Proverbs 1:24-31 - Sermon Bible Commentary

Bible Comments

Proverbs 1:24-31

I. The person represented as speaking these very solemn and terrible words is that same wisdom which is represented in the verses before the text as making most gracious offers to all who will hear her voice. We shall make a right use of the language if we conclude from it that the wisdom of God will not speak for ever in the way of warning and rebuke, but that a time will come to those who do not listen to her words, when her voice will bring no comfort to their hearts, and contrariwise will fill them with anguish.

II. To us Christians wisdom is presented in a very distinct and personal form, namely, as embodied in the Lord Jesus Christ. As the excellence of the promises of wisdom could not be understood until interpreted by the coming of Christ, so the curses pronounced by wisdom had nothing of their full weight, until they fell upon those who have seen "Jesus Christ evidently set forth crucified amongst them," and who, nevertheless, have counted His blood as worthless, and so have done despite to the Spirit of Grace. The love of Christ only measures the wrath of God against those who neglect it: as the blood of Christ saved, so also the blood of Christ condemns.

Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Parish Sermons,3rd series, p. 120.

Reference: Proverbs 1:27; Proverbs 1:28. C. C. Bartholomew, Sermons Chiefly Practical,p. 341.

Proverbs 1:24-31

24 Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded;

25 But ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof:

26 I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh;

27 When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you.

28 Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me:

29 For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the LORD:

30 They would none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof.

31 Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices.