Why do fools despise wisdom (Proverbs 1:7)?

The last two attributes of the Spirit mentioned are "knowledge and the fear of the Lord." Knowledge is what the world craves, seeking it in order to display itself in independence of God. Thus sin first came into the world; knowledge was craved, knowledge apart from God, and in disobedience. The result has been a ruined world, under the righteous judgment of God. Knowledge can be of real value only as it comes from God, His gift. The wisdom and knowledge of the world have been used to shut out the knowledge of God: "The world by wisdom knew not God" (1 Cor. 1:21). The reason is simple and plain: man's pride casts off the fear of God, but "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge" (Prov. 1:7). If knowledge is used to puff up, to lead men to think they are like God (Gen. 3:5), it can only produce more disastrous results than ignorance. Education, apart from the fear of God, tends to infidelity. It is not true, as Rome has taught, that "ignorance is the mother of devotion" (unless it be the devotion of worshiping images and relics), but neither is knowledge the parent of worship; something from above is needed for that.

Verse 7 contains the keynote to the entire book. (See 9:10; Eccles. 12:13; Job 28:28; Psalm 111:10.) The word "fear" means a godly fear, reverence. This fear of the Lord is mentioned fourteen times in Proverbs. This childlike reverence, so sadly lacking among the young of our day, is the beginning of knowledge; there is no true knowledge apart from the fear of the Lord. It means to acknowledge the Lord, adore and worship Him, bow in faith to His revelation and put it above everything else. The foolish despise wisdom and instruction, they follow the philosophies of this world. To acknowledge the Lord to reverence and fear Him is thus written over the portal of the house of wisdom.

"Do not speak in the hearing of a fool, for he will despise the wisdom of your words" (v. 9). It is well that we understand who it is whom God calls a fool. Psalm 14:1 tells us, "The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’" Also, one who questions the truth of resurrection is called a fool (1 Cor. 15:35-36). More than this, the rich man who amassed such wealth as to consider he could live luxuriously for many years (Luke 12:16-21) was called a fool by God. In each case, the one who leaves God out of his life deserves that unsavory title, "fool."! Such a man will always despise true wisdom, so that it is hopeless to expect any proper response from him.

Is this knowledge? No. The reasoning on facts, even without God, even in that which is the legitimate sphere of experimental science, is only the leaving man to the wandering of his own mind, who never will, and never can, know creation without knowing a Creator; that is, without that faith which believes that the worlds were framed by the word of God, and that the things which are seen were not made of the things which do appear. When we turn to moral things and intellectual philosophy, it is evident there can be no knowledge without the fear of God; for then I enter on the sphere of relationships and obligations; and how can I be right, when I leave out the first and principal one? I cannot think of mind and find it sufficient for itself within itself. In point of fact, it has aspirations, and longings, and thoughts of a Being above us, power out of our reach, goodness, good and evil - of an end of our being, which is not apparent. If mind cannot suffice for itself, is it to turn to what is below it and exercise merely its powers? If above, what is God? what are my relationships with Him? where do they end, how begin? Will they end? I must know God to be at rest, God must have His place. Now putting God in His true place - that is the fear of God - is the true beginning of all knowledge.

227 This closes the preface: Solomon now enters on his subject. "The fear of Jehovah is the beginning of knowledge" - not of wisdom, but of knowledge. A weighty sentence. All true knowledge, all moral knowledge begins by putting God in His own place. Nothing is right or true without that. For to leave Him out falsifies the position and relationship of all. I may know physical facts and what are called laws (that is, abstractions from uniform facts), but that is all, without it. Not that there are no instituted relationships, for there are, as parents, husband and wife, and others now man is fallen. But right and wrong refer to each in its place. And not only is the fear of God a motive, which maintains their authority in the heart, but, if I leave God out, what has instituted them and given them their authority is wanting. Each stone has its own place in the arch, but if the keystone be wanting, none can keep theirs.

But this section ends with a most vital prescription for one to even have the beginning of knowledge: "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge" (v. 7). True knowledge can never be found without this wholesome fear of the Lord. But only "fools despise wisdom and instruction."

Do you know what is the fear of the Lord? I find it well described in a sevenfold way by the wisest man that ever lived — except Jesus — Solomon. He says,

(1) "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge;" and by way of antithesis he adds, "but fools despise wisdom and instruction" (Prov. 1:7). You know where you are, my friend; I do not know. But you know your company, and your companions will tell you where you are. I will read it again, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction." Then, again,

The intelligence here commended began with the fear of Jehovah, and grew by hearing and gaining wise counsels which fools despise. Wisdom accordingly rests not on the tongue merely, but in the heart which prizes it.

Still here where Jehovah's law ruled, wisdom was not confined to parental discipline, still less was it shut up in philosophic schools, but "cries without." She "raises her voice in the broadways" instead of seeking only the refined and exalted; she "calls at the head of the noisy places of concourse, at the entry of the gates." The moral profit was sought assiduously of those that had most need, if culture despises the vulgar. Not in the calm and quiet of the country is she said to utter her words, but "in the city" where is far more to attract and distract the mass of mankind. "How long, simple ones," says she, "will ye love simpleness, and scorners delight them in scorning, and fools hate wisdom?" There is thus a climax in these classes of careless, ungodly souls. The simple are the many weak ones who, lacking all moral discernment and object, are exposed to evil on all sides and at each turn; and by this easy indifference they become a prey. The scorners manifest more positive pravity, and reject all appeals to conscience and reference to divine things by unseemly jest and insolent sneer. It is an ever growing moral disease, never so prevalent as in these last days. The fools that hate knowledge may be more godless still, and become openly atheist, as Scripture shows. For the apostasy must come, and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition who will set himself and be received as God, and this in the temple of God, where the affront is deepest.

The judgment will be so dreadful and arresting that people will then turn to call on the Lord (v. 28), but however diligently they seek, they will not find Him. Certainly, if their change was one of honest repentance, God would answer, but calling only because of fear of judgment is not repentance. People often want deliverance, but with no acknowledgement of guilt, and this is intimated in verse 29, "Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord." Those who form their character in this way will never reverse their attitude to judge themselves for their sinful folly. They totally refused all God's counsel and despised His every rebuke (v. 30).

The consequences must inevitably be suffered. "They shall eat the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own fancies." The very fact of their attitude and actions comes back on their own heads to slay them. Their own foolish complacency destroys them (v. 32).