Death Wish?

“But he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul: all they that hate me love death.” (Pr 8:36 AV)

The ‘person’ who is speaking here is wisdom.  Chapter eight of the book of Proverbs personifies wisdom.  When ‘me’ speaks, it is wisdom.  This statement is a rather blunt one.  The finality of the statement and the absolute nature of it is what impresses this writer.  There really is no middle ground here.  Those that hate wisdom love death.  Not merely flirt with death.  Not casually pass by death.  Not tempt death.  Rather, those sin against wisdom love death.  This is pretty blunt.  Wisdom is saying that if we sin against wisdom, we love the consequences of those choices, which is death.

The reader may be feeling this statement is a bit over the top.  I mean, who really enjoys the result of foolishness?  Who in their right mind would enjoy the consequences of their choices?  The fact of the matter is, if we despised the consequences of our choices, then we wouldn’t make those choices.  Here is the pattern.  We fail in our wisdom and initially despise the consequences.  Then we become callous to our consequences.  We end up glorying in our consequences.  We love death.  The reader, again, might be thinking, “Come on, I don’t love death.  I want to live as long as I can.”  But our actions say otherwise.  For instance, my doctor has convinced me that I need to live a better life style if I am going to enjoy the remainder of the years I have left.  The problem is, when the realities of life abound, it is not always easy to do so.  For instance, when traveling, it is very difficult to exercise and eat right.  A quick trip through the drive through so that a hearty road warrior can continue on his quest is the preferred choice.  We even enjoy the taste of all that junk.  What’s worse is we enjoy what it is doing to our short-term health ignoring that it is slowly killing us.  We love death.  We love the process of getting there.

Paul told us in Romans chapter six we don’t have to live in bondage to sin.  We are as free as we want to be.  If we are continuously living the fool, we are saying we love death.  Our generation is the generation infatuated with death.  Suicide is at an all time high.  Death is romanticized more so in this generation than in any other.  Our choice, or lack of wisdom thereof, clearly prove we have an attraction to self-destruction.  Wisdom may have been rather blunt.  But she is correct.  It may take a strong statement like the one above to finally change the person that we are.  We cannot sit here and say that we do not love death if we continue to make unwise choices that say otherwise.  Wisdom is not lying here.  Wisdom knows all.  She knows the nature that is in man and the love we have for pleasure no matter what the consequences.  Wisdom only has our best interests at heart.  If we do not head her, we might as well go shopping for a coffin!