This is only one passage out of many in which wisdom is connected with religion, in which it is asserted that a religious fear of God is the first step in true wisdom, and that he who would know God aright must love wisdom, and humbly and vigorously seek after her.
I. Even taking the lowest view of things, that is only a selfish view, looking only to what is to be gained, making it only a matter of profit and loss, the religious man is the wise man. For it has been often argued, that even though a man who gives his mind to religion be wrong, yet he loses nothing in the end; he has had his own happiness here, and has trodden the weary vale of life buoyed up by the expectation of a glorious resurrection morning. But if we think of another life, which is the happier then? If the religious man be right, what becomes of the irreligious?
II. Religion is wisdom and ungodliness folly, because the religious man is concerned with far grander and more exalted things than any other man. The principal attribute of a wise discerning man is to be able to see things as they really are, to pierce through outside appearances, and get at the heart of things, and not be cheated by sham outsides; and, therefore, when a man is deceived by the show of the world, and believes its promises, and lays up his treasure here, and thinks his treasure real and safe, I think that the man is in reality weak in judgment and childish in his way of viewing things. I can see no wisdom in him, but quite the reverse.
III. Wisdom is spoken of as a thing that must be laboured for; it is not to be sought merely for amusement, but the search is to be the very business of man's life; there is no point more clearly laid down, none more insisted on, than the necessity of exertion in the pursuit of wisdom. There are lessons enough in the Book of God for every day of the longest life, and he who puts off learning them will find that they will press heavily upon him when he has the least power to learn. The wisdom we are to seek is the result of many actions; almost every act tells one way or another, tends either to wisdom or folly.
Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Parish Sermons,1st series, p. 239.
References: Proverbs 2:1-9. R. Wardlaw, Lectures on Proverbs,vol. i., p. 52.Proverbs 2:1-15 . Outline Sermons to Children,p. 65.