Why Proverbs (The Protection of Proverbs #1)

Hurricane Michael hit the Florida panhandle in the fall of 2018. It was the third strongest hurricane ever recorded in the Gulf — it shattered the top of the category scale.

One area it hit particularly hard was a small resort town called Mexico Beach. Residents had to evacuate, and when they came back they were stunned by the devastation — and equally stunned that one house was still standing.

It’s known as the Sand Palace. Everything around it was decimated. A few structures remained, but with siding torn off and roofs ripped apart. This house looked essentially untouched.

Built to Exceed Code

It had been built just one year earlier as a vacation rental. And when the builders designed it, they decided they didn’t merely want to meet code — they wanted to exceed it dramatically.

Most homes in that area had to withstand 125-mile-per-hour winds. These builders aimed for 250.

Which meant adjustments. Instead of typical drywall and wood framing, the walls were reinforced concrete. The eaves — the parts of the roof that overhang — were made shorter, giving the wind less to catch. The support pilings were driven forty feet into the ground. And steel cables ran beneath the siding, effectively strapping the entire structure down.

It worked. Within a week or two the place was ready to use again.

It wasn’t completely unscathed — the storm surge took out the ground-floor stairs, leaving the bottom level open, and the utilities had to be reinstalled. But the house itself was rock solid.

Our Culture Is a Hurricane

I believe we live in a day when our culture is exactly like that hurricane, and it is trying to topple you.

But rather than come straight at you, our culture works differently. It woos you. It calls you in and persuades you to cut corners in ways that eventually wreck your life.

Consider what happened in baseball in the late nineties and early two-thousands, when it emerged that a number of players were using steroids to get bigger, stronger, faster — because that meant winning, and better statistics, and better statistics meant more money, and more money meant more happiness.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that elite athletes are fiercely competitive. And in their desire to win, they cheated. There were winds of culture pulling at them: you want more money? You want to be happier? Take this. Cut this corner. All of it can be yours.

And sure enough, some got enormous contracts. Some won championships. Some set records.

But as the whole thing unraveled years later, men who would have entered the Hall of Fame instead acquired infamous names. Men who had been widely respected watched their reputations dragged through the mud. And some have developed genuine health problems from what they put into their bodies chasing that edge.

In the short term the culture wooed them and delivered something wonderful. By giving in, they made things far worse long term. Their lives were toppled and blown apart.

And it isn’t only baseball. Pick a sport and you’ll find someone who cheated. Cycling. Swimming. Any of them. Because our world insists that happiness is found in winning.

And It Isn’t Only Sports

Kids, I suspect you feel this tension at school. There’s a pull to get ahead, so some students cheat on a test to get the better grade, to be a little happier, to make Mom and Dad proud.

Parents, many of you feel pressure at work to perform certain ways and do certain things.

Our media tells us constantly: you want pleasure, you want the good life, here’s what you have to do — and yes, you’ll take some shortcuts to get there, but it’s worth it.

The problem is that you give in, you take the shortcut, you build merely to code — and the hurricane of culture blows you over and rips you apart.

What we need is protection. Something that straps us down. Something driven deep into the ground. Something that keeps us anchored.

That’s Why God Gave Us Proverbs

God embedded timeless truths in this book to bring protection — protection for our lives, our hearts, and our minds.

And just as that house cost double to build, when you read the truths in Proverbs you’ll realize following them will cost you something. Your world is constantly pressing you toward the shortcut, and saying no has a price. People may look at you strangely. It may cost you money, because you didn’t take the financial shortcut. But in the long run it is worth it.

So we’re taking five weeks to survey this book and see how God uses Proverbs to protect our hearts, our minds, and our lives — including protecting us from greed, from lust, and from pride.

A Father Writing to His Son

Chapter 2 opens the whole thing up for us, and the very first words are: My son.

Chapter 1 identifies the author as Solomon, son of David. But he isn’t writing out of his fame. He’s writing to help his own son.

There’s something in us as parents that wants to protect our children.

When my oldest daughter left for college, I couldn’t help myself — I wrote her a book. Before you’re impressed: it was very small. Essentially a glorified pamphlet. And I never got much feedback along the lines of “Dad, that was tremendous.” So it may not have been the masterpiece I imagined.

But there was something in me that thought: I’m sending my kid off, and I want to guide and protect her. And if I could just give her words she could return to, maybe that would help.

That’s what’s happening here. Solomon knows this world wants to chew his son up — to be the hurricane that destroys him. So he writes.

He Starts With “Do,” Not “Don’t”

Here’s what stands out. Most of us, when we try to help our kids, begin with don’t. Don’t play in the street. Don’t tell lies. Don’t wrestle with a tiger.

Solomon starts with do. And what he wants his son to do is get wisdom.

In Proverbs 2:1–9 he tells his son that if he receives his words and treasures up his commandments, making his ear attentive to wisdom and inclining his heart to understanding — if he calls out for insight and raises his voice for understanding, seeking it like silver and searching for it as for hidden treasure — then he will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.

Because the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding. He stores up sound wisdom for the upright. He is a shield to those who walk in integrity, guarding the paths of justice and watching over the way of his saints.

