Blog - Proverbs 1:24

If you like this blog, then you will like Get Wisdom, Get Understanding which is Pastor Wagner's commentary on Proverbs chapter 1 which is available on Amazon in paperback or Kindle. Find out more here. For all the blogs in this series, click here: Proverbs Commentary. Proverbs 1:24 "Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded;" (Pro 1:24)

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I have called, and ye refused. Herein we learn who bears culpability for man's lack of wisdom and the judgment which follows as a result: the recipients of wisdom's call, not the issuer of it. No man can claim ignorance when he receives the just desert of his sin and foolishness, for the LORD "commandeth all men every where to repent" (Act 17:30). The problem was not a lack of calling on wisdom's part, for as was noted in previous comments she called everywhere including "in the streets...in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates...in the city...in the top of high places, by the way in the places of the paths...at the coming in at the doors...[and] upon the highest places of the city" (Pro 1:20-21; 8:2-3; 9:3). The blame rather lays solely on those who refused the cry of wisdom. The fact that they refused indicates that they heard, considered, and decided to reject the call. In refusing the call of wisdom, they also declined the blessing attached to it.

Pro 1:23 - Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you.
Pro 8:33 - Hear instruction, and be wise, and refuse it not. Pro 8:34 - Blessed is the man that heareth me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors. Pro 8:35 - For whoso findeth me findeth life, and shall obtain favour of the LORD. Pro 8:36 - But he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul: all they that hate me love death.

When God calls, His children better answer or judgment awaits.

Isa 65:12 - Therefore will I number you to the sword, and ye shall all bow down to the slaughter: because when I called, ye did not answer; when I spake, ye did not hear; but did evil before mine eyes, and did choose that wherein I delighted not.
Isa 66:4 - I also will choose their delusions, and will bring their fears upon them; because when I called, none did answer; when I spake, they did not hear: but they did evil before mine eyes, and chose that in which I delighted not.

Parents should take heed to this sobering lesson of how God deals with His children and therefore train their children that when they call the children better answer quickly or trouble follows. If the trouble that follows is simply more calling by the parents, they only demonstrate their weak and ineffective leadership and are setting their children up for failure and serious problems later in life. I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded. Just as a man would extend his hand to pull a drowning person out of the water, so the LORD extends His hand to save His children from dying in their folly. We commonly refer to trying to help someone get through a difficult situation as reaching out to them. But oftentimes those to whom we reach out do not reach back, paying no regard to our stretched out hand. Pastor Phil Jonker said it well: "you can't fix people that don't want to be fixed; you can't change people that don't want to change." Those who have attempted in vain to help a wayward sinner get back on the strait and narrow should take comfort in the fact that God has met with the same frustration. Those who don't embrace God's outstretched hand will be on the receiving end of that mighty fist when God uses it to punish them, as is the case with the fools to whom wisdom cries in the remainder of this chapter.

Isa 5:25 - Therefore is the anger of the LORD kindled against his people, and he hath stretched forth his hand against them, and hath smitten them: and the hills did tremble, and their carcases were torn in the midst of the streets. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

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