Mensa Otabil - The Wise Person (10/26/2025)
This week, we’ll be looking at wisdom from the Book of Proverbs, and we focused on Proverbs Chapter 14. We’ve read various verses, and we’ve learned our lessons from them. So we do our final reading for the week from Proverbs Chapter 14, and this is verse number 16. A wise man fears and departs from evil, but a fool rages and is self-confident. I don’t know about you, but the writings in the Book of Proverbs sometimes put a smile on your face because you can almost picture what the verse is saying.
The passage says one important way to mark the difference between the wise and the fool is their attitude toward evil. When something is wrong, how do they approach it? Our attitude toward sin will determine whether we are wise or not wise, whether we are fools. Two things that it focuses on: first, it says the wise depart from evil. People who are wise generally fear God, and when we say they fear God, it means they respect God; they value His word and His principles. They know that God’s word is sure, so they have deep respect and reverence for God and His word. As a result, they are very careful about the things that God warns us about. If God says not to do something, the wise person, because they respect God, will not go and do it; they know the consequences of evil.
So the passage says they run from evil because sometimes the best way to deal with sin is to run away from it. People may laugh at you, but you have to run away from it. The reason is that sometimes sin is presented as fun, as pleasure, and so if you run away from it, people are going to say you are anti-social, you are not friendly, you are not modern, or you are not up to date. Whatever it is, they will describe you as someone who’s missing out on the good things of life. But when sin is sin, whether it sounds good, looks nice, or seems entertaining, we have to run from it because running from it ensures our safety, our protection, and our deliverance in this life and in eternity.
So we must have the wisdom to run from sin. When sin stands or presents itself, true wisdom will turn away from the door of sin and move away. But the passage’s fool is someone who is making a mistake very confidently. They rage on, bullish about it, and go on as if they are masters of it, but they are doing the wrong thing. Fools recklessly run into sin, and the reason is that people tend to trust in themselves. They trust in their own ability to resolve every problem. They believe, come what may, they can handle it. They think they are on top; they believe they are smart. They have the education, they have the money, so they rage into sin.
In our world, there are many people who do that. Young people rage into sin because they are youthful; they don’t think about consequences and don’t consider that life is fragile. Older people do it, too, because they have status and power. They think they can go ahead and still rage into sin. Now, if you’re one of those people who just rages into evil, rushing into sin without considering any consequences, unfortunately, the Bible describes you as a fool. The fool rages into sin very self-confidently without thinking of consequences, but the wise person runs away from sin.
Let’s pray. Heavenly Father, help me to depart from evil and stop rushing into acting rashly. In Jesus' name, amen and amen.