Weekly Pulpit Proverbs 2:4 If you seek her as silver, and search for her as for hid treasures; Wisdom, or the intellectual adoption of good and pious principles, and the practical application of such principles to the ordering of life and conduct and relations, is personified. The writer has dealt with Wisdom's call to the young, and with her warning to the negligent; now he presents her instructions to those who show a disposition to give heed to her. She addresses those who take a serious view of life. Life is, for every man, full of sublime possibilities. There must be some great life-quest, something that we should live to seek, something that we may hope to win. I. WHAT DOES IT SEEM TO BE? It is called "knowledge," "understanding," "wisdom." The desire to know was never more absorbing. The pursuit of knowledge never seemed more encouraging. Facilities for the search never so abounded. Rewards for those who attain never were so rich. And yet the grave mysteries of life never so thickened and darkened round the human spirit as they do to-day. The pursuit of knowledge can never stop with things, it must concern itself with moral questions. Since the time of Bacon there has grown up an extravagant demand for the sense-verification of everything. Man's supreme question is: "Good, what is it? Where is it? How can it be attained?" Appeal: You would know as books can teach; as science-leaders can teach; as experience can teach. But none of them, nor all together, will ever satisfy you. You must know as God, and God alone, can teach you. II. WHAT DOES IT PROVE TO BE? The knowledge and fear of God. If a man's quest be sincere and thoroughly earnest, it leads to that; it cannot rest short of that. 1. A life-quest may not be carried far enough. It may stop at what only seems to be. 2. A life-quest may be turned aside. "Ye did run well, who did hinder you?" Young souls may be attracted aside by worldly pleasure; driven aside by worldly cares; or cast aside by false teachings. "Then shall ye know, if ye follow on to know the Lord." When you have found what is the chief good for the sons of men, follow it on, through riches, learning, pleasure, still unresting, ever unresting, until the soul is led to the feet of Jesus, and finds in Him the true knowledge and the true fear of God. (Weekly Pulpit.) Parallel Verses KJV: If thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures;WEB: If you seek her as silver, and search for her as for hidden treasures: |
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