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I wish you all a very
happy and fruitful new year, filled with
God’s choicest blessings for you
that trust in Him with all your heart!
Last week, at the end of
the old year 2014, we considered Proverbs chapter 2 which speaks about
the blessings that God given wisdom
brings into our lives. Here Solomon speaks
to his son (1:8,10,15 ;2:1;
3:1,11,21 etc.) – perhaps Rehoboam, who became his successor. Solomon himself was privileged to have received an unusual
measure of the gift
of knowledge and wisdom from God
(2 Chronicles 1: 12). Thus,
under the supervision of the Holy Spirit he was able to
write down such wisdom from God also for our benefit. I remind you then that this
is not Solomon’s own wisdom that is dispensed here. No! He
speaks of a wisdom that is given
to Him from God, and as such it is absolutely true, infallible, and profound. This godly wisdom is a precious gift. It is the ability
to see life as God sees it.
As
we face the year of our Lord 2015 I can think of no
greater desire on the part of any Christian but to walk
in wisdom, making one wise decision
after another , and reaping the benefits of wise living as we walk through this year and through this life on
our way to the heavenly city. Sadly,
sin often gets in the way , and for this reason we ought to be all the more glad that we have a
Saviour who not only forgives us all our sin and foolishness, but who calls
and enables us to walk by the Holy Spirit (Gal.
5:16), whom He has sent to be with us and in us (Jn. 14:17) and to help us by
means of His inspired Word - such as
this book of Proverbs.
The contrast
to the wise man in Proverbs
is the “fool”. We want to avoid his
company. Proverbs 13:20 says: “Whoever
walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.” The Bible helps us to stay out of harm’s
way, if we are willing to embrace and live by its wisdom. Wisdom
doesn’t come easy. From chapter
2 we understood that godly wisdom (2:6) comes from the diligent and prayerful searching of the Word of God (the image here is derived
from mining – 2:4). May the LORD give you a heart
in 2015 to desire the company of
the wise, and may you have a heart to diligently follow His
teaching and His commandments. The
Bible is a book full of wonderful promises.
With this in mind let us consider Proverbs
3 :1-12
In this section we find 5 great promises.
Just a brief word about promises.
An unconditional promise
says, “I promise to give you a thousand dollars for your birthday!”
A conditional promise says, “I
will give you a thousand dollars for
your birthday, if you do well in your school
exams!”
So, note firstly that Bible
promises generally have
conditions (if… then) attached to them. This is the case also with
our text. There are 5 wonderful promises
here for you, but they are all attached to conditions.
Secondly, we need to
remember that what is promised may not come exactly in those terms. There may
be exceptions. However the
spiritual reality that lies behind the wonderful things such as long life (3:1,2), the promise of a good reputation and success (3:3,4),
the promise of guidance and blessing (3:5,6), the promise of health and
strength (3:7,8) and the promise of wealth and abundance (3:
9,10) will generally come to
those that obey
the Lord Jesus Christ. God is
known to be generous. This is the
promise even of Christ in the gospels
in Matthew 19: 29 where He
promises His disciples who have
forsaken everything to follow Him: “you
will receive a hundredfold, and
will inherit eternal life”. Notice however, that there is a condition attached to their
rewards - they leave houses, brothers, sisters, parents, lands for Christ’s sake.
Thirdly, we need to
remember that a believer may experience a time of ‘leanness’ or apparent lack of blessing . This may be due
to sin or disobedience , in which case God withholds His blessings
for the purpose of chastisement, or
there may be (as in Job’s case) a
time of divine testing when God intends to teach us
profound lessons. This may be a time when the believer is sorely afflicted , His
life appears to be totally ‘unblessed’ , but not for reason of
personal sin, but for the sake of God’s greater glory ( e.g.
John 9:3 – the man born
blind)
We have established the fact
then that
God generally makes conditional
promises. He attaches His
promises to our obedience. John Calvin said it
like this,
“As God gives Himself to us in His promises, we must
give ourselves to Him in duties”.[1]
As we
seek God’s wisdom and God’s blessings for ourselves and our
families in 2015, I pray that we may understand this and take it to heart.
And so we note firstly that the wise son
does not forget the teaching of his father. He listens. [3:1] My son, do not forget my teaching (“torah”), but let your
heart keep my commandments,[2] for length of days and years of life
and peace they will add to you.
To such a son is promised length of days … and peace (“shalom” – a
sense of rounded wellbeing). Obedience to parental teaching that is based on the
Word of God leads to blessing. This
fact is even entrenched in the 10
commandments: “Honour your father and your
mother, that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is
giving you.” (Ex. 20:12). God’s
Word is given to us fallen people to
give us hope and a future. Ultimately it points us forward to eternal life (
life without end) in heaven. The condition is that we need to trust in the
Lord Jesus Christ with all our
heart.
