Wisdom's Last Laugh
Introduction: The Public Summons
Our modern world is a cacophony. It is a digital bazaar of shouting voices, each one offering you the secret to a happy life, the key to your true self, the path to enlightenment. But these secrets are always sold in back alleys. They are whispered in esoteric language. They require you to buy the next seminar, to unlock the next level, to trust the guru. The world’s wisdom is fundamentally gnostic; it is a secret knowledge for the initiated few.
Into this din, the Word of God speaks with a completely different posture. The wisdom of God is not a secret society. She does not whisper; she shouts. She does not hide in a monastery; she takes her stand in the busiest intersection of town. She is not selling anything. She is pleading, she is commanding, and she is warning. This is not one more voice in the marketplace of ideas. This is the voice of reality itself, calling out to a world determined to ignore it.
We must understand that the choice presented in Proverbs is not between a religious life and a secular one. It is a choice between sanity and madness, between order and chaos, between life and death. The call of Lady Wisdom in this passage is the public offer of the gospel. It is universally accessible and universally ignored. And because it is ignored, there comes a time when the pleading stops, and the laughter of righteous judgment begins.
The Text
Wisdom shouts in the street, She gives forth her voice in the square; At the head of the noisy streets she calls out; At the entrance of the gates in the city she utters her sayings: “How long, O simple ones, will you love simplicity? And scoffers delight in scoffing And fools hate knowledge? Turn to my reproof, Behold, I will pour out my spirit on you; I will make my words known to you. Because I called and you refused, I stretched out my hand and no one paid attention; And you neglected all my counsel And were not willing to accept my reproof; I will also laugh at your disaster; I will mock when your dread comes, When your dread comes like a storm And your disaster comes like a whirlwind, When distress and anguish come upon you. Then they will call on me, but I will not answer; They will seek me earnestly but they will not find me, Because they hated knowledge And did not choose the fear of Yahweh. They were not willing to accept my counsel, They spurned all my reproof. So they shall eat of the fruit of their way And be satisfied with their own devices. For the turning away of the simple will kill them, And the complacency of fools will destroy them. But he who listens to me shall dwell securely And will be at ease from the dread of evil.”
(Proverbs 1:20-33 LSB)
The Unavoidable Proclamation (vv. 20-21)
The first thing we must see is that no one can plead ignorance. God has not hidden Himself.
"Wisdom shouts in the street, She gives forth her voice in the square; At the head of the noisy streets she calls out; At the entrance of the gates in the city she utters her sayings:" (Proverbs 1:20-21 LSB)
Wisdom is personified here as a woman, a prophetess. And where does she preach? In the street, the square, the head of the noisy streets, the entrance of the gates. These were the centers of public life: the marketplace, the courthouse, the city council. This is the equivalent of Times Square, Wall Street, and Capitol Hill. God’s truth is unavoidable. It is woven into the fabric of creation, so that the heavens declare His glory. It is written on the human heart, so that every man has a conscience. And it is proclaimed by the preaching of the gospel. The problem is not that God is silent, but that men are deaf.
This public display demolishes every excuse. You don’t need a special degree or a secret decoder ring to understand the basic demands of God. You simply need to stop covering your ears. God has made His basic requirements for life plain to all, and so condemnation is entirely just.
The Three Stooges of Rebellion (v. 22)
Wisdom then addresses her audience, identifying three distinct kinds of rebels.
"How long, O simple ones, will you love simplicity? And scoffers delight in scoffing And fools hate knowledge?" (Proverbs 1:22 LSB)
This question, "How long?" is a cry of compassionate exasperation. It implies that there is a limit. God’s patience, while vast, is not infinite. She identifies her hearers:
- The Simple Ones: These are the naive, the gullible, the open-minded. They love their "simplicity" because it feels like freedom. They refuse to draw lines or make firm commitments. They are the ones who say "I'm spiritual, not religious." Their minds are so open their brains have fallen out, and they are easy prey for every passing folly.
- The Scoffers: These are the cynics, the mockers. They delight in their scoffing because it makes them feel intelligent and superior. They don't engage with arguments; they sneer at them. This is the default posture of our modern secularist, who believes that a well-placed eye-roll constitutes a refutation of two thousand years of theology.
- The Fools: In Proverbs, a fool is not someone with a low IQ. A fool is a moral category. He is the one who "hates knowledge." He hates it because knowledge, true knowledge, brings with it moral obligations. Knowledge of God demands the fear of God. The fool wants to be his own god, and so he must suppress the truth in unrighteousness (Rom. 1:18).
