Advice and Rebuke

Read Proverbs 1:20-33

I hate it when something happened and people said, “I told you so”.

Number one, it hurts to know that you are wrong and the other person is right. Ego bruised! Ouch!

Number two, it hurts to know that you blew the chance of being right by not listening to good advice. Double ouch!

Number three, sometimes the thing you are wrong in has a huge price tag. Ouch and double ouch!

Number four and worst of all, some people just loves to rub it in – that they are right and you are stupid; which you obviously already know, through the hard way and humbling way. 

Today’s passage exhorts us to respond to wisdom’s call by heeding its advice and rebuke or pay the consequences for folly. It is clear from Scripture that fools hate instructions while the wise will never dismiss advice and discipline.

Pride rejects advice and often leads us down the path of stubborn disobedience. Everyone can and has experienced that before. However, real folly becomes of us when we refuse to respond humbly to rebuke. When we recognise that we are wrong, it can be humiliating but we are given an opportunity to turn around if we choose to listen to the warning and chastisement. However when we reject that second chance, we are left with the consequences of choosing to remain foolish.

Psalm 14:1 reads, “The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good.”

When we choose not to listen to God or others in humility and lean on our own understanding. We are then no different from the fool who may acknowledge God with their mouths but in their heart, there is really no God.