A Culture Drunk On Death
THE LOVE OF DEATH
“Blessed is the man who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at my doorposts. For he who finds me finds life and obtains favor from the LORD. But he who sins against me injures himself; all those who hate me love death.” — Proverbs 8:33–36
If an apropos description of modern America existed, Proverbs 8:36 would be it. In it, Lady Wisdom raises her voice above the fray of a frenzied world and hurls a single indictment at our people, saying: “All those who hate me love death.” This is precisely who we have become. A nation that foments hatred of God and as a result has slipped into a culture that salivates over death.
Sadly, this is not exaggeration. The truthfulness of this Solomonic phrase is staggering. Our culture is not like an unlucky wanderer stumbling into the wrong alley, nor a reluctant realist who grimly accepts death as a tragic necessity. Proverbs says they love it. They pursue it. They treat death like a mistress they cannot quit—wooing her with flowers, serenading her in the streets, and christening her with noble-sounding names like freedom, progress, and compassion. Abortion is baptized as “right.” Pornography is marketed as “liberation.” Sterilizing children is celebrated as “healthcare.” Assisted suicide is praised as “dignity.” Every one is a hymn to the death they have become addicted to. And while the world raises a glass to toast this morbid romance, death has slipped its shackles over our societies collective wrists and is leading them—smiling, singing, and laughing—straight into the slaughterhouse.
THE SUICIDE OF A SOCIETY
And this is precisely the kind of moral insanity that Proverbs 8 unmasks—exposing the madness of cultural death-love and revealing its only cure. Lady Wisdom, after unveiling her eternal authority and antiquity (vv. 22–31), closes with an exhortation and a promise. She calls out with urgency: “Listen… heed… do not neglect” (vv. 32–33). And when her words are traced beyond the individual to the fabric of society, the choice becomes unmistakable. There are only two paths. The people who listen to Wisdom will find life and obtain the favor of the Lord (v. 35). But the people who reject her embrace the stages of a terminal soul-disease, delighting in death and rejoicing in ruin until they have fallen all the way to the bottom (v. 36).
The language could not be sharper. “He who sins against me injures himself” employs the Hebrew verb ḥōmēs—a word used for plunder and violence. To despise Wisdom is not merely to drift into error; it is to declare war on yourself. It is to become a brigand against your own soul, to ambush your own life, to mug yourself of peace, and to stagger away desolate, emptied, and broken. Sin is not simply rebellion against God; it is vandalism against your own humanity. It is the soul robbing itself blind. The violence we unleash against ourselves always circles back; it is the boomerang that never misses.
And the reason the boomerang never misses is because Wisdom is not merely a metaphor but the very voice of God. To spurn her is to spurn Him. Proverbs 8 is the radiant echo of the divine mind, fulfilled in Jesus Christ, the incarnate Wisdom of God (1 Cor. 1:24, 30). That is why this passage so explains the pattern of history. When men stiff-arm God, they do not drift into harmless eccentricity or philosophical neutrality. They collapse into amor mortis, clutching sins that garrote the soul, suffocate joy, and leave civilization asphyxiating in its own blood.
Romans 1 bears witness to this downgrade, saying:
“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness… Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them” (Rom. 1:18, 24).
The psalmist also saw it:
“He has dug a pit and hollowed it out, and has fallen into the hole which he made. His mischief will return upon his own head, and his violence will descend upon his own pate” (Ps. 7:15–16).
Solomon warned about it in other parts of His great book of wisdom as well. In Proverbs 1, he says:
“But they lie in wait for their own blood; they ambush their own lives. So are the ways of everyone who gains by violence; it takes away the life of its possessors” (Prov. 1:18–19).
Even Esther shows it in Haman:
“So they hanged Haman on the gallows which he had prepared for Mordecai, and the king’s anger subsided” (Esth. 7:10).
It is always the same pattern, endlessly repeated—idolatry is nothing less than personal or national self-destruction dressed in religious clothing.
