Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: Proverbs 3 | Date: May 3, 2020 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

Thank you, Pastor Boyd. Well, as you know, we’re in Proverbs chapter three this morning. I encourage you to have your Bibles in front of you and follow along as I read. And we will be back to the text frequently during the time of the study here. So you want to keep that handy.

Proverbs chapter three, beginning at verse one:

My son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments. For length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you. Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you. Bind them around your neck. Write them on the tablet of your heart so you will find favor and good success in the sight of God and men. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make straight your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes, fear the Lord and turn away from evil. It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones. Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the first fruits of your produce. Then your barns will be filled with plenty and your vats will be bursting with wine. My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline or be weary of his reproof. For the Lord reproves him whom he loves as a father, the son in whom he delights.

We’ll pick up the rest of the reading in a little bit as we go along. Title of the message this morning is Wisdom: Living Under God and Unto God. Living Under God and Unto God.

Wisdom is first and foremost God-oriented. It’s just the nature of the case that wisdom is the skill of living under God—not just the skill of living, but the skill of living under God. If God is—and this is how the reasoning goes—if God is, and we’ve seen it before, if God is, and if he has created us, and if he has built into this world a moral order, and if he has revealed himself to us, and if we are accountable to him, then we must hear his instruction and live faithfully under him and unto him.

Only a fool would attempt to live otherwise. To ignore God’s instruction would be both morally wrong and personally destructive. It’s foolish in every sense of the term, but to listen to God’s instruction and follow it, that’s wisdom in every sense. And so again, wisdom first and foremost is God-oriented. What we call religious instruction is not just one dimension of an otherwise busy life. It’s basic to everything about us. We look first to God, and only then do we attempt to live successfully. As we’ll see, that’s the larger frame of reference, again, when we come to chapter three.

My Son, Do Not Forget My Teaching

The introduction to this lecture, verses one and two, is the same structure that we’ve seen in the lectures that we’ve already seen. First, there’s the call to capture the son’s attention. That’s verse one. And then there’s the motivational clause, reminding him of the value and the benefits of wisdom. That’s verse two.

But notice this call to his son, to capture his attention, is worded in a new way in verse one. He says, “My son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments.” So this time he doesn’t say, “Listen up” or “Hear me.” This time he says, “Don’t forget.”

My son, do not forget my teaching. Forgetting is something that all children are pretty good at. You tell your child to go to his room and pick up his toys. And he goes into his room, and immediately he’s distracted, and he begins playing with the toys. And you go in 30 minutes later, and you admonish him, and what does he say? “I forgot.” Or you tell your child that it’s his responsibility every day to empty the trash from the kitchen wastebasket. So immediately, he goes and empties the trash. That’s day one. Day two: “I forgot.” Or you tell him that he has to clean up the yard every day after the dog. Day two, it’s the same: “I forgot.” You tell him to do his homework immediately after when he returns from school and get that done first. He comes home and is distracted by the toys or the cell phone or whatever, or the refrigerator. And when you admonish him, he says it again: “I forgot.”

And finally, at some point it dawns on you that forgetting is not just an intellectual infirmity. It has a moral dimension to it. The fact is he should not have forgotten. He should have remembered. He knew better and he must be held accountable. And sometimes you may require a little reinforcement of some kind to aid his memory. If he has forgotten, it’s ultimately because he didn’t take your word as seriously as he should, and there was a lack of concern.

Well, that’s the situation here in Proverbs 3. It’s the same with regard to wisdom’s very serious instruction for life. To forget it is to fail to live up to what is not just a bad memory. It’s a moral flaw. You knew better. You are not an autonomous creature. You live under God and you know it. He’s given you instruction for life and you’re accountable to him and you know that too. And to forget that will not work out well for you. My son, do not forget my teaching.

Well, that’s the negative exhortation. Then the second half of the verse, he says it again, but in a more positive way. “My son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments.” Let your heart keep my commandments. Now notice he doesn’t just say, “Don’t forget,” but “Remember my commandments.” He says, “Let your heart keep my commandments.”

Let your heart keep my commandments. Now the heart, as you know, is the seat of personality. It’s not the organ that pumps blood he’s talking about here. It’s the seat of the personality. It’s the inner you that makes you, you. It’s your mind, it’s your thinking, your will, your affections—the inner self, as we call it. And the word “keep” obviously has the connotations of “obey,” but it’s more than that. The word “keep” has connotations of guarding, protecting, watching over; keep my commandments in that sense.

So the father is exhorting his son to imbibe, to internalize and value his instruction. Make it yours. Take it seriously. Adopt it as your own. Recognize its value such that it shapes your life from the inside out. So the father is trying here, as far as he’s able, to make wisdom shape his son’s heart. Wise behavior then will follow as a matter of course. Let your heart keep, protect, guard these commandments.

And then in verse two, there’s the motivational clause. Why is it so important that you keep this instruction in your heart and not forget it? Answer: because length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you. We’ve seen this before. This is in your own best interest. This promise of long life, like the promise of full barns in verse 10, reflects the underlying promise, I think, of the Old Covenant in which God promises temporal blessing for obedience. God, of course, remains sovereign and under his rule. And for his own purposes, some good people don’t live long lives.