Notice what he says: when you seek wisdom like silver, what you actually find is God. And God becomes a shield.

So wisdom serves as protection. And in this chapter Solomon names three areas where it shields us: from a ruined life, ruined relationships, and a ruined reputation.

One: A Ruined Life

In verse 10 he continues: wisdom will come into your heart, knowledge will be pleasant to your soul, discretion will watch over you, and understanding will guard you — delivering you from the way of evil, from men of perverted speech who abandon the paths of uprightness to walk in darkness, who rejoice in doing evil and delight in perverseness, whose paths are crooked and whose ways are devious.

Solomon was the wisest man who had lived to that point in history. (I can’t say the wisest ever, because a man named Jesus came along.) And out of that wisdom he tells his son: you have to get wisdom, because without it you’ll be prone to do whatever anyone tells you.

Kids, listen carefully. There are people in this world who will act like they’re being good to you while actually steering you toward something bad.

Here’s an example. A friend at school tells you about a new video game. It’s the greatest thing ever. It’s on every platform. It’s incredibly fun.

So you go home and ask your parents. They look into it and decide no. Maybe it costs too much. Maybe there’s content in it they don’t want you absorbing. Maybe it’s violent. Maybe the only way to win is by cheating, and they don’t want you learning that. Whatever the reason, they say no.

You go back and tell your friend. And he says, “Oh, you’re missing out. Tell you what — I’ve got a code for a free version. You can download it and use it behind their backs. It’s worth it.”

He’s telling you he wants you to be happy. But to get it, you have to lie to your parents and cut corners. He’s presenting it as good, and it’s leading you somewhere bad.

“We Think What You Need Is Another Guy”

I had the joy of getting to know a woman after she came to Christ. But before I knew her, here’s what her life had been.

She married very young and had a child. Then her husband left her for another woman, and she found herself a single mother. She moved in with her mom and stepfather, got a job, and tried to care for herself and her son. Her ex-husband wanted nothing to do with their child, so she was essentially raising him alone with some help from her parents.

Her coworkers looked at her life and thought it was miserable. And they wanted to help. They wanted her to be happy.

So their plan was to take her out one evening, and during it they told her that what she really needed to get over the divorce was another man. One of them drove her to a man’s house.

I’ll spare the details. It led to another child, another failed marriage, and a great deal more pain.

We live in a world that says: you want pleasure, happiness, peace? It’s over here. Do this. And you take the shortcut, and the winds knock you down.

Solomon is trying to protect his son from exactly that. He doesn’t want him listening to that smooth speech. He wants him to have discernment — and kids, discernment means knowing whether something is right or wrong. When you’re introduced to something new and you have discernment, you can look at it and think, “I don’t believe that’s going to be good for me.”

And that discernment comes from wisdom.

Two: Ruined Relationships

In verses 16–19 he says wisdom will deliver you from the forbidden woman — the adulteress with her smooth words, who forsakes the companion of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God. Her house sinks down to death and her paths to the departed; none who go to her come back, nor do they regain the paths of life.

If you’re married, or once were, there was probably a moment when the person you married became powerfully attractive to you. Maybe immediately, maybe over time — but a point came where you knew it was more than enjoying their company. There was a genuine draw.

That is not what Solomon is describing. He’s describing a woman who is already married.

Look at verse 17: she forsakes the companion of her youth. That’s his poetic way of saying she’s abandoning her husband — not divorcing him, still married to him, but wanting to pretend for a while with Solomon’s son that they belong to each other.

And she is forgetting the covenant of her God.

Kids, when a man and woman decide to marry, they stand before witnesses and before God and exchange vows. Genesis 2:24 tells us the two become one. They join their lives in a covenant.

And Solomon warns his son that there will be people willing to ignore those covenants, insisting it’ll feel good, it’ll be wonderful, we just have to cut a few things loose.

Do that and you will ruin relationships. I know people who lost marriages to that temptation. I know people who lost jobs. I know people who lost the respect of everyone around them.

And here’s an additional dimension for us. In Solomon’s day this could only happen in physical space. We live in a digital world. Yes, it can happen at work, at school, in the neighborhood — but it also happens in the privacy of a home, with a phone, a computer, a book, a film. Our world constantly insists this is good and wonderful, and how can something be wrong if it feels good?

And so many people have given in and discovered that yes, it was wrong — and something important is now gone.

Three: A Ruined Reputation

Verse 20 continues: so you will walk in the way of the good and keep to the paths of the righteous. For the upright will inhabit the land, and those with integrity will remain in it — but the wicked will be cut off from the land, and the treacherous rooted out of it.

Notice his structure. When we give advice we usually begin with the bad: make this decision and here are the terrible consequences, so don’t. It comes from a good place — we’re trying to protect people.

Solomon ends with the bad. He acknowledges it, but first he says the upright will inhabit the land.

That may sound unremarkable to us. In his day the land was everything.

Remember that the Israelites spent four hundred years enslaved in Egypt before God sent Moses to bring them out and lead them to the promised land. Crossing the Jordan into that land meant peace and prosperity — a land flowing with milk and honey. To them that meant provision. No more making bricks. No more slavery. They would be their own people.

