Proverbs 4:1-4, Young and Old – Hear and Heed!
February 8, Proverbs 4:1-4
2 Tim. 3 “Men to be truly won must be won by truth” (CHS).
Young and Old – Hear and Heed!
How practical is the book of Proverbs! This chapter deals with problems facing all ages. Anxiety, stress, anger, international strife, confront us within its pages. Proverbs is a good place to start reading the Bible! Someone said, “It is well fitted to create a market for the Gospel.” It provides a mirror in which to see ourselves and a treasury of Wisdom and Truth to live by. Parents, keep every before your children that “truth in faith works holiness in life.” The same applies to the evil workings of error!
- Constrained by God’s Love: Hear, ye children, the instruction of a father, and attend to know understanding (v.1). Solomon dedicated this Book to the young, as well as the simple, because the young stand in special need of advice and guidance. Hear, ye children, the instruction of a father, a father who loves you and has your best interests at heart. This love finds its source in God, our Heavenly Father, whose love is beyond our grasp, for God so loved… that He gave. There is a natural love of parents for their children that is a great blessing and exists in most homes. Yet, there is also another love, a precious love that flows from hearts constrained by the love of Christ (2 Cor. 5:14).
- Conformed to God’s Law: For I give you good doctrine; forsake ye not my law (v.2). Solomon evidently speaks from the mouth of God, declaring, for I give you good doctrine, forsake not my law. It is my law, that which humbles the soul before God, exhibits the free grace of the Gospel, melts down the will, consecrates the heart, imbues with the spirit of the cross. However unpalatable to the flesh, this alone is good doctrine for the soul. Therefore, forsake it not. Do not be carried away with the senseless cry, “‘Everybody thinks contrary.’ Shall this world’s judgment be preferred to the Word of God?” Charles Bridges wrote this in 1846, but he might have written it for today. How vital is the need for good doctrine. Hear and attend to know understanding (v.1) is an urgent plea to be conformed, not to man’s law, but to God’s Law.
- Convinced by God’s Life: For I was my father’s son, tender and only beloved in the sight of my mother (v.3). Who will train the youth in our morally adrift world? Who will warn them, who can, who should? Urgently needed, qualified counsellors! “The old arm-chair, where parents sat, is mightier to me than any pulpits ever have been or ever will be” (Thomas). “Wisdom doth live with children round her knees” (Wordsworth). The only qualified counsellor is surely the one who himself received good counsel. A son was I to my father, means, he was a true son, not only by birth, but also by respect and obedience. He had stood before his parents as his own children do now, and so he seeks to do for them what they did for him. Their teaching imparted God’s Life (Jn. 6:63)! What a privilege to receive the words of life from such parents!
Thought: Teaching good doctrine is the truest evidence of parental affection.
Prayer: Lord, make me, and many more, such qualified counsellors.