I. It is a pity, and a thing greatly to be regretted, that the tree of which Adam and Eve were ordered not to eat, and did eat, is so often called "the tree of knowledge." It is not its scriptural name. It was not knowledge at all, as we generally use the word "knowledge." It was moral or rather immoral knowledge, "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." God would not have made "knowledge" a part of the prophecy of the future good and happiness of Jerusalem, if knowledge were not a great national as well as a great personal blessing.
II. But right knowledge may be put in wrong proportions, or knowledge may be separated from wisdom. If that divorce takes place between two things which God has joined together, no wonder if it brings a curse and not a blessing. Knowledge which has not the fear of the Lord is not knowledge at all. And here lies the error of the day, which says "knowledge," leaving out wisdom. "Knowledge is the stability of the times."
III. But what is wisdom? Either you must take it thus, which is the right application "to use knowledge;" or it is when a sound judgment sits at the helm of the feelings; or; better still, it is a great principle ruling the intellect, the Eternal in His proper place among the things of time; or, truer still, as we learn from the Proverbs, it is the Lord Jesus Christ, the fountain, the embodiment, the concentration, the essence of wisdom. The degree of a man's union with Christ is the real measure of his wisdom. Wisdom is the preparative; it is a state of mind preceding knowledge; therefore the order, wisdom first, knowledge next; "wisdom and knowledge."
J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons,10th series, p. 197.