Alpha & Omega

In this world we are told many things, but our Authority is GOD. No other.
In Proverbs, we are given many wise sayings to abide by. But, I think our interactions with GOD and the people of this world are based upon this chapter. It comes down to the good and evil…do your best to make GOD number one in your life. GOD is ALPHA & OMEGA! HE is the beginning and the end.

PROVERBS Chapter 1; [link]

• 1 The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel;

• 2 To know wisdom and instruction; to perceive the words of understanding;

THE Authority is GOD and knowing HIS understanding and instruction is the most wise.
Wisdom – חכמה chochmah may mean here, and in every other part of this book, not only that Divine science by which we are enabled to discover the best end, and pursue it by the most proper means; but also the whole of that heavenly teaching that shows us both ourselves and God, directs us into all truth,
Wisdom – The power by which human personality reaches its highest spiritual perfection, by which all lower elements are brought into harmony with the highest, is presently personified as life-giving and creative. Compare the notes of Job 28:23, etc.

Instruction – i. e., discipline or training, the practical complement of the more speculative wisdom.

Understanding – The power of distinguishing right from wrong, truth from its counterfeit. The three words σοφία sophia, παιδεία paideia, φρόνησις phronēsis, express very happily the relation of the words in the Hebrew.

• 3 To receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, and judgment, and equity;

GOD expects compliance. For HE and HE alone gives wisdom, judgment, and equity. GOD is wisdom, and HE gives us wisdom. GOD is the ultimate judge, and we will be given fair judgment. Equity is impartial fairness; this is GOD!
Wisdom – Not the same word as in Proverbs 1:2; better, perhaps, thoughtfulness.

Justice – Rather, righteousness. The word in the Hebrew includes the ideas of truth and beneficence as well as “justice.”

Judgment – The teaching of the Proverbs is to lead us to pass a right sentence upon human actions, whether our own or another’s.

Equity – משרים mesharim, rectitude. The pupil is to receive wisdom and instruction, the words of wisdom and understanding, justice and judgment, so perfectly as to excel in all. Wisdom itself, personified, is his teacher; and when God’s wisdom teaches, there is no delay in learning.

• 4 To give subtilty to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion.

To fold together, to make one rope or cord out of many strands…this is our connection with GOD!
At first, it signified, as above, without fold, unmixed, uncompounded: this was its radical meaning. Then, as applied to men, it signified innocent, harmless, without disguise; but, as such persons were rather an unfashionable sort of people, it sunk in its meaning to homely, homespun, mean, ordinary. And, as worldly men, who were seeking their portion in this life, and had little to do with religion, supposed that wisdom, wit, and understanding, were given to men that they might make the best of them in reference to the things of this life, the word sunk still lower in its meaning, and signified silly, foolish; and there, to the dishonor of our language and morals, it stands!
From the young to the old…we are given knowledge and discretion. The key is knowing how to use this knowledge. The discretion to use the knowledge we are given is important, for with this comes discernment.
So many avenues in life, so many paths can lead you astray. Knowing which is GOD’s Will is not only using knowledge but discerning GOD’s path for us.

• 5 A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels:

When GOD gives us knowledge, no matter the subject…there is a reason! Everything has purpose.
The art of governing himself and others;
A wise man wilt hear – I shall not only give such instructions as may be suitable to the youthful and inexperienced, but also to those who have much knowledge and understanding. So said St. Paul: We speak wisdom among them that are perfect. This and the following verse are connected in the old MS. and in Coverdale: “By hearyinge the wyse man shall come by more wysdome; and by experience he shall be more apte to understonde a parable and the interpretation thereof; the wordes of the wyse and the darke speaches of the same.”

• 6 To understand a proverb, and the interpretation; the words of the wise, and their dark sayings.

These proverbs are to form a habit of mind. To gain through them the power of entering into the deeper meaning of other proverbs, is the end kept in view.
Dark sayings – חידת chidoth, enigmas or riddles, in which the Asiatics abounded.

• 7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

The fear of the Lord – In the preceding verses Solomon shows the advantage of acting according to the dictates of wisdom; in the following verses he shows the danger of acting contrary to them.
No man can ever become truly wise, who does not begin with God, the fountain of knowledge; and he whose mind is influenced by the fear and love of God will learn more in a month than others will in a year.

• 8 My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother:

The father occasionally gives instruction; but he is not always in the family, many of those occupations which are necessary for the family support being carried on abroad.
The mother -to her the regulation of the family belongs; therefore she has and gives laws. The wise man says in effect to every child, “Be obedient to thy mother within, and carefully attend to the instructions of thy father, that thou mayest the better see the reasons of obedience; and learn from him how thou art to get thy bread honestly in the world.”

• 9 For they shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head, and chains about thy neck.

Political dignity has been distinguished in many nations by a chain of gold about the neck. But, this is not the definition here! The ornament of grace is the discerning of right and wrong. Using the wisdom of the Holy Spirit to guide you daily in your walk. This is the best ornament ever worn, although invisible to the naked eye; the supernatural sees this and I believe this is how your will be chosen in the last days by the supernatural for torture. The ornament of Grace is GOD! Wear it wisely!

• 10 My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not.

They can do thee no harm unless thy will join in with them. The first great danger which besets the simple and the young is that of evil companionship. The only safety is to be found in the power of saying “No,” to all such invitations.

• 11 If they say, Come with us, let us lay wait for blood, let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause:

Let – To hinder or obstruct.
Privily – Secretly.
Without – Outside.
This described the past iniquities of the people, but it also pertains to the present. We have people in this world plan evil works against the other. And lately, this is true for the governments against its people. The oppressed are not of one part of the world, but the entire world. This is a prophecy which has came true, then and now.

