MAIN HOMILETICS OF Proverbs 21:22
A WISE MAN AND A MIGHTY CITY
I. The city of the mighty will not easily yield to conquerors. When a fortress encloses within its walls many strong arms and stout hearts, it will not be captured by child’s play. The confidence that the defenders have, not only in the strength of their position but in their own individual power and prowess, will certainly prevent them from giving up without a struggle. Such a city must be “scaled” or captured either by stratagem or by a mightier force than that which defends it. There are various ways in which this may be done. When the height and thickness of the walls prevent their overthrow from without they may be assailed from beneath, and when brave men cannot be subdued by the sword they may be by hunger.
II. In whatever way the city is taken wisdom is the mightiest force employed. Military strength—indeed physical force of any kind—is of little or no avail without wisdom to direct it. Under the guidance of a wise commander an undisciplined and almost powerless mob becomes a powerful army, and a very small amount of mere strength can be made very effective if it is wisely directed. Belshazzar had strong walls around his city, and a mighty army within it, but Cyrus possessed the wisdom which the Babylonians lacked, and therefore the “wise man” overthrew the confidence of the mighty.
III. Wisdom is a power that is needed to take other strongholds besides those built of brick or stone. Any obstruction or difficulty which a man encounters in life may be a “city of the mighty” to overthrow which wisdom will be an indispensable ally. Poverty is such a city, and it cannot be scaled by activity and industry alone—the industrious effort must be guided by wisdom. Ignorance may be compared to such a stronghold, and wisdom is needed to guide the pursuit after knowledge. Sinful habits are walls around a man, and they are so defended and strengthened by invisible powers of evil that they cannot be cast down by strength of will alone—wisdom must be sought from above to turn the struggle into a victory. But we have not only to contend with personal evils but with relative ones, with the misery and sin around us if not within us, and here again nothing can be done without wisdom. Muscular force can do a little to put down their outward manifestations, but wisdom only can do anything towards lessening their real and terrible hold upon men. The human soul, also, is a “city” which can be “scaled” only by “the wise man.” In Eden the city of Man-soul was taken by the subtlety and craft of the devil, and a wisdom more than human is needed to regain it. The undertaking is especially difficult, because there are inhabitants within the city who are averse to a change of masters—there are evil tendencies within which make men unwilling to leave the yoke of Satan for the service of God. Our Lord Jesus Christ has, however, scaled this city of the mighty; all the wisdom of God has been brought to bear upon the work of reconciling men to Himself, and the Cross has accomplished what the physical force of Omnipotence itself could not have achieved.
What is strength without a double share
Of wisdom? Vast, unwieldy, burdensome;
Proudly secure, yet liable to fall
By weakest subtleties; strength’s not made to rule,
But to subserve where wisdom bears command.—Milton.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
The Israelites never crushed the Philistines. The Jebusites long dwelt in Jerusalem’s stronghold (Joshua 15:63). The sinner (at conversion) in his feeblest state enters Canaan, and “scales the city of the mighty.” But when his foot has touched that eternal tramping-ground, alas for him! there is still the citadel! “A wise man,” not only as being a wise man, but in becoming a wise man, has scaled the city of the mighty, and evermore afterwards, in becoming wiser, he is “casting down the strength of its place of confidence.” … Not to print mistake upon his emblems, Solomon qualifies the last by those that immediately follow. Conversion is not a warfare. It is not the glow of camps or the shout of armed men, but a drowsy and forlorn awakening. Arrayed against it may be the strength of the mighty, but it is a strength absurd and miserable, as against a droning and depressing inanition. “We wrestle not against flesh and blood,” and when we come to understand the venture, the climb over the gates is not a bound of strength, but a torpid crawl out of mortal infirmity of feeling. Hence the patient prosing of the Preacher, as he next approaches us (in Proverbs 21:23). Christian obedience is the way to triumph.—Miller.
The art of war has already shewn the pre-eminence of wisdom above strength. Prudent tactics, or a wise application of courage, triumphs over mere personal prowess. Joshua’s stratagem in taking Ai was a proof of military wisdom. Solomon seems to have known of a wise man singly delivering his city from the power of a mighty king; a proof of wisdom quite tantamount to the strength of an aggressor scaling the walls, and thus casting down its confidence. (Ecclesiastes 9:13-18). Much more therefore will spiritual wisdom, the immediate gift of God, overcome difficulties as formidable as the scaling of the city of the mighty. A wise calculation of the cost is eminently serviceable in achieving most important triumphs. (Luke 14:31-32). For does not conscious weakness lead to a single dependence upon God? And what difficulties are too great for an Almighty arm? “By thee”—said a valiant soldier in the army of faith—“I have run through a troop; and by my God have I leaped over a wall.” “Weapons of a spiritual, not of a carnal,” temper, “are mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds” (2 Corinthians 10:4), impregnable to the power of man. All the promises are “to him that overcometh.” Let the soldier go to the conflict “strong in the Lord,” and “putting on his whole armour.” (Ephesians 6:10). The triumph is sure. The heavenly city will be scaled. “The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.” (Matthew 11:12.)—Bridges.
For Homiletics of Proverbs 21:23 see on chap. Proverbs 13:3, page 294.