Godly Men and Godly Women: The Beautiful Woman

Oh Lord, our prayer is as Proverbs instructs us that we might be attentive, to gain insight, for you give good precepts; may we not forsake your teaching. We pray that our hearts would hold fast to your Words, that we would keep your commandments and live, that we would get wisdom and get insight, we pray it in Jesus’ name. Amen.

You see in the bulletin the title, “Godly Men and Godly Women, The Beautiful Woman.” So, three weeks on this theme, next week, Lord willing, the Courageous Man and then week three, Male and Female, He created them. So, we’re starting, as I said last week, a little rearranging for Mother’s Day and we look this morning at the beautiful woman, or the virtuous woman, the excellent wife from Proverbs 31.

Follow along, that last chapter in Proverbs verses 10 through 31. “An excellent wife who can find. She is far more precious than jewels. The heart of her husband trusts in her and he will have no lack of gain. She does him good and not harm all the days of her life. She seeks wool and flax and works with willing hands. She is like the ships of the merchant, she brings her food from afar. She rises while it is yet night and provides food for her household and portions for her maidens. She considers a field and buys it; with the fruit of her hands she plants a vineyard. She dresses herself with strength and makes her arms strong. She perceives that her merchandise is profitable, her lamp does not go out at night. She puts her hands to the distaff and her hands hold the spindle. She opens her hands to the poor, reaches out her hands to the needy. She is not afraid of snow for her household, for all her household are clothed in scarlet. She makes bed coverings for herself, her clothing is fine linen in purple. Her husband is known in the gates when he sits among the elders of the land. She makes linen garments and sells them. She delivers sashes to the merchant. Strength and dignity are her clothing and she laughs at the time to come. She opens her mouth with wisdom and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. She looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children rise up and call her blessed. Her husband also and he praises her. Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all. Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. Give her of the fruit of her hands and let her works praise her in the gates.”

Now I know women, you have a love/hate relationship with Proverbs 31. I was driving yesterday, Trisha was in the car, we heard on the radio that old classic rock song from the Canadian group, The Guess Who, American Woman stay away from me. Some of you feel that way. Proverbs 31woman, stay away from me. Right, this seems like an unattainable standard, so I know when you hear pastor is gonna give us a gift on Mother’s Day, he’s gonna lay Proverbs 31 at our feet. No, this should have been the husband’s get your act together sermon for Mother’s Day. I have a pastor friend who last week was preaching a Revelation 17, The Whore of Babylon. Some of you would say, do that, at least I come out looking good it that’s what you’re preaching on. But Proverbs 31 has this weird dynamic for many Godly women that it’s there and you love it and yet it can feel, even as I’m reading it here, unrealistic. This woman is keeping the candle burning all night, she doesn’t sleep, and then she gets up and it’s still night, she’s not afraid of anything, she can do everything, super wife, super mom, super entrepreneur, super seamstress, super confident. The poem is about an excellent wife. You see that in verse 10, that’s the translation. It’s a fine translation, some translate it a valiant wife or a noble woman, a valorous woman, a virtuous woman, and yet when it asks that question, an excellent wife who can find, some of you women may be saying, yeah no one, no one finds this, this is unattainable. I could doom scroll Instagram all afternoon and feel better than I feel after Proverbs 31. So let me give you, before we look at the text, let me orient you and give you two things to keep in mind as we interpret this text. Two things that will help us know how to read Proverbs 31.

First, yes, it is true this is an idealized picture of a Godly woman. This is not a biography, this is in the Book of Proverbs which gives aphorisms, maxims, proverbial saying, this is the best way that the world works and this in particular is a poem at the very end of the book and at the end of the sermon we’ll come back to why it’s here at the very end, but you may see a footnote here that it is a poem and not just that, it’s an acrostic poem, 10 through 31, that’s 22 verses, there are 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet from Aleph to Tav. Each one of these verses begins with the consecutive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. This is the A to Z of what it means to be an excellent woman or an excellent wife. It is an idealized picture; it presumes some things which are not true of all women. In fact, you put it together and it’s not true of most women. One, this woman is married. Two, she has children. There, she is obviously physically healthy and has energy to do lots of things and then she also is of some financial means, she’s probably not the richest of the rich or she wouldn’t be doing all of these things, but she has a household, she takes care of maidens, so she has servants. A lot of you are saying that’s the secret right there. Maidens, maidens to help me, I’ll get up and take care of the maidens if they do the rest of it. She has money to spend and to buy and to sell so this presumes a certain kind of woman and a certain kind of picture, which yes, is meant to be an idealized A to Z, here’s what it could look like. That’s the first thing to keep in mind.