But the principle is larger than that. It’s larger than just temporal blessings. It’s in obedience to Christ that we find joy, contentment, and satisfaction. We sing that in one of our songs: “There’s no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.” That’s what he’s after here. Living according to God’s revealed wisdom is good for us. It’s in our own best interest, both temporally and eternally.

And so to drive that point a little more, now he speaks in verses three and four, and gives a corresponding exhortation and a promise. “Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you. Bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart, so you will find favor and good success in the sight of God and man.” Here he characterizes wisdom’s instruction as steadfast love and faithfulness, kindness and trustworthiness. These are corresponding, of course, to God’s own character, and he exhorts his son to tie these virtues around his neck and write them on his heart. They’re vivid metaphors to emphasize again the need to make this instruction his own.

Trust In The Lord With All Your Heart

And then we come to verses five to seven. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge him and he will make straight your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes, fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.”

Now here the father directs his son’s attention to God. And clearly his point is the same as verses one to four: to pay attention to divine wisdom, to live accordingly, to obey. And in that sense, verses five to seven is just a continuation or an extension of the thought of verses one to four. But notice here that he does not speak in terms of obedience. Verse five, he speaks in terms of trust.

Now, without doubt, obedience is what he has in mind. To acknowledge God, verse six, to acknowledge him necessarily entails obedience. That’s what he’s getting at. He’s telling his son that he must not imagine that he can live autonomously. Verse seven: don’t be wise in your own eyes. So obedience is in view, but he casts all of this first in terms of trust. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding.” That is, when what you think or what you want to do conflicts with God’s instruction, trust him. Don’t think that you know better. Don’t think that your thimble-full of knowledge will offset the ocean of God’s wisdom. Trust God and live accordingly.

Now, we need to make sure we understand this correctly. The father here is not saying that his son shouldn’t think or that he shouldn’t make plans. That’s not his point at all when he says, “Lean not on your own understanding.” What he’s doing is cautioning his son against independent thinking, making decisions and determinations as though his reasoning were all that’s needed. And then he says, “Obey God’s revealed wisdom.” That’s what he’s after. Obey God’s wisdom for life. But he’s going deeper than that. Trust him. Trust God’s judgments. Trust God’s direction for living. He really does know better than you.

So he’s talking about obedience. Yes, of course. But he’s emphasizing here that obedience is rooted in trust. If we trust God, we will obey him. So for example, Jesus says in his Sermon on the Mount, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasure on earth, but in heaven.” And Jesus has some very good explanations for that. Treasures on earth get rusty. They get moth-eaten. They are not stable. They don’t last. They pass away. Treasures in heaven, on the other hand, Jesus says, they last forever. There’s no moth-eaten clothing in heaven. There’s no rust. There’s no fading of wealth. And so it all makes perfect sense. Invest your money for eternity.

Now, how you respond to that exhortation depends on whether or not you trust him. You’ve never seen the bank vault of heaven, and so you’re torn. Do you know better? Or does Jesus know better how you should spend your money? Well, your checkbook tells us the answer, doesn’t it? You see, obedience and trust are related, and that’s what he’s getting at here. And I want you to notice that this financial application that I just gave—that’s just how the father himself makes application in verse nine.

“Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the first fruits of all your produce.” The word translated “honor” here means something like “weighty” or “to give weight to.” To honor the Lord is to give him weight. When my son Jim was a teenager and beginning to drive, I would tell him not to speed. I would tell him that speeding will not work out well for him. I would tell him that it would get him in trouble with the law. And I’m very sorry to say that when the police officer told him the same thing, it carried more weight. It’s more of that “learn by faith or learn by heart” experience thing that we’ve been talking about.

The father here tells his son that the weight or the honor that he gives to God is demonstrated in his checkbook. Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the first fruits of all your produce. Now notice more carefully—these are familiar verses, verses five and six—but notice more carefully what the demands of trust or faith are.

First of all, he says we must trust the Lord entirely. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart,” with all your being, with a whole-souled kind of commitment. Trust the Lord entirely. Next, he says we must trust the Lord exclusively: “and do not lean on your own understanding.” Trust in the Lord with all your heart—trust him entirely—but also trust him exclusively. Do not lean on your own understanding.

You ever hear someone try to justify his sin by pointing to some kind of good that will come from it? You might remember Satan tried that with Jesus. He came to Jesus, wanted to reason with him: “Bow down and worship me and I’ll give you all the kingdoms of the earth.” Well, that may sound like a good deal, but not if you trust God exclusively. If you determine not to lean on your own understanding and presume to know better, you’ll just do what God says.

Or as another example, God has told you how to bring up your children. Do you know better? God has told you the value of the gathered meetings of the church. Do you know better? God has told you your need to feed on the word of God continually. Do you know better? Or do you trust him? That’s verse five. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not on your own understanding. Trust him entirely. Trust him exclusively.

