Tag: Devotion

How wonderful to realise that the Bible never grows old. As Vance Havner puts it, “The Word of God is either absolute or obsolete.” The generations come and go, but the Word of God shall stand forever. Kant (1724-1804) put it better than he knew, “The Bible is an inexhaustible fountain of all truths. [Its] existence is the greatest blessing which humanity ever experienced.” Yet, it was Kant’s teaching, perhaps more than any other man, that opened the door to the modern denial that man can really know God or His Word, and prepared the way for Neo-orthodoxy and existentialism! Consider the Bible’s teaching.

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!

To reveal what little reason saints have to envy sinners, the last four verses compare the respective condition of each. Verses 27-31 were God’s rules, and verses 32-35 give God’s reasons. The history of man is the epic of the violation of those rules! The negative rules are followed by positive reasons. God owes us no explanation for our obedience, yet sinful men wilfully scorn them.

The warnings run from vs. 25-31, and all begin Do not! Who says there should only be positive preaching? Here we are told how to do good negatively, and they all have their counterparts in the NT. Note that what not to do clearly suggests what we should do. Negatives merely serve to highlight the positives!

In spite of all the rhetoric, there is still little neighbourliness in this sin-cursed world, but, tragically, lots of hatred and division. This touches a sensitive but practical nerve. How should a believer act toward a neighbour, and who is that neighbour? This is the proclamation of the Good Samaritan parable, which is still timely for us (Jas. 2:14-17). Note how the verses 27-31 all begin Do not (Heb.)!

Dean Plumptre (Speaker’s Comm.) points out that Wisdom, confers both strength and beauty (v.22); preserves in action and in repose (vs.23, 24); and is equal to every emergency of life (vs.25, 26). My son, hold fast then these principles.

William Arnot observed, “An appalling amount of hypocrisy exists in Christendom, and passes current for devotion.” Bunyan painted a similarly sad picture in his day. When the sailing is smooth, By-ends and his kinsfolk of the town of Fair Speech will not suffer Christian to “impose or lord it over [their] faith,” but Christian replied, “You must go against wind and tide; you must own Religion in his rags, as well as when in his silver slippers.” Many are like By-ends great-grandfather, who was a “waterman, looking one way and rowing another!”

Solomon boldly affirms that God is the Creator, and ‘He’s got the whole world in His hands’ (Gen. 1:1, Col. 1:9-17). Also we have a foreview of the Gospel. Sin blinds man from seeing that “that which moves God to work is Goodness; that which orders his work is Wisdom; that which perfects his work is Power” (Hooker). The Bible repudiates two theories commonly held to explain the origin of everything, namely, that the world is eternal, or that everything evolved by chance plus time. Since Wisdom was God’s Agent in creation (8:22-31), how much more does man need this Wisdom to occupy and subdue the earth as God’s Covenant-keeper!

Wisdom results in eternal happiness (1-10), but if you suffer trials in its pursuit, don’t be discouraged (11-12). It will be worth it all (13-18). Verse 13 begins with Happy and 18 ends with Happy (Heb.). It is Wisdom in its highest sense that is in view here. As we have seen, this Wisdom is embodied in Christ. Like treasure, it is to be found, not fashioned by us. It is all of God. He does it all, and it is all done! We cannot save ourselves, but we must seek the salvation already provided. Seek and ye shall find God’s precious, permanent peace!

The verses 11-12 close this section, and also give a helpful correction to the notion that godliness brings automatic prosperity and perpetual happiness. It also provides a partial answer to the perplexing question as to why saints suffer. It is often God’s discipline at work. God’s saints need it while living in this sinful world. It is an action by which God brings repentance and renewed obedience. How we react is crucial. Some complain and others faint. The trial affects one too little and the other too much. Treat such trials as testings. It is thus our true self is revealed. “We must not be stocks, and stones, and stoics, under our afflictions, insensible of them, hardening ourselves under them” (M. Henry).