Second, and even more importantly, I want you to notice, and maybe you’ve seen this before, this poem is actually directed toward men. It is, we’re right to say it’s about women, and there’s application there, but it is first of all directed toward men. If you turn to the beginning of Proverbs 31you see the words of King Lemuel an oracle that his mother taught him, and in those first nine verses are about the Queen Mother telling King Lemuel what to do as a king and she says, “You need to keep away from two things, you need to keep away from sexual promiscuity, giving your strength to women, and you need to keep yourself away from the promiscuous drink of wine.” So be careful, women and wine and those would be two great dangers for kings and rulers of any age and in particular as you’re thinking about Solomon, who’s the author of most of these proverbs, he started out very wise and he ended up foolish because he gave himself to all the wives and to the concubines and it could be that verse 10 continues, it’s a different kind of genre, it’s this acrostic poem, but it could be that this continued and this is still the words of King Lemuel, an oracle that was taught by his mother saying, “And here is the sort of woman that you are looking for King Lemuel.” You can read the commentaries; they’re divided about 50/50 on whether this should be ascribed to Lemuel or this is an anonymous proverb put together this poem at the end of it. However, you determine it’s Lemuel, or we don’t know the author of it, and I think you can make a good case that it does come from King Lemuel, the way you read it is still the same because look again at verse 10, “An excellent wife.” So directly in view is instruction for men. This is men, here’s what you are to look for in a wife and here’s what you are to praise most of all in your wife. If you know the Book of Proverbs you know that it is directed towards sons. You can look at chapter 1:8, 2:1, 3:1, 4:1, 5:1, 6:1, 7:1, on and on, my son, my sons. It is given chiefly as a father sitting down with his sons, passing along instruction. Alright, gather around sons, this is what it looks like to live a life of wisdom. So, the book of Proverbs, of course we’re right to apply it to women as well, but given it’s context at this time in history, it is directed first of all as a book to sons. Here’s what it looks like to grow up and be Godly men and to finish the book then, here’s what you are to look for in an excellent wife. It doesn’t praise her for riches or that they all have the same hobbies, or even that she has a fine figure and a lovely face. No, it isn’t that beauty is bad, women in the Bible are often praised for their beauty, and some men are praised for their handsome appearance as well, so beauty is a good thing. The Song of Songs extols the female body. You can read proverbs 5, in there the father passes onto his son and says, “I hope you delight in the wife of your youth and physical intimacy.” The point is not that beauty is wrong, but rather as you see at the end of verse 30, that it’s vain. Now here vain doesn’t mean so much that it makes you proud, but vain rather as something that is fleeting, it won’t last forever. No matter the makeup, the surgeries, you will not be young forever. Now you’re saying, careful pastor you’re about to say that all the wives aren’t beautiful anymore. No, because here’s the reality, as you learn what is most beautiful according to God’s Word, a husband can say and truly says, and I hope women that you will believe your husband when he says it, that it is not flattery but he really can look you in the eye and tell you the truth and say, you are the most beautiful woman in the world. That when you know what beauty is, that your wife of 53 is more beautiful than she was at 23. The husband can really mean it. So, men, young men in particular here, you are going to crash the marital car, and I’m thinking in particular if you’re not married, you’re going to crash the marital car if you put your hormones in the driver’s seat. Now just to extend the imperfect analogy, the hormones are there in the car, you can’t get them out of the car, they’re there, you can at least buckle them up real tight in the backseat and they will still scream at you and tell you what to do, at least they can be restrained. God gave them to us, you don’t get rid of them, but you don’t put them in the front seat and hand over the wheel and say, hormones go ahead and drive this marital car, and you find what is best. If you marry a woman mainly because of what she looks like at 23, you will be upset when at some point she doesn’t look the same as she did at 23 and then you will put unrealistic expectations upon her or worst of all, you will go and find a new wife that looks like 23. Find rather men, a woman whose best qualities will get better over time, to value what God values. This is why you need God’s Word. Movies are not going to give you this picture, TV will not give you this picture, your streaming, your music will not give you this picture of what you should value and what you should look like, women, and what you should look for, young men.

