanity of evolution and a world without wisdom. So God judges them (Rom 1:18-32)!
God sent knowledge via the Bible to man about Himself, man's origin, man's future, and how to prosper in life and eternity (Ps 19:7-11; Is 8:20; II Tim 3:16-17; II Pet 1:16-21). But rebellious man has over time burned it, burned its publishers, chained it in churches, read it in Latin to those not knowing Latin, outlawed it in schools, ridiculed it for public office, removed it from courthouses, confused it by new versions, and relegated it to the shelf for interesting but useless novels! So God judges them (4:18-19; John 12:47-48)!
God sent men to teach His words and their proper sense to you. They are the ministers of Jesus Christ, the pastors of His churches (Jer 3:15; 23:28-32; Acts 8:30-35; Eph 4:11-14; I Tim 3:16). But the world fed them to lions, pulled them apart on the rack, burned them at the stake through Catholic inquisitions, banished them, and still scorns them today! Even most Christians have rejected them for the new popular and smooth operators that give them entertainment and fables instead of sound doctrine (II Tim 3:1-7; 4:1-4).
Most men reject Lady Wisdom, whom they meet in creation, Scripture, and the ministry! And she is being rejected today. What have you done to answer her call? To respond to her invitation? To take her offer? Do you tremble and rejoice at creation, knowing it is the handiwork of a Creator with eternal power and Godhead? Do you love and study the precious and true words of God in the Bible? Do you attend and support a church faithfully where a sober man preaches God's words without compromise or distraction?
You are blessed today! Lady Wisdom met you at the gates, at the entry of the city, at the coming in at the doors. She found you today. She invited you again. What will you do with her? If you receive her, she will bless you in time and eternity with incredible advantages and blessings. If you reject her, she can and will mock you as life and eternity implode upon you. The choice is yours; the consequences are God's! It is better to be broken by repentance than to be ground to powder due to rebellion (Matt 21:44).
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