Hidden Treasure—Proverbs 2:1-22
Once my dad and I were ordering lunch at the counter of a cafe, and he dropped what he thought was a nickel. It rolled under the counter, and we bent down to look for it, but we quickly gave up. We weren’t about to lie flat on the ground in the middle of a coffee shop to search for a nickel.
Only on the way to the airport did we realize that what he had dropped was his wedding ring. If we had known at the time what we were looking for, we would have looked a lot harder. (The ring was returned by a worker at the coffee shop who later became a good friend.)
You shouldn’t look for wisdom like you would look for a nickel. You should look for wisdom like you would look for your wedding ring, and even harder, because wisdom is a treasure beyond price. And if you really look for wisdom, you may be surprised by where you find it. If you truly seek the treasures of wisdom, you will find them all hidden in Jesus Christ.
In Proverbs 2, the father urges his son to seek diligently for wisdom, to “seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures.” You might think that by chapter 2 he wouldn’t still be trying to convince us to look for wisdom. He’s already made that point, and you might think he would move on. But the truth is that most of us still don’t value wisdom like we should, so we aren’t ready to search for it as hard as we have to.
What would you do to find treasure -- a huge amount of treasure worth billions or trillions of dollars? Would you sail across the sea? Of course. Would you spend years looking for the X that marks the spot? Of course. Would you face danger? I bet you would. Would you fight pirates? Sharks? Sea serpents? You should be willing to face dangers like that for wisdom, which is more precious than any treasure on this earth.
And if you really look for wisdom -- don’t just pretend to look, don’t just look casually, but give your all -- you may be surprised by what you find. You will find a man, Jesus Christ. Colossians 2:3 says that in Jesus Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Jesus is where wisdom is -- Jesus is what wisdom is. But you have to look hard, because the treasure of wisdom is hidden in him, hidden from those who don’t have faith. It’s hidden because God sent Jesus in humility, not in pride. He sent his Son in poverty, not in riches. And he sent him to die on a cross. On the cross where Jesus died for sinners, God’s wisdom is displayed, but it is displayed in a way that is utterly unattractive to a world that does not want to suffer for others or follow a suffering leader. But those who truly seek find wisdom there. A cross, not an X, marks the spot.
And what do we see inside when we open wisdom’s treasure box? Well, the finest treasure of wisdom is knowing God himself. “Then you will understand the fear of the LORD,” says Proverbs, “and find the knowledge of God.” That’s the main thing Jesus gives us. He gives us God. “I am the way, and the truth, and the life,” he said. “No one comes to the Father except through me.” Look for the gift, and you will find the Giver. Look for wisdom, and you will meet God. You will see the face of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
And God is different from other treasure. Once you find other treasure you have to guard it. But once you find God, he guards you: “He is a shield to those who walk in integrity, guarding the paths of justice and watching over the way of his saints.”
Wisdom’s treasure box has other treasures too. Proverbs 2 highlights two of them: safety from crooked men, and safety from seductive women.
Proverbs has already talked about the first danger. The danger of crooked men is not primarily that we will be attacked by them, but that we will become like them. Wisdom keeps us outsiders from the insiders of wickedness.
Wisdom also protects a man from seductive women. The woman here is literally described as “strange” or “foreign,” meaning not that she is from another country, but that she has estranged herself from God. She is a traitor, and she wants to make more traitors.
If you are thinking about involvement with such a woman -- or about using pornography, which is the same sort of thing -- Proverbs says, it was nice to know you. You are getting ready to dig your own grave. You are about to go out to the shed, pick out a shovel, scoop out the earth, climb in, lie down, and clumsily pull the dirt back on top of yourself. “For her house sinks down to death, and her paths to the departed; none who go to her come back, nor do they regain the paths of life.”
But wisdom can keep you safe. The chapter ends by laying out the future of the wise and the unwise. The wise will “inhabit the land.” For an Israelite before the coming of Christ, this meant the Promised Land of Canaan. But for a Christian it means more. It means eternal life. Christ not only died for sinners on the cross which marks the spot of wisdom, but he rose from the dead, and is preparing a home in heaven for his people. One day he will make all things new. And everyone who sought wisdom, and found Jesus, will live with him forever in his everlasting land of joy and peace. But “the wicked will be cut off from the land, and the treacherous will be rooted out of it.”
How do you get to live forever in that land? How do you find a home in his eternal kingdom? Find the King. It may take some looking -- he isn’t the God you imagined. He isn’t the God you thought you needed. His treasure is hidden from you until God gives you faith. Yet God says, look: Seek, and you will find. Find him now in the humility of the cross, and one day, when he returns, you will see him, your treasure, in undisguised glory and splendor.
Pastor Nate Jeffries