Proverbs 11:22. “Like a gold ring in a swine’s snout is a beautiful woman which lacks discretion.” Offensive, it’s in the Bible and it’s in there for a reason. A gold ring in a swine’s snout. Okay, you’ve got a pig, it’s our same thing, put lipstick on a pig. It’s a gold ring. It’s a beautiful woman who lacks discretion, who is not Godly, who is not seeking after the Lord, has a comely figure, has beauty as the world understands beauty, and that’s just a gold ring in a pig’s nose, and you go, that, as long as I keep focused on the gold ring I’ve got something, but you can’t marry the gold ring, you marry the whole, okay, well that’s gonna end up bad. That’s what Proverbs is telling you. So, as we dive in now and look at these characteristics of an excellent wife as an excellent woman, remember men, this is first of all for you to know what you should praise in your wife, if you are married, and if you’re looking to be married, what you should look for. I want you to notice seven things about this woman. Her husband, her children, her hands, her eyes, her clothing, her mouth, and her fear.

Seven things. First, notice her husband. Verse 11. The heart of her husband trusts in her. She has good sense, she capable. At the end in verse 28 and 29, he praises her. In fact, we’ll see in just a moment this is something of a chiasm, you’ve heard that word before, think of x marks the spot, think of a funnel that goes down and then a funnel that goes out and then right in the middle that’s a chiasm, it’s a literary device, it’s not a secret formula, but here you have kind of the same thing at the beginning, praise of the husband, you have the same thing at the end, the praise of the husband and then working backwards you get to the middle and we’ll come to the middle in just a moment which is again about the husband’s trust in his wife. He says at the very end, “Many women have done excellently.” Okay, he doesn’t have to throw every other woman under the bus, but honey you surpass them all. He trusts in her. Now think about this, so much of the Old Testament tells you not to trust in anyone or anything but God. This is one of the very few times, other than God, that we’re told to trust in someone. Don’t trust in Egypt, don’t trust in Babylon, don’t trust in princes, don’t trust in horses, don’t trust in chariots, but here we have in a good marriage, husbands trust their wives. So, it starts, and it ends that way and you can trace it working to the middle, in the middle there is verse 23, “Her husband is known in the gates when he sits among the elders of the land.” It’s right there in the middle, that this woman enables her husband as he is an extension of his wife and her support to be successful. Now as we’ll see all throughout this, this is not a weak woman, this is not a passive woman, this is not a woman who has no hopes and dreams except to just channel through her husband, but this is Genesis 2:18, “And God made a helper for the man.” This is a woman who has in her heart about her husband, I want you to be successful, I want you to sit among the elders of the land and her husband to be known in the gates.

I kept joking with my wife that he whole sermon was going to be about her and if you know Trisha you know she said, “Absolutely not” and I said I just have to say one thing, one thing, when I travel and speak someplace people will very often say, and they mean it, they will say, “Please thank your wife” not only that I could be there, but with an understanding that my wife is an absolutely vital part of whatever I do in ministry, and husbands you know this as well, whatever by God’s grace He might do through you, it is in no small measure because of a faithful, supportive, dependable, loving, respectful wife. There’s a lot more I would like to say about my wife, but I promised I’d limit it to just that one thing.