• 12 Let us swallow them up alive as the grave; and whole, as those that go down into the pit:

The groups which pans these evil deeds against its people, don’t just plan to oppress but to kill. I believe this is what we are witnessing and experiencing. The false flag operations, the rituals which are performed in public give us the blatant audacity of these fools and their works.

• 13 We shall find all precious substance, we shall fill our houses with spoil:

Filling their houses with material objects, filling their pockets with gold and silver; all these are things which will rust.

• 14 Cast in thy lot among us; let us all have one purse:

Cast – Worn-out; old; cast-off.
Let – To hinder or obstruct.
Lot – Portion; destiny; fate.
Common sense must teach us that the words here used are such as must be spoken when a gang of cutthroats, pickpockets, etc., are associated together.

• 15 My son, walk not thou in the way with them; refrain thy foot from their path:

GOD warns us to refrain from walking in their steps.

• 16 For their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood.

Evil reeks from within their ways, and all about them.

• 17 Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird.

Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird – This is a proverb of which the wise man here makes a particular use; and the meaning does not seem as difficult as some imagine. The wicked are represented as lurking privily for the innocent. It is in this way alone that they can hope to destroy them and take their substance; for if their designs were known, proper precautions would be taken against them; for it would be vain to spread the net in the sight of those birds which men wish to ensnare. Attend therefore to my counsels, and they shall never be able to ensnare thee.

• 18 And they lay wait for their own blood; they lurk privily for their own lives.

They lay wait for their own blood – I believe it is the innocent who are spoken of here, for whose blood and lives these lay wait and lurk privily; certainly not their own, by any mode of construction. The ways of the wicked are obvious to those who discern their actions, but to those who are asleep…it is but a dream.

• 19 So are the ways of every one that is greedy of gain; which taketh away the life of the owners thereof.

Not robbery only, but all forms of covetousness are destructive of true life. Greedy – That seeks gain by wicked practices.

• 20 Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets:

Wisdom is personified. In the Hebrew the noun is a feminine plural, as though this Wisdom were the queen of all wisdoms, uniting in herself all their excellences.
Socrates said that the fields and the trees taught him nothing, but that he found the wisdom he was seeking in his converse with the men whom he met as he walked in the streets and agora of Athens.

• 21 She crieth in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates: in the city she uttereth her words, saying,

Concourse – A gathering; a crowd of people.
Gates – Where magistrates sit in judgment, and people are assembled. The city – Not only in the gate, but in every part of the city.

• 22 How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge?

Compare the Psalm 1:1 note.

(1) The “simple,” literally, “open,” i. e. fatally open to evil;

(2) the “scorners,” mocking at all good;

(3) lastly, the “fools” in the sense of being hardened, obstinate, perverse, hating the knowledge they have rejected.
Scoffers – That scoff at religion and contemn the word and faithful ministers of God.

• 23 Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you.

My words – By my spirit I will cause you to understand my word.

• 24 Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded;

The threats and warnings of Wisdom are also foreshadowings of the teaching of Jesus. There will come a time when “too late” shall be written on all efforts, on all remorse.
Called – By my ministers, by my judgments, and by the motions of my spirit and your own conscience.

• 25 But ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof:

Nought – Nothing.
Reproof – A scolding; rebuke.

• 26 I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh;

The scorn and derision with which men look on pride and malice, baffled and put to shame, has something that answers to it in the Divine Judgment. It is, however, significant that in the fuller revelation of the mind and will of the Father in the person of the Son no such language meets us. Sadness, sternness, severity, there may be, but, from first to last, no word of mere derision.
Your fear – The misery you do or should fear.

• 27 When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you.

Your destruction cometh as a whirlwind – כסופה kesuphah, as the all-prostrating blast. Sense and sound are here well expressed. Suphah here is the gust of wind.  The original whirlwind-GOD! But, everything of GOD is counterfeited by Satan.
Desolation – Better, tempest. The rapid gathering of the clouds, the rushing of the mighty winds, are the fittest types of the suddenness with which in the end the judgment of God shall fall on those who look not for it.

• 28 Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me:

Early – With diligence and fervency.

• 29 For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord:

This is no arbitrary sentence. The fault was all along their own. The fruit of their own ways is death.
Knowledge – The practical knowledge of God and of their duty.

• 30 They would none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof.

Reproof – A scolding; rebuke.

• 31 Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices.

Eat – They should receive punishment answerable to their sins. Filled – With the fruits of them.

• 32 For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them.

Turning – Wisdom had called the simple to “turn,” and they had turned, but it was “away” from her. For “prosperity” read carelessness. Not outward prosperity, but the temper which it too often produces, the easy-going indifference to higher truths, is that which destroys.
Turning – From God. Destroy – Shall prove the occasion of their ruin, by making them presumptuous, and secure.

• 33 But whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil.

But whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely – The man who hears the voice of wisdom in preference to the enticements of the wicked. He shall dwell in safety, ישכן בטחyishcan betach, he shall inhabit safety itself; he shall be completely safe and secure; and shall be quiet from the fear of evil, having a full consciousness of his own innocence and God’s protection. Coverdale translates, “And have ynough without eney feare of evell.” What the just man has he got honestly; and he has the blessing of God upon it. It is the reverse with the thief, the knave, the cheat, and the extortioner: Male parta pejus dilabuntur; “Ill gotten, worse spent.”

• ENCOMPASSED

We are encompassed by everything we need! GOD is everything we need, but if we fail to follow HIS instructions, things will not fall into place. But, if we are led by the Holy Spirit, we find that we do get the things we need, and even the things we want.
The end days are about timing. Everything in its time. Discernment is key to understanding the times. Stay in the Word!

And more importantly….