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These words invite our attention to -

I. THAT WHICH CONSTITUTES THE FEAR OF GOD. "The fear of the Lord" was the chief note of Hebrew piety. It expressed itself in that form (see Genesis 42:18; Exodus 18:21; Leviticus 19:14; Nehemiah 5:15; Psalm 66:16; Ecclesiastes 12:13, etc.). What did it signify? Evidently something more and other than mere dread. The piety of the Jews was an immeasurably higher thing than the abject terror with which the heathen shrank from the capricious and malignant power of the deities they worshipped. It included:

1. Reverence for his Divine nature.

2. Sense of the Divine presence: "The Lord before whom I stand."

3. Regard for the Divine will, shown in the two ways of

(1) obedience to his commands, and

(2) submission to his appointments.

II. THE FACT THAT THE FEAR OF GOD CONSTITUTES THE FOUNDATION ON WHICH WE BUILD. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge." The sense of God, the belief that he is, that he reigns, that he is the Source and Fountain of all life and blessing - this is the foundation on which all wisdom, all success, all excellency, rests. How truly fundamental is this fear of God is seen when we consider:

1. That it is implanted, as one of the earliest thoughts, in the human mind. The very little child can entertain it; it enters his opening mind with the first conceptions which are cherished there. As soon as we begin to think we begin to fear God. That sentiment, which never once affected the life of the most intelligent of the brute creation in any land or age, strikes deep root and bears fairest fruit in the spiritual nature of the "little child." "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge," even in time.

2. That the acceptance of God is the basis on which all truth must rest. There are mysteries in theism which may baffle and sometimes perplex us. But in atheism we are utterly at sea. Not to start from the acceptance of an originating, designing, fashioning, con., trolling, out-working Intelligence is to be "all abroad" in the region of human investigation and inquiry. Accepting that, the universe is indeed mysterious, but it is not an all-shrouding mist in which we ourselves and everything around us are hopelessly lost. The fear of the Lord, the reverent acceptance of the truth that God is, and that he reigns, lies at the foundation, is the beginning, of knowledge - of the truth which makes the world comprehensible to the understanding, and life valuable to the soul.

3. That the fear of God is the ground of all heavenly wisdom. We cannot know our own Divine Father, our own spiritual nature with all its high and ennobling capacities, the excellency of moral and spiritual worth, the supreme blessedness of self-surrender, if we do not know God, if we have not the mind of Christ revealed to us and accepted by us. The fear of the Lord is the beginning, and is the very substance of that knowledge which constitutes the "life eternal" (John 17:3).

III. THE FOLLY OF SPIRITUAL INDIFFERENCE. "Fools despise wisdom and instruction." The foolish man does not care even to begin to know; he despises the very elements of instruction; he will not take the first step in the path of wisdom. He wanders off at his own will, and he goes in the direction of the thick darkness. He is turning from him who is the Light of life, and is travelling to that dreary region where it is always night, away from God, from wisdom, from holiness, from love. - C.

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KJV: The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

WEB: The fear of Yahweh is the beginning of knowledge; but the foolish despise wisdom and instruction.