Proverbs 2:4 says, “An excellent wife is the crown of her husband.” Men, you want a trophy wife, here’s the good kind of trophy wife. “An excellent wife is the crown of her husband.” Wow, you must be a king, you must be a prince, look at your crown. I wonder men do you speak of your wife in this way, my crown. Wives, would people think to say about your husband out in public, ya know, he is a good guy, he’s got some gifts, a lot of great qualities, impressive fellow in some ways, but I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you what that guy really has going for him, his wife, man did he luck out, providence out so we say.

Look at verse 12, “She does him good and not harm.” Women can this be said of you? Do you cut him down, belittle him, undermine his authority, disrespect even his imperfect efforts to be a spiritual leader. You may have a husband who is so brave and macho when it comes to hunting or fishing or cars or sports or work, and then you want him to be that same valiant leader spiritually in the home and he feels like he is behind you and he may be objectively behind you, but then he needs to sense from you that even his fumbling efforts, when maybe you do know more, maybe you have had a Bible study on that, maybe you are reading more Christian books that you support whatever meager efforts, imperfect efforts he is making to be that spiritual leader.

Verse 10 says, “This excellent wife is far more precious than jewels” and diamonds, man if you have some prize possession, you have some rare baseball card, you have some prize buck on your wall and you’ve got a story, or you’ve got a fish this big or maybe just a story this big, and you could have a drawer full of gold, if you have an excellent wife you have a gift that far surpasses them all. Let me deal with some realities because we don’t all live in the idealized world of Proverbs 31. Maybe you’re a man here and don’t do any, just look straight forward as I’m saying this, and you think to yourself, I don’t feel like this is the woman that I’m married to, now what do I do? Well you are still called to be a Godly man, in fact, you may not have realized it before, but there is a parallel passage if you’re saying, women well how can we get, I ger Proverbs 31, where is this for men? Well, there’s a very similar passage in psalm 112, “Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in his commandments, his offspring will be mighty in the land, the generation of the upright will be blessed, wealth and riches are in his house. He is gracious, merciful, righteous. He is not afraid of bad news. His heart is firm, trusting in the Lord.” Do you hear all of the similar resonances there. Psalm 112 is a kind of parallel passage so men, even if you think, this is not the woman that I feel like I’m living with right now, you are still called to Godliness. Let me also add this men, surely, surely there is something praiseworthy that you can mention to your wife as the husband does at the very end. Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all even in the most struggling of marriages surely men there is something that you can find and highlight and genuinely praise your wife for. Now if you say it this afternoon, and she says, well I knew you were gonna do that and that’s because the pastor told you to do it, and you can say, well, yes, but I mean it. That’s the key. But I do mean it. Do you have eyes to see it or has your marriage become so brittle, so broken, so cantankerous, everything is seen with jaundiced eyes, and you can’t see anything, surely there is something praiseworthy to say, you have and do this excellently and I am grateful, her husband trusts in her.

Second, notice her children. You see in verse 21, All her household are clothed in scarlet”, she takes care of them.” In verse 26, “She opens her mouth, so she teaches them.” We see verse 28, “Her children rise up and call her blessed.” Now that has always sounded a little strange, like the kids rise up and say, “Mom you are really blessed to have us as your kids, aren’t you, #blessed mom, but take the rest of the passage to explain what is meant there, it’s to say, mom, God has given you a fruitful life, His face is shining upon you, He has been gracious to you, His countenance is upon you and you are blessed and through you comes blessing. Her children praise her, kids of any ages, kids, it’s a simple thing, but it really means a lot if you say, I love you, if you say thank you and not like a thank you with every bit but I appreciate you, I love you, I thank you, can you praise your mother from this text and on this day of all days. Now again, let’s deal realistically because you may say this is really nice and this woman has children and you say, I’m married, I don’t have children or I’m single and does Proverbs 31 have anything to say to me? It does, interestingly the one woman in the Old Testament who is given this designation same Hebrew translated as a worthy woman. You can probably think about who it might be, it’s Ruth. Boaz says to Ruth in chapter 3:11, “You are a worthy woman” and at that point she is not married, she doesn’t have children and Boaz says, “You are a worthy woman.” Why, why was she still a Proverbs 31kind of woman, she’s single, she doesn’t have children, but Boaz finds her to be loyal, hardworking, chaste, kind, supportive there of her mother-in-law, you remember the whole story, eager to find a husband if the Lord would provide one and he does through Boaz, so don’t think if you’re not married or if you don’t have children women, that you can’t also be a valorous virtuous woman because the woman in the Bible called by this designation is Ruth, at that time single, without children. Her husband, her children.

