December 13, 2015
Scripture:
Scripture:
We had some thoughts earlier about drawing nigh. Let’s continue those thoughts by turning to Hebrews 10:22a. This is only one of the “let us” verses in Hebrews. When God spoke to Moses on the mount in the Old Testament, He told Moses not to let anyone draw near or else they would die. That was before the cross; now we can draw nigh. What a contrast! They had to stay away, but after the cross and the shedding of the blood, we can draw nigh. Read vv. 22 & 23. This is a precious exhortation!
Hymn 357 - A certain man of whom we read
Prayer
We’re going to start looking at the book of Proverbs.
Proverbs 1: 1-6
1 Kings 4:29, 30, & 34
It starts off by telling us that these are the proverbs of Solomon. What is a proverb? Well, it is a short expression used to teach a lesson. The proverbs of Solomon were inspired by God. There are other proverbs in the world that are not from scripture; for example, “Practice makes perfect.” It teaches the lesson that, if you do something enough times, you will get better at it.
We know Solomon as one of the kings of Israel. When he had become king God came and spoke to him. God told him that he would give him anything he asked for. Solomon had asked for wisdom and understanding. He became wise compared to others in the world then and now. The wisdom he was given was greater than the sand on the shore of the sea. Other rulers of that time went to Solomon for advice and wisdom.
Proverbs was mostly written by Solomon. It gives instruction to help us in our pathway. There are two ways to learn something. Either by experience or by being taught. When I was growing up, a friend and I were playing with our bikes and some buckets of water, splashing each other as we biked around. We lived on a hill, and as I came down the street and turned into the driveway, I found that bike breaks don’t work very well when they are wet! I learned by experience; but now that I’ve told you this story, you can learn by being taught, and not by experience. Proverbs teaches us lessons that, if listened to, can prevent us from learning through pain and experience. We can learn truths for godly living.
The part that we have read uses many different words. We aren’t going to look at all of them, but two we will look at are knowledge and wisdom. When you have knowledge of something you have understanding or know about it. Wisdom is knowing how to take that knowledge and apply it in a way that is useful. Most of us have the knowledge that the blade of a knife is sharp. You wouldn’t take it and run it over your fingers, or scratch your back with it. That just wouldn’t be smart. It wouldn’t be taking your knowledge and applying it with wisdom.
We will hear a lot about wisdom in Proverbs. You can also apply wisdom with what you don’t know. If my car has broken down and I don’t know a thing about cars except how to drive them, I should use that knowledge, apply wisdom and find a mechanic.
This part also talks about several people. The wise man, the man of understanding, the simple, and the young man. It shows that what is written here is good for everyone. Even the wise man will hear. Those who don’t hear or won’t hear, will not be able to use and apply knowledge or wisdom.
This is God’s instruction to us so we can be blessed and prevented from learning the hard way. So, we are going to try to learn several lessons through Solomon, who was inspired by God to write the book of Proverbs.
Ephesians 6:13-24
We looked at the belt of truth last week. Occupying with the truth is part of girding up our minds; we need to think on things that are true, and put our minds on things above. To get our minds off wrong things—and onto right things—it’s good to quote Scripture and even hymns as mentioned in the last chapter (Ephesians 5:19). One brother said that his backup verse was, “As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love.” That’s a good one!
After the belt of truth comes the breastplate of righteousness. These pieces of armour relate back to things we’ve had earlier in Ephesians. The first chapters brought us into heavenly places, but even in that lofty position we find that that we still have enemies. “Spiritual wickedness in high places” as verse 12 says. We need to shield ourselves from these forces, and to help with this we have a breastplate that will protect our most vulnerable spot: our heart. To be righteous, we need a clear conscience before God, and that would include a clear conscience before men. If we aren’t behaving like we should, others can bring accusations against us. Righteousness—being morally right and perfect—deals with our external walk. It builds on the truth; if our thoughts and affections are in the right place, our behaviour will be affected.
God is perfectly righteous in everything. He can even forgive us righteously because of the work of Christ. In imitating this righteousness, we need to provide things honest in the sight of both God and man, not just God. It’s been said that there are five gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and the Christian; and most people don’t read the first four. The poem says:
You are writing a Gospel, a chapter each day / By deeds that you do and the words that you say; / Men read what you write whether faithless or true; / Say, what is the Gospel according to you?
People are watching and reading how we live and what we do; may they see righteousness!
Next we have the Sandals of the Gospel of Peace. This doesn’t refer to sharing the gospel, but rather the effect that the gospel has on us. We’ve been given both peace with God and the peace of God, and therefore are to be peaceful people. We are in a war, but between conflicts we should display the peace of God, not anxiety.
The gospel is not just the beginning of the Christian walk; we need it and it’s effects all through our journey down here. It’s a blessing to have it’s peace! That peace only comes from the Prince of Peace; Christ. Though it’s a coveted thing these days, Christ is still the only source and lasting solution for peace. The Jews threw Him out, and they won’t have peace until His reign is restored.
We begin salvation with the shield of faith, and we need it for every step of our pathway. Faith reaches back out to it’s source: God. The Devil wants to create doubt in us—that’s what he did in Eden—but Jesus had the right response; “It is written.” Satan may send his darts, but the shield of faith will make short work of them. He is well able to find the cracks in our armour, though, so we need to use this shield! Goliath had a shield, but he was hit where he wasn’t covered. The word “shield” here refers to something larger and more permanent that would be set up for soldiers to hide behind—not something small and carried on the arm. Our shield size might depend on the amount of faith that we have!
Our faith doesn’t change the situations we’re in, but we need to trust God in spite of what we see. Satan wants to keep us from moving ahead; God wants us to press on. That’s when we’ll see the results of faith.
We are between two powers—God’s and Satan’s—and use the one to withstand the other. Don’t back down! God knows the worst that Satan can do, and He has given us the armour that will defeat him; we just have to use it.
Hymn — Dare to be a Daniel
Prayer