A quote attributed to George Orwell goes like this:

Every generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.

That’s a pretty accurate observation of human nature. As teenagers approach adulthood, they often view their parents’ wisdom as old-fashioned and outdated. They can’t wait to cast off the chains of archaic ideas and live on their own terms, promising never to become like the previous generation with all its shortcomings.

That attitude changes around age forty, as our own children approach the teen years and we observe such arrogant ideas in our own offspring.

I believe God knew this about us – this constant need to change our values and ideas about how life is supposed to work. He created man with a desire and ability to learn, to think, to grow. He gave us the ability to create and invent. The human mind and heart are amazing when you really think about what we can dream up and accomplish.

The bad news is we are fallen creatures. Our natural propensity to sin makes us arrogant.

That’s why I love God’s Word. It is a source of divine truth and wisdom and a strong foundation on which to build our lives. The treasures of God’s wisdom never go out of date.

Proverbs 8:22-31 – The Lord possessed me [wisdom] at the beginning of His way, before His works of old. From everlasting I was established, from the beginning, from the earliest times of the earth. When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills I was brought forth; while He had not yet made the earth and the fields nor the first dust of the world. When He established the heavens, I was there, when He inscribed a circle on the face of the deep, when He made firm the skies above, when the springs of the deep became fixed, when He set for the sea its boundary so that the water would not transgress His command, when He marked out the foundations of the earth; then I was beside Him, as a master workman and I was daily His delight rejoicing always before Him, rejoicing in the world, His earth, and having my delight in the sons of men.

When we start to think we know better than God, we need to remember that His wisdom is eternal, because He is eternal. The principles of truth, justice, honor, integrity, honesty, and righteousness will never go “out of style.” There will never be a cultural revolution that makes His ways irrelevant. What He calls sin and unrighteousness will never become good, no matter how stridently or emphatically a society tries to make it so.

God’s wisdom found in His Word isn’t given because He is a dictator and likes to tell His creation what they can and cannot do. He has given it to us because it is the only path to blessing, to the fulfillment of the God-given, God-created desires of our human hearts.

Proverbs 8:10-11; 17-21 – Take my instruction and not silver, and knowledge rather than choicest gold. For wisdom is better than jewels; and all desirable things cannot compare with her. … I love those who love me; and those who diligently seek me will find me. Riches and honor are with me, enduring wealth and righteousness. My fruit is better than gold, even pure gold, and my yield better than choicest silver. I walk in the way of righteousness, in the midst of the paths of justice, to endow those who love me with wealth, that I may fill their treasuries.

We don’t follow Jesus because we want the things of this world, and we think He has the power to give them to us. We become God’s child when we realize how much better He is than those things and turn away from them. But here’s the great paradox. When we give up the world with all its sinful desires and turn our hearts toward following the wisdom of God’s ways and His Word, life becomes imminently more meaningful and more blessed. Truly, truly, God’s ways work because they are how our Creator designed life to be.

Do you ever look at God’s Word and think “That’s irrelevant for today”? Be careful you don’t dismiss His wisdom on the grounds of cultural change. Human nature is the same today as it was thousands of years ago when Adam and Eve took that first bite in disobedience, thinking they knew more than the God of eternal wisdom.

Romans 1:18-21 – For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the cleverness of the clever I will set aside.” Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.