Third, notice her hands. This is actually the biggest section of the poem is about her industry. Now it can feel very overwhelming when you read all the things, she is just sewing and she’s like ships and she has food and she goes off and she buys and she sells, I mean she’s the patron saint of Etsy and Facebook Marketplace, which I also have a love/hate relationship with. But, less you get discouraged, now think of it this way, if Proverbs 31and just praised her for a whole bunch of things that you don’t have agency over, just what she’d look like or her upbringing or her riches, but it praises her most of all in this for her industry, her labor, she is the exact opposite of the sluggard which Proverbs has so much to say against, She does not eat the bread of idleness.” You see that at the end of verse 27. “She looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness.” That line in verse 27 summarizes verses 13 through 19, all of the many things that she does.

Titus 2 says women, young women presuming their husband, children, Titus 2 says women are to be busy at home and that is true. But that passage does not mean that being busy at home is the only thing that can occupy a woman’s time and interest. You see this woman here, she is out and about, she’s an entrepreneur, she’s got her hands into a lot of different things. Sometimes people ask that question, well can a woman work outside the home. Now of course you realize that’s an anachronistic question. You know who worked outside the home, almost no one until the industrial revolution. You didn’t go somewhere and work over here in a factory or something. You all were there maintaining and keeping this household in an agrarian society so that’s not the right way to look at it. Yes, a woman who has children has certain responsibilities, but we see here that this woman is praised for her great ingenuity and industry. She buys and sells, she makes things, she produces merchandise, she turns a profit. Now these are not mere hobbies that drain time and resources, though hobbies can be great, but she contributes to the wellbeing of the home. The end is not to say that a woman must do all of these things, she cannot have a job, certainly this would not say so, or that she must have some kind of income to support the family, this does not support that as well, but rather that she works hard in such a way that her husband and her children are able to flourish and that is going to look different from family to family, season of life, cultural conditions, this is one picture of a woman, and here it is a well to do woman, she has servants, apparently she has no infants to nurse or put down for naps, so your industry at your stage and age of life may look different, it may mean volunteering, keeping the house, carting kids around, a farmer’s market, a job outside the home, it may be very many different things. The point is, she works hard in such a way that the whole household benefits, her husband and her children can flourish.

You see verse 22. She makes bedcoverings for herself; her clothing is fine linen in purple. Many commentators make the point that this is likely a euphemism because in Proverbs 7, Proverbs 7 is about the adulteress woman, it says about the adulteress woman who’s trying to seduce a man, she says, I have spread my couch with coverings, colored linens from Egypt linen. There in chapter 7 that language of spreading a bed is certainly a euphemism for saying this adulteress woman says I have made my bed ready. So, this here in verse 22 is likely the one illusion in Proverbs 31 to romance in this passage. She prepares the marriage bed for her and her husband, she clothes herself in elegant attire so lest we think that the end beauty is vain means that the Proverbs 31 woman must have a studied homeliness, he or she is dressed in fine linen and in purple. She opens her hands to the poor, so her hands are busy to do work, and her hands reach out to the needy, verse 20, “She has a generous spirit, she is eager to give, she is eager to think of others even above and beyond her own comfort or level of chaos.” Come to the DeYoungs, we major in chaos. And it is because my wife has a generous spirit.

“Her hands forth her mouth, she speaks wisdom and teaches kindness.” Verse 26, “That is she is teaching” and presumably it is teaching children and there a relational element to it. This woman is compassionate, prepared, she is diligent, she is dedicated and when she speaks it is an example to others. It’s probably not that she is saying now for our third lesson on kindness this morning, as much as it is, that the way in which she speaks instructs others in what gracious speech sounds like.