And then verse six, he exhorts us to trust God extensively. “In all your ways, acknowledge him.” In every situation, the question is, what does God say about this? All of life and all of its details are governed by this weighty consideration: what has God said?

So wisdom means trusting God (verse five). Verse seven, it means fearing God. And verse nine, it is honoring God. And if we trust, fear, and honor God, we will obey him. In fact, trusting God, fearing God, and honoring God entails not only obedience, but also submission to his hard providences. You’ll see that in verses 11 and 12. “My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline or be weary of his reproof, for the Lord reproves him whom he loves as a father, the son in whom he delights.”

God is not an overly indulgent father who just spoils his children. He’s determined to see us mature. And so just as a conscientious human father who in love must at times apply the rod of correction, so God at times in providence brings us through hardship to temper us and to teach us to trust him. And did you know that your response to hard providences is a reflection of your trust and your fear of God? It reveals how you honor him.

Now there’s a category of lament psalms. We’ve talked about that several times before. There’s a category of lament psalms and there is a way to complain that is not sinful. But there’s a big difference between taking your complaint to God and complaining at him and chafing under his providence. In every situation of life, we must trust God and give him due weight.

Now in all of these applications, the father shores up his exhortations, as we’ve seen several times before, with reminders that honoring God is the wise thing to do. It’s in our own self-interest. So verse six: “In all your ways, acknowledge him and he’ll make straight your paths.” Verse eight: “It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones.” Verse 10: “Then your barns will be filled with plenty and your vats will be bursting with wine.”

And then in verses 13 through 26, notice how he presses the point at length:

Blessed is the one who finds wisdom and the one who gets understanding. For the gain from her is better than gain from silver, and her profit better than gold. She’s more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire can compare with her. Long life is in her right hand, and in her left hand are riches and honor. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her. Those who hold her fast are called blessed. The Lord, by wisdom, founded the earth. By understanding, he established the heavens. By his knowledge, the depths broke open and the clouds dropped down the dew. My son, do not lose sight of these. Keep sound wisdom and discretion and they will be life for your soul and adornment for your neck. Then you will walk on your way securely and your foot will not stumble. If you lie down, you will not be afraid. When you lie down, your sleep will be sweet. Do not be afraid of sudden terror of the ruin of the wicked when it comes, for the Lord will be your confidence and will keep your foot from being caught.

Well, how many ways can he say it? You heed the wisdom of God for your own good. Yet wisdom is always God-oriented. We live under him. We live unto him. In all we do, we seek to honor him. And in doing so, we seek his blessing.

A Horizontal Dimension

Now, wisdom, first of all and foremost, is God-oriented. But wisdom entails a horizontal dimension also. That is, it concerns our relationships and behavior and our responsibilities to others. And he spells out some of these for us, beginning in verse 27:

Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due when it is in your power to do it. Do not say to your neighbor, go and come again, tomorrow I’ll give it when you have it with you. Do not plan evil against your neighbor who dwells trustingly beside you. Do not contend with a man for no reason when he has done you no harm. Do not envy a man of violence and do not choose any of his ways.

Now the first emphasis that he gives here is on kindness, generosity, doing good, and helping others. And he tells his son: don’t second guess the opportunity or wait to figure out some reasons not to help when your neighbor’s in need. Just do it. And he says: don’t take advantage of your neighbor’s trust. And he says: don’t be upset with your brother or maintain ill feelings or resentment just because you dislike something about him. And don’t nurse, he says, don’t nurse those secret thoughts that you wish you could do some of those things that sinners do.

As he says in verse three, “Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you.” Live unto God, live wisely, and that should show itself in your relationships and your responsibilities to others. And notice again, he returns to the motivational reminders, verse 32: “A devious person is an abomination to the Lord, but the upright are in his confidence. The Lord’s curse is on the house of the wicked, but he blesses the dwelling of the righteous. Toward the scorners, he is scornful, but to the humble, he gives favor. The wise will inherit honor, but fools get disgrace.”

So he presses the familiar theme again, just as he has since chapter one: live unto God and you will never regret it. These are the entailments of trusting God. Now, every one of us who has come to Christ knows what it is to trust God. We came to Christ acknowledging that we have nothing to offer, that we have Christ alone, that’s all. And we entrust ourselves wholly to him, believing his promise, trusting in his saving work. And not just for escape from hell.

When we first came to Christ, we came with our head bowed and our knees bent, submitting to his yoke. And in giving ourselves to Christ, we committed ourselves to, as he puts it, observe all the things that he’s commanded. We trust him. And so we obey him. There’s no separating out the benefits and the responsibilities. We don’t come to Christ saying, “I’ll take you for heaven, but not for life here.” No, we become his and we trust him. And so we follow him.

And that ultimately is what Proverbs 3 is about. Wise living is living through Christ under God and unto God for his honor and for our good. Now again, as we’ve done through these webinar meetings, I’m going to ask if there’s any input or questions, perhaps input from Pastor Greg or Pastor Boyd, any discussion that’s needed.