Proverbs 1:7
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
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This is a crucial proverb, for the rest are wasted without fearing the LORD. Solomon put it first! The basic foundation for learning is to fear God (Pr 9:10), but fools reject wisdom and instruction, for they are proud and selfish without regard for God. They love their own opinions (Pr 26:12). Rather than search for truth, fools simply want to promote their own thoughts (Pr 18:1-2). You cannot even start learning without the true fear of God.
Who is the LORD? He is Jehovah of the Bible, the great I AM THAT I AM (Ex 3:14; 6:3). He created the heavens, earth, seas, and everything in them in six twenty-four hour days. When He came as a man 2000 years ago, He was named Jesus (Is 7:14; 9:6; Matt 1:21-23; John 1:1,14). Jesus Christ is Jehovah! He is coming soon with His mighty angels in flaming fire to destroy His enemies and this world (II Thess 1:7-11; I Tim 6:13-16).
The fear of God is an affectionate reverence for Him and humble submission to His word. Fearing God is loving His commands and hating evil (Pr 8:13; 16:6; Ps 111:10; 112:1). Fearing God recognizes Him as the First Cause and Last End of all things (Pr 16:4; Rev 4:11). It knows His forgiveness and seeks to please Him (Ps 130:3-4). A man fearing God trembles humbly at His word (Is 66:2). It is the whole duty of man (Eccl 12:13-14).
Natural men, who do not fear God, are fools (Ps 14:1; 36:1; 58:1). Their reasoning processes are perverse, for they reason in a circle from their own conceited ideas (Rom 1:20-23; I Tim 6:3-5,20-21). Spiritual men, who do fear God, are wise and reasonable, because their thoughts begin with faith in a Creator God (II Thess 3:2; Heb 11:3,6). The fool begins his thinking with thoughts of other fools, the believer with the words of God.
All men reason in a circle, or begin by assumptions. Their knowledge and wisdom depend on their assumptions. The God-rejecter begins by assuming his ideas and those of the fools before him are intelligent and rational. He begins by assuming he has made great advances in the twenty years since he was in diapers. The righteous man begins by assuming faith in an infinitely wise God, Who has revealed truth and wisdom in Scripture. He begins by thinking he knows nothing at all and needs the help of Another.
The fool cannot prove his theories. He calls hallucinations like evolution to be science, but he has never observed evolution, duplicated it in a laboratory, or adequately defined it. He is a fool! And his so-called science is merely a fable (I Tim 6:20-21). The believer knows the Bible is absolutely true internally and externally, but he cannot and will not prove it to the fool, because the fool is missing the essential factor – faith (II Thes 3:1-2).
Consider faith closely. The fool has faith – belief and trust – in himself and his other fellow fools. It takes more faith to believe man came from chaotic gases and baboons than it does to believe man came from an intelligent Creator. The fool has faith, but it is faith in man’s hallucinations. The fool has faith in lies, which is self-deception. The believer has faith in God and His word (Heb 11:1-6), which is self-instruction (Pr 15:33).
How did man originate? The fool says a big bang of chaotic gases formed order, design, beauty, life, and the ability and laws to reproduce and preserve them. The man who fears God knows the fool is a fool, because only an idiot could imagine such nonsense, and only the insane would say it. As a humble child trusting God, he cries, “The Emperor has no clothes!” He knows God made man from dust and breathed into him the breath of life.
Evolution is the result of God-hating and sin-loving minds given over to the devil, and it is God Himself Who blinds these fools to worship baboons as their ancestors (Is 44:9-20; Rom 1:20-23). Their “think tanks” today are to smoke hallucinogenic substances and see who can win the day by coming up with the most outlandish explanation for a thing. Do you doubt this accusation? How do you think they say the big bang was 14 billion years ago? They do not even know what men were doing on earth 4 thousand years ago!
The blessed God blinds men who are not thankful to Him for what they are and have (Rom 1:20-23). When they give more glory to the creature than to the Creator, He gives them over to a reprobate mind to do very inconvenient things like sodomy, abortion, child rebellion, bestiality, Picasso, and same-sex marriages (Rom 1:24-32). Jehovah, the LORD God, has committed Himself to destroy such men (I Cor 1:19-20; 3:19-20).
How did the seven-day week originate? Did Neanderthal man decide he was tired after working six days and needed the seventh for rest? The movements of the sun teach seasons and years and days, and the moon teaches months, just as God declared (Gen 1:14-19). Where did the week originate? By God’s revelation (Gen 2:1-3; Ex 20:8-11)!
How did morality originate? Is adultery wrong? If not, why is polygamy wrong? If not, why is prostitution wrong? If not, why is pornography wrong? If not, why is bestiality wrong? If not, why is pedophilia wrong? How do you reason, fool? Did the caveman of your theories want to protect the woman and give her a loving and secure life in a monogamous relationship of two adults? Or did the blessed God ordain marriage?
Consider how an evolutionist reasons. He laughs at sexual abstinence and virginity, while pulling very small infants apart limb by limb with a suction abortion. He sues farmers for housing chickens in safe cages with constant food, water, and vitamins, but he viciously defends the so-called right to rip an unborn child to pieces. And they call this knowledge!
Fearing God is the beginning of knowledge – about religion. If it were not for God and His Bible, men would still be sacrificing their wives and children in fire to make peace with their idols, as is still done in India today. They would still be cutting and painting themselves to make peace with the Great Spirit to go to the Happy Hunting Ground.
Fearing God is the beginning of knowledge – about government. If it were not for God and His Bible, men would still worship their emperor as god, like the Egyptians of old and the Japanese of yesterday. Benevolent government was ordained in the Bible, and it is only widely enjoyed in nations that have been havens for Bible preaching. In all other nations, the peasants are used to satisfy the appetite for luxury of the ruler.
Fearing God is the beginning of knowledge – about history. Most historians today write history to further a social agenda, and those that write honestly have little data anyway. As foolish man discovers that the Bible accounts of ancient civilizations are true, the same men outlaw the Bible in schools, lest the children have truth at their disposal. Consider the recent discovery of the Hittites that the Bible had described for 3,000 years.
The Bible has all the answers from the origin of the universe to what to do with your foolish child, from the origin of death to the cure for it, from perfect rules for marriage to the eternal state of the wicked. Fearing God means that you believe and trust His word, which gives you insight and answers for all the questions of life, while the evolutionist fool can only speculate about new estimates for the age of the big bang.
Fearing God means you do not fear man, which brings pressure to compromise (Pr 29:25; Jer 1:8,17). Peer pressure of elementary school students or academicians in your professional field cause men to accept traditional ideas or politically-correct theories. It is time for the child to cry again, “But the Emperor has no clothes!” The fear of God saves a man from this bondage, for such a man despises human opinions (Ps 119:98-100,128).
Where does wisdom originate? In the fear of the Lord! God opens men’s eyes, ears, and hearts to truth and wisdom (I Kgs 3:5-15; Jas 1:5). God opens their eyes to His word (Ps 119:18). God shows them His secrets (Pr 3:32; Ps 25:14). They fear no man (Heb 13:6). Wisdom cannot be found anywhere in the universe, but in the fear of God (Job 28:12-28).