These three are not in a static condition. The simple, if he does not repent, graduates into a fool. The fool, to protect his folly, becomes a scoffer. It is a path of ever-hardening rebellion.
The Gracious Offer and the Stubborn Refusal (vv. 23-25)
Even to this rebellious crowd, Wisdom makes a gracious offer. This is the call of the gospel.
"Turn to my reproof, Behold, I will pour out my spirit on you; I will make my words known to you." (Proverbs 1:23 LSB)
The call is to "turn", this is the essence of repentance. Turn from your self-willed path and submit to my correction. And look at the promise. It is nothing less than a personal Pentecost. "I will pour out my spirit on you." This is not just about getting better information. This is about regeneration. Wisdom offers to give not just her words, but her very spirit, a new heart, a new mind to understand and love the truth. This points us directly to Christ, who is the wisdom of God, and who sends the Holy Spirit to all who repent and believe.
But this gracious offer is met with contemptuous refusal.
"Because I called and you refused, I stretched out my hand and no one paid attention; And you neglected all my counsel And were not willing to accept my reproof;" (Proverbs 1:24-25 LSB)
Notice the active verbs. This is not passive ignorance. This is willful rebellion. I called, you refused. I stretched out my hand (a gesture of earnest invitation), you paid no attention. You neglected, you were not willing, you spurned. The blame for their coming destruction lies squarely at their own feet. They were not abandoned by God; they abandoned Him.
The Laughter of Vindicated Justice (vv. 26-31)
Here we come to a passage that makes modern, sentimental Christians deeply uncomfortable. Because they rejected Wisdom, Wisdom will laugh at their destruction.
"I will also laugh at your disaster; I will mock when your dread comes... Then they will call on me, but I will not answer; They will seek me earnestly but they will not find me," (Proverbs 1:26, 28 LSB)
Is this petty? Is God a cosmic bully, kicking men when they are down? Not at all. This is the laughter of cosmic justice. This is the laughter of vindicated reality. If a man spends his life insisting that the law of gravity is a social construct, and then jumps off a skyscraper, the universe does not weep for him. It simply demonstrates its own coherence. The pavement is not being cruel; it is simply being pavement.
In the same way, God has built a moral reality into the universe. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. To reject that foundation is to build your life on a sinkhole. When it inevitably collapses, God’s laughter is the affirmation that His world works the way He designed it. The time for pleading is over. The door of the ark is shut. They call, but it is not out of repentance. It is out of sheer terror. They are not seeking God; they are seeking an escape from the consequences of their rebellion. And at that point, it is too late.
The reason is made explicit: "Because they hated knowledge And did not choose the fear of Yahweh" (v. 29). Their end is simply the logical conclusion of their choices. "So they shall eat of the fruit of their way And be satisfied with their own devices" (v. 31). This is one of the most terrifying descriptions of Hell in all of Scripture. Hell is not an arbitrary punishment. Hell is God giving rebels exactly what they wanted: a world without Him. They get to be the center of their own universe, forever. They are filled to bursting with their own devices, and it is an eternal anguish.
The Two Paths Summarized (vv. 32-33)
The chapter concludes with a stark summary of the two ways of life.
"For the turning away of the simple will kill them, And the complacency of fools will destroy them. But he who listens to me shall dwell securely And will be at ease from the dread of evil." (Proverbs 1:32-33 LSB)
The "turning away" of the simple is their apostasy. They heard the call and turned their backs. The "complacency" of fools is their smug self-assurance, their belief that they are untouchable. These two things, apostasy and arrogance, are a lethal combination that leads to destruction.
But there is another way. "He who listens to me." This is the definition of a believer. Faith comes by hearing. To listen is to trust and obey. And the promise to the one who listens is profound. It is not a promise to be free from all trouble, but to "dwell securely" and be "at ease from the dread of evil" in the midst of it. The believer and the unbeliever may face the same storm, the same diagnosis, the same economic collapse. The difference is that the unbeliever is filled with anguish and dread, for his world is collapsing. The believer dwells securely, because his security is not in his circumstances, but in the sovereign God who rules over the storm. He is at ease from the dread of evil, because he knows that even the worst that evil can do will ultimately be bent to serve God’s good purposes for him.
This is the choice set before every one of us. Wisdom is still shouting in the streets. Christ, the wisdom of God, is still extending His hands. The question remains, "How long?" How long will you love your simplicity? How long will you delight in your scoffing? How long will you hate knowledge? The offer of His spirit is still open. But the day is coming when the door will be shut, and all that remains will be the bitter fruit of your own way, or the secure rest of those who listened.