May your year
be filled with obedience to God’s
Word, and may you be of long service
and blessing to this earth and God’s to
church.
Secondly, Solomon says: “Let not steadfast love and faithfulness
forsake you; bind them around your neck; write them on the tablet of your
heart. [4] So you will find favor and good success in the sight of God and
man” (3:3). The wise son is furthermore exhorted not to let
steadfast love and faithfulness forsake him. These are two keywords in the OT
vocabulary of the Bible.
Steadfast love (Heb. hesed) and faithfulness (Heb. 'emet)
are both attributes of God. This is how God deals with
His children. Now if we understand this, and if we make this
a way of life (wear this as a
symbol around our neck ; better still -
have this truth engraved upon the tablet of our hearts) then we must not be surprised that we
find ourselves loved by God and man on this account. This unstable, unfaithful world sits up and takes notice when they see a steadfastly loving and faithful man and woman. Such people are
shelters to a hurting society. We miss
them sorely when they are taken from us.
May we be committed to a life of steadfast (principled, consistent) and faithful love in
2015, and may the LORD be pleased to
bless many other through your consistent
life!
Thirdly, [5] Trust
in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own
understanding. [6] In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make
straight your paths. The wise son
learns to trust in the Lord , by listening to his
father’s sound teaching , embracing this
teaching for life, always remembering and imitating the character of God. To “trust in God” and to
"not lean on your own understanding" is an
important distinction. The one is the wisdom of God and the other is
the wisdom of man.
To trust God with all
your heart means firstly that
there must be personal faith in God. Faith is the
key to the fulfilment of every promise - Jesus was always looking for faith
when He healed people. Secondly, to
trust God means that we are not to lean on our own understanding. We
are not to live by
our own conventional wisdom. Thirdly we are to acknowledge Him in all our ways - in every way (all the details of our life). Be consistent with all your life. What you are on Sunday at church
you ought to be at home and at work in the week. The
promise here in Proverbs 3:6b is that He will direct your path. One of
the wonderful facts of the Christian
life is that even though it is not
always easy to be a Christian, it is generally
straight forward path. God’s ways
are straight and clear. “The steps of
a man are ordered by the Lord, when he
delights in his way; though he fall, he shall not be cast headlong, for the
Lord upholds his hand.” (Psalm
37:23,24).
May your walk with God in
2015 be characterized by clarity and not
by confusion as you actively
trust the Lord with all your heart.
Fourthly , [7] Be
not wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD, and turn away from evil.[8] It
will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones. Here we learn
that the wise son understands three
things: humility (a correct concept
of the character of God), the fear of the Lord (a pervasive sense of the presence of
God) and holiness (obedience - a constant awareness of our obligation to God). The promise connected to
this act of obedience and
understanding is that
of healing to your flesh and
refreshment to your bones. It is true of course that Christians will become ill and die at some stage, but the point
here is that a humble Christian, who
fears the Lord and obeys him, will
have a settled and quiet heart. Therefore
they will be less prone to stress, high
blood pressure and all the stress
related diseases that come upon us when
we ignore these three things . I
pray that 2015 will have less health issues for you, as you
make your theology (what you
believe about God) count. There can be
no doubt that our modern society is stressed out and over medicated. Could it be that reviewing your life according to God’s Word would bring healing to your
bones?
Fifthly, [9]
honour the LORD with your wealth and with the firstfruits of all your produce;
[10] then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting
with wine.” The principle of
honouring the Lord with our material
substance is well established in
the Bible (e.g. Prov. 11:25; 19:17;22:9; 28:27 ; Malachi 3:10ff ; 2 Corinthians 8
& 9) . It is one great way in which we firstly acknowledge in
thankfulness all our belongings as from
His hand and secondly we
invest that which we give in His
kingdom . The more people become true
Christians the more livable and prosperous our society
becomes. The application of this is
what we read in Matthew 6:33.
May
you be enabled to be generous in
your giving in 2015, and in turn be not surprised when God
prospers you in turn.
We have seen then that
God’s blessings are attached to obedient
living . As you prepare for this year
resolved to obey God (and this
means spending much time in His
presence) my prayer is that you will be
able to sense that you are engaged in wise living! Secondly, my prayer is
that as we live wisely so our
society will benefit
from our God given wisdom. We desperately
need a reformation of morals and manners
in our day.
May God be pleased to do this through you wherever you live and work. Amen !
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