So “inhabiting the land” is Solomon’s poetic way of telling his son: you want peace? Then don’t buy the lies of the wicked. Fall in with them, do what you know is wrong, and you’ll be cut off.

And if you know Jewish history, you know that happened at least twice. The people were carried out of the promised land into exile — because they had abandoned God, begun worshiping other gods, and stopped loving and respecting their neighbors. God sent prophets to warn them: if you don’t repent, I will take you out of the land. And armies came, and they went right back into captivity, right back into exile, right back into a life without peace.

So Solomon says: you want peace in life? Live uprightly. Walk in the way of those who do good. Don’t take the shortcuts. Don’t cut the corners. Do what you know is right — and wisdom will protect you. It will be the pilings driven deep into the ground and the cables holding you firm, so that when the winds come, you stand.

But None of Us Have Done This Perfectly

Let’s be honest — not one of us has managed this a hundred percent. Which means two things.

First, Solomon is speaking in broad terms. If you have failed badly and can look back at times you gave in, that does not mean one mistake becomes your identity for the rest of your life.

Second, it reveals something crucial: we need Jesus.

A Verse You Might Read Right Past

Paul writes something in 1 Corinthians 1:30 that’s easy to skim: because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption.

It sounds appropriately Pauline, and you keep reading. But look at it now in light of Proverbs.

“Because of him” — because of what God has done. “You are in Christ Jesus” — that’s the biblical way of saying your identity is bound up with Christ. Jesus went to a cross to die for our sins, and when we receive that, our sins are washed away and our identity is now tied to him.

And then: who became to us wisdom from God. It could equally be translated who became for us wisdom.

What did Solomon just tell us about wisdom? That it’s a shield. That it protects.

So when you realize that in the gospel Jesus is your wisdom, you know exactly what will carry you through the winds of the culture. God has set the gospel up to protect you.

And notice what that protection produces: righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. All of it the work of God.

Where Your Protection Actually Comes From

I don’t want you walking away thinking, “Now I have to go back to a workplace that constantly pressures me, and I’m exhausted.”

Your willpower only lasts so long. So where does the protection come from? Christ.

Now you can walk into that workplace praying: Father, protect me. Jesus, you are my umbrella. You are my shield. You are the steel cables wrapped around me holding me firm. Help me live in your strength, because I am in Christ Jesus.

Some of you will find yourselves alone, and the temptation will arrive to pull out the phone, get on the computer, make the call — this is where the pleasure is. And part of you will be saying, “I don’t want to give in.” Your protection is Jesus. Run to the gospel. Let him cover you, because he is your sanctification.

And some of you look at your life and think, “I’ve already ruined my reputation.” Notice the last word in that verse: redemption. There is change. There is healing. That mistake does not have to define you. You can come to Christ, and as your wisdom he can protect you not only from your future but even from your past.

So you want wisdom? Run to Christ. It’s found in the gospel. Your protection was purchased through the brutal execution of Jesus — and as you come to that cross and bow before him, he covers you and becomes your righteousness, your sanctification, and your redemption.

When the world tempts you toward what’s unethical and would ruin your life, turn to Christ, for he is your righteousness. When the world lures you toward lust, turn to Christ, for he is your sanctification. And when the world has wrecked your reputation, turn to Christ, for he is your redemption.

Christ is our wisdom. In a sense, Christ is our Proverb.

Don’t Weather This Alone

One more thing. As these winds beat against us, we need reminding that we are not alone in this fight — not only because God’s Spirit is with us, but because you have a church family.

If you’re wrestling with something, don’t go it alone. These winds would love nothing more than to destroy you in isolation. Let us be part of your anchor. Let us remind you of the gospel.

Yes, it will be hard. It will cost you something. Someone will see your mess. It will be an uncomfortable conversation. But don’t take the shortcut of hiding it and risk the long-term damage that follows.

Because Jesus didn’t only die for each of us individually. He died for us as a whole. We are the body of Christ.

A Prayer

Father, let the truth of who Jesus is become the mark of who we are. Make us people who surrender completely, and let the truth of Jesus be what drives us, motivates us, and protects us.

Some of us are wrestling with sin and giving in far too often — in private, or with a particular group of people. We need strength. Help us turn to you and realize that if our life is in Christ, we are safe.

Some of us need our anchors driven deeper. We’re too shallow right now. Do what needs doing deep within us so we can withstand these winds.

And someone reading this may not know you at all — crashing about like a ship at sea, needing something to hold them still. Let them confess their sin and acknowledge that you, Jesus, died for their forgiveness. Bring them in, and begin to be their wisdom. Give them discernment to know right from wrong, so they stop listening to the voices of a world enticing them away from you, and instead hear you saying: I love you. I’m protecting you. I’ve got you.

Help us live under your umbrella. Let your truth be our shield. We cannot fight this fight on our own. Thank you that you are with us and for us — and if you are for us, nothing can stand against us. In you we find our joy, our peace, and true love, and by holding onto you we can live anchored lives. Do in us what you need to do, for your glory and for our joy. In Jesus’s name, amen.