The
Fourth Sunday after Easter.
The
Collect.
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O
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ALMIGHTY God,
who alone canst order the unruly wills and affections of sinful men; Grant unto
thy people, that they may love the thing which thou commandest, and desire that
which thou dost promise; that so, among the sundry and manifold changes of the
world, our hearts may surely there be fixed, where true joys are to be found;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
1 My son, keep my words, and lay up my commandments with thee. 2 Keep
my commandments, and live; and my law as the apple of thine eye. 3 Bind
them upon thy fingers, write them upon the table of thine heart. 4 Say
unto wisdom, Thou art my sister; and call understanding thy kinswoman: 5 That
they may keep thee from the strange woman, from the stranger which flattereth
with her words. (Prov 7:1-5)
Have you noticed how God repeats, over and over, crucial principles of counsel?
Regardless of which Book of the Bible we may presently be reading, we often see
those same valuable counsels being presented. These are like the Burma-Shave (and
here is the mind which hath wisdom if you are over 50 years of age -
Rev 17:9) signs we used to see along the roadside advertising a
familiar old product. I never missed reading a single sign as my dad drove down
the highway. Because of those signs, I will remember that product – Burma Shave
– for all of my life. That is God’s intention in oft repeating His warnings and
counsels. He would have our memories constantly refreshed with profound and
life-saving counsel. Solomon, whose soul is inspired to write every word of the
text before us by the Holy Ghost, is speaking the very words of God in
recording these points on wisdom, obedience, and life itself. We will be
greatly benefitted to weigh and store up every word in our hearts and souls.
I have decided to comment on just the first five verses today as an
introduction to the last 27 verses due to the enormity of truth and wisdom of
which they are illustrative. The entire chapter would be too much for a single
devotion, and there is no logical breakpoint between verses six and
twenty-seven.
If we accept that, though Solomon is speaking to his son, it is truly God
speaking to us, we shall glean more hearty wisdom for our own lives from his
comments. The subject at hand is adultery and, by extension, idolatry in
putting anything in your life between yourself and the God who made you. The
discussion is frank and buttressed by a vivid illustration. After my marriage
to my wife, Debbie, we were studying this very Proverb in our daily devotions.
When we came to the illustration of the harlot mentioned in this Proverb,
Debbie was flabbergasted that the Holy Bible would mention such things. She
later learned that God pulls no punches. He reveals the wicked as well as the
righteous. Though David was a man after His own heart, God does not cover up
his atrocious sins of murder and adultery. In fact, knowing these things
should be an encouragement to our own faith. When we observe men such as
David being forgiven by God, we should know that there is always room for us at
the cross.
1 My son, keep my words, and lay up my commandments with thee.
The words of God are not to be trifled with. New translations that base their
content on inferior manuscript evidence, excluding entire verses and changing
word meanings are committing great error and sin. It is not the Word of God as
a whole, but EVERY WORD of God that is Holy and Pure! 6 The words of
the Lord are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven
times. 7 Thou shalt keep them, O Lord, thou shalt preserve them from this
generation for ever. (Psalms 12:6-7) Modern Bible revisionists refute
the truth of Psalms 12:7 that God has indeed preserved His every word from
generation to generation. What do YOU believe, for your stand on Holy Scripture
is crucial to your faith? How does one KEEP the words of wisdom? To KEEP the
law of a state means to OBEY that law. To keep God’s words means to heed them
and obey them. Of course, ignorance before the law is never an excuse, so we
must study God’s Word to know His words. How do we “lay up my
Commandments with thee?” Do we not first read (chew), remember
(swallow), and meditate (digest) those words so that they become a part of
every cell of our being? We have a disease in our blood, inherited from our father
Adam, called sin. The immunity to that disease is the blood of Christ and His
Word. Our immunity will only last for a day after consuming god’s Word so that
we must daily seek that Bread of Life. Thy word have I hid in mine heart,
that I might not sin against thee. (Psalms 119:11) Here, again, is
illustrated the preciseness of the Word of God. We do not wear our religion on
our sleeves, or by enlarging the hems of our garments – but by BEING the kind
of person that a heart owned by God will dictate. Our hearts are only seen by
God and hidden to man. “….the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man
looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.
(1 Sam 16:7)
What do we focus our eyes upon most? Is it not the darling of our hearts –
whether a husband, a wife, or a precious child? Unfortunately, it may often be
forbidden fruit. 2 Keep my commandments, and live; and my law as
the apple of thine eye. True Wisdom compels us to keep the
Commandments and law of God. Remember in Proverbs 3, the counsel we learned? Be
not wise in thine own eyes: fear the Lord, and depart from evil. Why is
this important? It shall be health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones.
(Prov 3:7,8). A good night’s sleep, unhindered by a bad conscience, will add
years to the normal life. And what of the eye, and the apple of one’s eye? The
Greeks called this organ (and the apple) ko>pn, or
puppet. The Latin word for this term is pupilla. It means “the little
man of the eye.” Our reflection in the eye, or pupil of God’s Eye, appears
as a little man or woman. Because He loves His own, we are continually kept in
His focus. How comforting is THAT happy truth, friends! Keep me as
the apple of the eye, hide me under the shadow of thy wings, (Psalms
17:8)
3 Bind them upon thy fingers, write them upon the table of thine
heart. When God’s Law is bound upon our fingers, it will compel the
labors of our hands to be righteous labors. When God’s Law and Commandments is
written in the scarlet ink of love on our hearts, our minds and souls will be
conformed to that Mind and Will of God – a far cry from the free will we
exercised as sinners in times past.
Who will ever commit adultery under the watchful eye of a dear sister, or the
oversight of a doting aunt? 4 Say unto wisdom, Thou art my
sister; and call understanding thy kinswoman If we take on Wisdom
as our closest sister, and righteous understanding as our aunt or mother, we
shall not be tempted to stray into forbidden beds of the sensual or of the
heretic. When we read and digest God’s Holy Scriptures, we are taking on the
Wisdom that the Holy Ghost whispers continually in the silent chambers of our
hearts.
The Lord chooses the harlot and the promiscuous woman to exemplify the sensual
temptations that threaten both men and women. False religions, like the whore
of Rome, also whisper flatteries in our ears to lead us into false religion. 5 That
they may keep thee from the strange woman, from the stranger which flattereth
with her words. I am sorry if I hurt feelings with this fact,
however, does any reader of this devotion honestly believe that the Blessed
Virgin, Mary, is the “Mother God?” Do you believe that God has a mother? (Just
one stellar example of error) If so, better get back into the Books.
