"WHERE SHALL WISDOM BE FOUND?"

“WHERE SHALL WISDOM BE FOUND?”

There is nothing more generally admitted than that the right way to do anything is not as ready to hand as the wrong; that we do the wrong way very naturally, as it were, but that it requires education and experience to secure the right way in the most ordinary matters of life. Now if it be necessary for man’s own things that the prudent should look well to his way, how much more must it be in things of God! We can never forget that the knowledge of good came in by doing evil. This has introduced into human society a priority of evil. It takes the lead. No doubt there is a good to overcome it, but the evil is first with man, and the nature of it is not discovered except as good is acquired. No one knows the nature of evil except as he knows good. In natural things man, according to his cultivation and ability, has sought to attain to a standard of his own. His ideal was what he called ‘good’, and hence as the ideal was increased, the contrary to it was refused. This is really human refinement founded on conscience and progress; it does not reach beyond man’s conscience. Yet it discloses that evil is the dominant thing here, and that there is only progress as evil is overcome, even to the measure of man’s sensibility; as when Adam and Eve were first aware that evil had not only overpowered them, but that they must be screened from the sense of it. A measure of good must be acquired. If it be admitted that evil is dominant, and that in everything there must be time, application, and sense, to secure an escape from it, how much more in the things of God, the goodness of which must be infinitely higher! Hence in every age arises the question, an anxious one to the man of God, “where shall wisdom be found?” The answer is, seek and acquire God’s mind, and then you can determine what suits Him, but do not expect to reach or catch a glimpse of His mind by studying your own mind or sensibility. His thoughts are not our thoughts, nor are His ways our ways.

^[p. 90] In every renewed soul there is necessarily a desire to overcome the evil, and to find the good, and according as the knowledge of the good increases, so is it desired. The real spirit of the fall is man seeking for himself independently of God; whereas, when God is simply before the soul, when the centre and source of all good is before the heart, then only can real good be obtained for every one from the highest downwards. The only way, then, to find wisdom at any time, or on any question, is by beginning with God. Hence it is said, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding”, Proverbs 9: 10. That is its beginning. It is a great thing to find the beginning. If I do not know the beginning, if that is not right, there must be a defect in the whole course. “That which is crooked cannot be made straight”. When the nazarite failed, he had to begin all over again, he was not permitted to weld on a new bit. It is of the utmost importance that souls should be convinced that wisdom has no beginning but with God, and in the sense, too, of what is due to Him. If I have begun aright, I have always something to refer to and by which I correct my progress; for if I deviate from my beginning, or the great moral nature of it, it is no doubt a wandering. I have lost the light, and I must ascertain whether I am in keeping with my beginning.

Now having ascertained where wisdom begins, let us look at the examples in Scripture, how those who began with a just sense of God at the time were helped on, and how those who had another object failed and were confounded, whatever their zeal.

The way of Cain was adopted generally in christendom. Nothing commends itself more to the natural religionist than that he should obtain the favour of God because of his offerings which he has procured at much personal cost. This was not beginning with God. It was beginning with himself, and from his own mind devising what he considered would affect God in his behalf. He ^[p. 91] had not the fear of God which is the beginning of wisdom. Abel found out wisdom. The fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom, at once dictated to him what was just and right. He began with God. How could a man under the sentence of death appear before God except with an offering corresponding to the penalty, a victim not rightly chargeable with his offence bearing the judgment of it. The greater the confusion, and the greater the influence that surroundings exert, the more distinctly will the man of God seek Him apart from and above all that would usurp His place here.

Abram failed because of the force of circumstances; but when he was restored, and a strife ensued between his herdmen and Lot’s herdmen, he was equal to the test, though it came in such an unexpected way. God was before him, and not the mere advantage of the moment. A very small thing tests whether one’s eye is on God or on one’s own interests. The water tested Gideon’s army. They did not think it was a test, or that such important issues would be connected with the manner in which they drank of the water that Providence had vouchsafed. If the heart be not habitually turned to God, the way of wisdom is lost sight of; one is not under divine control for an ordinary event unless one is walking in the fear of the Lord. We must begin with God; this is the great thing to insist on, for when we do not, there cannot be a reaching up to God. True, one may begin again, but like the nazarite, all that went before goes for nothing. Abram had to return to the altar he had at the beginning (Genesis 13: 3, 4).

In private life, and in the church, the point of departure is the same as Eve’s in principle. Something influences me with regard to myself, and God is not simply before me. “Which ... putteth the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face”, Ezekiel 14: 7. There will not be perplexity as to where wisdom shall be found if I have set the Lord always before me, because I find Him at my right hand. A believer habitually seeking ^[p. 92] his own interest cannot easily disentangle himself from the meshes of worldliness when a test comes, as we have seen in the case of Lot.