THE DEATH OF DEATH
But thanks be to God, that is not the end of the story. Into this death-drunk world strode Wisdom Himself—Christ, the eternal Word made flesh. He did not linger in the safety of heaven’s halls, issuing decrees from afar. He invaded. He walked through our God-hating villages, thundered in our death-loving streets, laid His hands on lepers reeking of decay, breathed life into demoniacs living by the tombs, healed bodies hell-bent for the grave, and then mounted His death-killing assault on death, by dying on a Roman cross. The author of life was hoisted high on the scaffold of human depravity, to die between two murderers and theives. Yet what seemed to be death’s greatest victory turned out to be its funeral. As Hebrews declares, “through death He rendered powerless him who had the power of death” (Heb. 2:14). The prowling mangy lion sank its fangs into the bleeding Lamb—and found its own throat slit in the process. Death swallowed Life and killed itself with one fateful swallow. And on that third day, like Jonah’s whale wrenching in the bowels, death vomited in defeat, disgorging the King of life back onto the land of the living, never to die again
THE CHURCH AND LIFE
And this is why the church does not cower in graveyards—we sing in them. This is why Erica Kirk could look into the abyss of her husband’s murder and, with Christ’s strength, forgive the man who took him. For in Christ we have found the Wisdom of God, and in Him we have found the kind of life that death cannot steal. In Jesus we have obtained the blessings no evil can revoke and the favor no demon can corrupt (Prov. 8:35). This is not the inheritance of all humanity; this unending, unstoppable, unquenchable life belongs only to those who bow the knee to Christ. The world may organize, legislate, and philosophize in pursuit of life, but apart from God’s Wisdom their projects are tombs in disguise. A godless government can only ever pilot a nation into ruin, but the redeemed are empowered to build households, churches, and cultures that pulse with the vitality of heaven.
And because this is true, the church lifts her voice in unshakable confession. We confess with Paul that “we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us” (Rom. 8:37). We confess with David’s Lord that the Father has said, “Sit at My right hand until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet” (Ps. 110:1). We confess with Daniel that the stone cut without hands shatters empires and grows into a mountain that fills the whole earth (Dan. 2:34–35, 44–45). The kingdoms of this world collapse into ash, but the kingdom of Christ grows slow, steady, and unstoppable—restoring creation, ordering desires, and multiplying life wherever His reign spreads.
And because His reign is real, His people are not passive. Confession becomes construction. Because the gospel is not a mood but a monarchy, only Christians—those who have found Wisdom and obtained life—can build a culture of life. For outside of Christ, all attempts at virtue wither at the root. True obedience rebuilds worship at the center, because the Lord’s Day is heaven’s embassy on earth, and no man can claim the King’s favor apart from His appointed means. True obedience reforms the household, filling mornings and evenings with Scripture, psalms, prayer, and discipline, because only a covenant home can glow with borrowed light in a darkened world. True obedience reshapes labor, so that wages and work become doxology, because only a redeemed heart can teach markets to sing righteousness. And true obedience defends the weak—not out of humanistic pity, but because Christ has defended us, and we now defend in His name. The unborn, the orphan, the elderly, the trafficked, the confused—all become our charge, because He who is Life has given us His life to spend. And through it all, the Christian sings—not as escapism, but as exorcism. Psalm-singing is the anthem of those who have found life and favor. It is the sound that makes idols tremble and graveyards quake: “I shall not die, but live, and tell of the works of the LORD” (Ps. 118:17).
And for those whose hearts are raw with grief—who have buried children, parents, or friends—or for those whose hands tremble with righteous anger at the reign of death gurgling all around us, hear this: you cannot overcome evil by your own strength. Wisdom still declares, “He who finds me finds life” (Prov. 8:35). Which means the first step in any true Christian revolution is not strategy or slogans but souls finding God. Before we ever show the world our biblical ideas, we must show them the person and work of Jesus Christ, who alone can breathe life into dead bones. And once He has given them life, then as Solomon commands, we must teach them to listen and obey—because hearing comes before conquering. This is why James exhorts us: “Be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger, for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God” (Jas. 1:19–20). Rage flares like a sparkler—bright, hot, and quickly gone. But holiness blazes like a furnace—steady, consuming, unyielding. The Christian does not march by fury but by favor, and that favor is found only in Christ.
CONCLUSION
Proverbs 8 ends not in despair but in radiant hope: “He who finds me finds life and obtains favor from the LORD” (v. 35). And in Christ—the Wisdom of God—we have been found. By His cross the scythe has shattered, by His resurrection the tomb has been emptied, and by His Spirit resurrection life already surges through ordinary saints who open their Bibles, love their neighbors, keep their vows, sing their psalms, and step into the public square with courage.
This is why Christians alone can build a culture of life. Outside of Christ, all virtue withers at the root. But in Him, worship is restored as heaven’s embassy on earth. In Him, households glow with borrowed light, labor becomes doxology, and the weak are defended in His name. The unborn, the orphan, the elderly, the trafficked, the confused—all become our charge, because He who is Life has given us His life to spend. And through it all, the church sings—not as escapism, but as exorcism. Our psalms rattle idols. Our hymns haunt graveyards. Our voices are the soundtrack of resurrection.
So today, Christian, choose life again. Choose it with your calendars and your wallets, your marriages and your children, your worship and your witness. To love Wisdom is to love Christ, and to love Christ is to love life. In a world drunk on dying, sobriety looks like hope, obedience looks like rebellion, and joy looks like holy insurrection. For the risen Lord has already declared: “Behold, I am making all things new” (Rev. 21:5). Hallelujah!