Her mouth, number five, her eyes. You see verse 27, “She looks well to the ways of her household” or you could say she stands at the lookout, she’s like that watchman on the walls attending to the wellbeing of her home. Now if this isn’t too much of an application, I think there’s something instructive here. She is looking out, she’s looking outward. Of course this is not to say that a woman cannot pay attention to her appearance or that women cannot pay attention to their inner world, of course they can and should, but surely there is something in our culture, everything in our culture that encourages women towards self-gazing physically, self-contemplating inwardly so I think it’s instructive that this noble woman has eyes fixed not mainly in the mirror, how do I look, not mainly down into the self, what am I feeling, but she has her eyes fixed up, outward. In fact, it’s one of the best ways to help with all of those inner feelings. There are all sorts of inner feelings that you can’t get help with just by staring at them, you could help by looking up and looking out and looking to others so she is looking out at a watch post, her eyes fixed on her household, her children, her husband, the world around her that she is engaged in, her eyes to more, her clothing. There is a loveliness about her, we’ve seen this in verse 22. Her clothing is fine linen and purple but notice that this passage is not mainly about the physical clothing that she wears, that’s not what makes her an excellent wife. This is very countercultural, not just for our culture, but for really any culture and certainly here in the ancient world where you might expect a detailed description of the latest fashion that she has from head to toe, but instead what God’s Word give us is a description of the virtues that she puts on.

Look at verse 17. “She dresses herself with strength” and then you see in ESV the footnote, “She girds her loins.” This is a military image, usually used for men going off to battle that you have a long tunic and before you get and go off into battle you can be running around with this thing draped around your ankles or you tie it up and you tie it in a knot or you put it down your waist, that’s girding up your loins, it means I’m ready for action. Usually, it’s used of warriors ready to go into battle. Well here this woman is described as a kind of warrior, she dresses herself with strength, her arms are made strong.

Verse 25. “Strength and dignity are her clothing.” You watch movies, almost all of us do. You watch TV. You need to realize Hollywood has no idea how to present strong women. I shouldn’t say no idea, they have one idea, they have one way to portray feminine strength as they see it, cuz they don’t want a damsel in distress, okay we did that, we don’t like that, don’t like damsel in distress. So, they know one way and it is a femme fatale, a sexy, rail thin woman who loves to trade insults like a man, who is always thinking of sex like a man, who can kick tail like a man of men three times her size. In other words, Hollywood gives us a picture, okay, they know we wanna show, we don’t want weak women, we don’t want passive women, we want women with agency, we want heroic women, okay good. The only way they know to show a strong woman is she must look like a very stereotype kind of woman and in every other way she acts like a man, that’s the only way they can do it. The excellent woman here in Proverbs 31 is not a kick you know what, sex crazed, make believe superhero in tights. She is dignified, dependable, appropriately domestic, her husband is honored because of her. Her children are provided for because of her. She is industrious, creative, shrewd, intelligent, accomplished, and praiseworthy in all the things that matter most. Note this very well, she is heroic in the ordinary affairs of her family and her community. You’re almost never going to get that. You’re not going to get that from superhero movies. A strong woman who is heroic in her family and in her community with the feminine virtues of strength and creativity and domesticity that we see here in Proverbs 31. So, pay attention to her clothing, strength, dignity, and finally notice seventh, her fear.

Verse 21. I don’t know, she must not be a southerner, she’s not afraid of snow. They can get snow sometimes in this part of the world, not often, but it’s not impossible so actually, you know, the less you get it, the more monumental it is when it comes. So this is really an allegorical way of saying she’s not afraid of the weather, she’s not afraid of unforeseen things happening, you see it even more clearly in verse 25, she laughs at the time to come. She’s not an anxious woman. She fears not for tomorrow because, verse 30, she fears the Lord.