Barnabas had been wrongly influenced by Peter before Mark became the test between him and Paul, and he failed to see the path of wisdom; while Paul, who stood for the truth against Peter, had no difficulty to discover his true course, and he was, as we find, recommended by the brethren to the grace of God. A worldly saint, like Lot, or a man of natural softness, like Barnabas, may exclaim, “Where shall wisdom be found?” But they cannot find it, and the test is sure to come, to disclose the net in which they are taken.

See a man in personal difficulties like David at Ziklag. All seemed hopeless; everything was gone; even his friends spoke of stoning him. But he “encouraged himself in the Lord his God”. That was his beginning, and soon he found out wisdom. In promoting the recovery of a half-dead Egyptian, he acquired a pioneer to effect the end desired. There is one thing very marked, the apparently insignificant events which lead to the right way. The test, as I have remarked, can only be seen or accepted by the man of faith. A man with his eye on God is a man of faith. How beautifully Moses corroborates this! What anguish there must have been in his heart when he learned of the sad apostasy of Israel! He was with God, and as he came from Him, he first, without any direction, considered for God. He pitched the tabernacle very far outside the camp, “and called it the Tabernacle of the congregation. And it came to pass, that every one which sought the Lord went out unto the tabernacle of the congregation, which was without the camp”, Exodus 33: 7. If I really fear God, my eye is upon Him, and I consider for Him first, and if I do so I am in the path of wisdom. Surely if I look at things the way God does, I must be in His wisdom. And this is not simply following by rote a passage of Scripture, or even the highest truth; but it is having His mind formed ^[p. 93] by the word, not enforcing it like a Pharisee or a legal advocate, to support a judgment of my own, but being so imbued with the mind of God that without any immediate text I am able, because I am under the power of God and His word, to decide at once for Him apart from misconception, as Moses did with respect to Israel’s idolatry, or Paul with respect to Barnabas. The Pharisee relied on the text of the law to support his opposition to Christ. I must use the word to convince the gainsayers; but I expect, if I am walking with the Lord, and as taught by His word, to be able to act according to Him at any juncture, without being able to give a distinct text for what I do. I remark that those who determine and exact obedience only as a precept enjoins are more or less legal, and as is the case with all legalists, they allow themselves great latitude where there are not injunctions to the contrary. They are not really enjoying Christ’s injunctions as those loving Him. They are merely satisfying a restless conscience, and are like the man who binds himself to give a tithe of his property to the Lord, in order that he may with an easy conscience spend the rest as he likes. The obedient man of this order never finds out wisdom, for he has made obedience a work, and not the way of light.

Finally, if I do not make God’s interests here my interests, I cannot find wisdom; for surely His wisdom is connected with the present centre of His interests in the earth. Surely if God is simply and happily before my heart, I cannot but be interested in the sphere and scope of His interests here. It would be vain to assert that He was truly before the heart, and at the same time to be unmindful of what concerned Him primarily at my very door. Our Lord could say, “The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up”. Surely the heart is away from God when His interests are not paramount. It is a moral impossibility for a soul to progress in divine things and privileges, and at the same time to overlook or be indifferent to the place or sphere of them here on earth.

^[p. 94] It would be like enjoying the gifts apart from the giver, or the mansion apart from the owner and his connection with it. Thus it was with the remnant of Israel who sought diligently their own blessings in the land, but sought them apart and disconnected from God and His house, the source of all blessing to them. They did not find wisdom until they began to build, and made God’s interests first and paramount. In like manner in this day we see that those who are not alive to Christ’s interests in the church are never able to find wisdom. They may be very useful and zealous, but as their heart is not where Christ’s heart is, He cannot show them His way. It is remarkable that one might seek the conversion of souls, and their progress also, regarding them more as they are in themselves than as they are to Christ, as one might care for my family without consulting my interest for them. If we love Him we must love what is nearest to Him here, and then the word is verified to us, “I love them that love me; and those that seek me early shall find me”. Anna, who departed not from the temple, but served with fastings and prayers night and day, came in at the right moment to see the Lord, and gave thanks unto Him, and spake of Him unto all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem. The widow who consecrated all her living for the temple was recognised and commended by Him above all the others who “of their abundance cast in unto the offerings of God”, Luke 21: 4. If I am where His heart is, I must find out wisdom’s ways. The Lord give us the devotedness that says, “Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried”.