So here we come full circle. Why does this Book of Proverbs end by talking about the excellent woman? It can seem like a rather odd add-on, okay we’ve had all these proverbs about everything under the sun and here’s a poem at the end, alright, try to be a Godly wife, but you understand that this is a picture of wisdom personified. Remember I said Proverbs is directed, fathers toward sons mainly, sons and so the book is about the choice between two different women. Throughout the book there is one woman, she’s called Folly and then there’s another woman and she’s called Wisdom, and the book is about that choice. Sons, what sort of woman are you going to pursue and is done and so it’s fitting that here it brings it all together. The qualities of the excellent mostly it’s about those women as a representation of the kind of life of folly and the life of Wife, in Proverbs 31, are the qualities of wisdom throughout the book itself. Maybe some of you know this if you studied the book before, wisdom in the Book of Proverbs is called more precious than jewels, wisdom does you good and not harm, wisdom is hardworking and not lazy, wisdom is kind to the poor, wisdom is strong, is prosperous, is resourceful, dependable, wisdom does what is right, wisdom speaks what is true, and wisdom preeminently fears the Lord. All of these qualities of the wise life and wisdom in Proverbs is not so much an intellectual category, as it is a moral category. The Godly life, the pyas life. There’s a reason that it begins Proverbs 1:7, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” You want to live the right kind of life, the good life, not a life that’s gonna be free from suffering, but the life in the way that God designed it where your life is going to go best with the best marriage, home, family, work, and these are proverbs. All else considered, this is the best way to live, and it starts with fearing the Lord. That’s how chapter 1 begins, and so it’s fitting that that’s how chapter 31 ends, “Charm is deceitful, beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.

I have to ask this question and it’s for women and men. Let me start with the women, do you really fear the Lord? Do you much more honestly fear missing out on what the world says is valuable? Honestly do you more fear growing old or worse fear looking old? Do you fear other people’s opinions, or can you say the very heart of your moral being is that you fear to do anything that would displease the Lord? It really is this difficult and this simple. You talk about marriage counseling, husband and wife, this is where it starts. Do you fear the Lord really, really, that your greatest fear is that you would do something that would dishonor God. Your heart is open to hear from God not only because you don’t wanna displease God, but you fear doing things in a different way because you know that’s only going to lead to pain in your life when you don’t do things God’s way. So, this is for women who are married, this is for men who are not, it’s for girls to ask ourselves the question, wise daughters do you want to look like Proverbs 31 really. In your heart of hearts many of you are pursuing a far different picture of beauty. Men, is this the wife you want to marry? In your heart of hearts for many of you, you could take or leave most of this stuff as long as you have the two or three other things that the world puts on your list. I entitled this sermon The Beautiful Woman even though it ends by saying beauty is fleeting because one of the arguments, and I’ll make it more in two weeks, is that I believe you see throughout the Scriptures, and I believe you see it written on the human heart that woman are hardwired to pursue beauty. Men are hardwired to be attracted to that beauty and as woman are hardwired to pursue beauty this chapter is here to say, is this what you believe makes you beautiful and men is this what you value in the woman you want to marry and the daughters you want to raise and in the wife that you are married to, this is what beauty looks like. And I’ll just end here if you say in your heart of hearts, you’re not really sure this actually doesn’t land on you as something very good, very excellent, very valorous, very beautiful, then you better be very careful because this is a picture of Christ himself. The Word may flesh, the wisdom of God. We read that in the beginning of the service from 1 Corinthians. “He is our wisdom, He is all of these things, Christ generous, Christ self-giving, Christ is precious, strong, humble, dignified, had no form or countenance that we should be drawn to Him and yet the beauty of holiness was all about Him. Jesus alone gives us reason to be confident about the future. The works of Christ deserve to be praised and honored in the gates so if this is not a picture of beauty to you, you may not have eyes to see what is beautiful about Christ. And so Christ deserves to be praised in the gates, and we therefore praise the virtuous woman, the excellent wife, the valorous woman who shines with all of the same reflected glory. Let’s pray.

Father in heaven, we ask that you would work these things deep into our hearts, that we might resemble them, that we might long for them, we might plead with you. Would you save marriages in this church, broken marriages that are seemingly at the point of no return. Would you turn away young men and young women setting out down a path that leads to folly and not to wisdom and would you give to each of us hearts to see and to praise what matters to you in Jesus’ name. Amen.