Proverbs 7.
“Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man shall sow, that also shall he reap.” As another has written,
“God deigns to apply His wisdom to the circumstances of our practical life, and to show us, with His own intelligence, the consequences of all the ways in which man may walk. It is a great blessing to be provided for the labyrinth of this world, in which a false step may lead to such bitter consequences, with a book (the Book of Proverbs) that sets forth the path of prudence and of life, and this in connection with a wisdom which comes from God.”
Once again the urgent plea is made that God’s Word shall be given the important place it should have. Its teachings are to be valued as the apple of the eye—to be carefully guarded as most precious. They are to be bound upon the fingers, and so connected with what one does, and what is seen by others; and to be written upon the tablet of the heart, where no eye sees but God’s.
May we not ask ourselves, what is written on the tablet of my heart? What is its chief desire, and with what is it occupied as the hours of day flit by?
Wisdom and intelligence (verse 4) are to be claimed as blood-relations that they may keep us from the “strange woman” who flatters with her words. Corruption has ever threatened the children of God on earth, and, viewing the history of God’s people, how often the devil has succeeded with some form of it, when violence failed to move them away from simple trust in God. We may, then, safely consider the warning voice of God in the Proverbs regarding the strange woman as applicable both to the moral dangers, and to the spiritual dangers which may engulf us at any age.
The children of Cain and the children of Seth walked apart in the early world until moral corruption among the latter came in. (Gen. 6).
The children of Israel were a people alone and separated, positionally, to God until Numbers 25.
Jehoshaphat was a great and godly ruler of Judah (2 Chronicles 17), but the latter part of his life was marred through his association with Ahab and Ahaziah, kings of Israel (chapters 18, 19, 20).
It was the abominations of the nations which, adopted and practiced by the ten tribes of Israel (2 Kings 17:7-187For so it was, that the children of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, which had brought them up out of the land of Egypt, from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods, 8And walked in the statutes of the heathen, whom the Lord cast out from before the children of Israel, and of the kings of Israel, which they had made. 9And the children of Israel did secretly those things that were not right against the Lord their God, and they built them high places in all their cities, from the tower of the watchmen to the fenced city. 10And they set them up images and groves in every high hill, and under every green tree: 11And there they burnt incense in all the high places, as did the heathen whom the Lord carried away before them; and wrought wicked things to provoke the Lord to anger: 12For they served idols, whereof the Lord had said unto them, Ye shall not do this thing. 13Yet the Lord testified against Israel, and against Judah, by all the prophets, and by all the seers, saying, Turn ye from your evil ways, and keep my commandments and my statutes, according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by my servants the prophets. 14Notwithstanding they would not hear, but hardened their necks, like to the neck of their fathers, that did not believe in the Lord their God. 15And they rejected his statutes, and his covenant that he made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he testified against them; and they followed vanity, and became vain, and went after the heathen that were round about them, concerning whom the Lord had charged them, that they should not do like them. 16And they left all the commandments of the Lord their God, and made them molten images, even two calves, and made a grove, and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served Baal. 17And they caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire, and used divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke him to anger. 18Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel, and removed them out of his sight: there was none left but the tribe of Judah only. (2 Kings 17:7‑18)), and the two tribes of Judah (2 Chronicles 36:14-2114Moreover all the chief of the priests, and the people, transgressed very much after all the abominations of the heathen; and polluted the house of the Lord which he had hallowed in Jerusalem. 15And the Lord God of their fathers sent to them by his messengers, rising up betimes, and sending; because he had compassion on his people, and on his dwelling place: 16But they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, till there was no remedy. 17Therefore he brought upon them the king of the Chaldees, who slew their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion upon young man or maiden, old man, or him that stooped for age: he gave them all into his hand. 18And all the vessels of the house of God, great and small, and the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king, and of his princes; all these he brought to Babylon. 19And they burnt the house of God, and brake down the wall of Jerusalem, and burnt all the palaces thereof with fire, and destroyed all the goodly vessels thereof. 20And them that had escaped from the sword carried he away to Babylon; where they were servants to him and his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia: 21To fulfil the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths: for as long as she lay desolate she kept sabbath, to fulfil threescore and ten years. (2 Chronicles 36:14‑21)), brought upon them the solemn judgment of God in their banishment from their homeland.
And the letters to the seven Churches
Let us make no mistake; the Christian cannot dally with evil in any form. Satan is bent upon attracting us away from the Lord Jesus, and he will, if he can dtaw us from the narrow path of full dependence on God and His Word, with either moral corruption (We are living in a time fraught with much danger from that source); or spiritual corruption.
Satan can rob us of true joy, a good conscience and communion (1 John 1:3-73That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. 4And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full. 5This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. 6If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: 7But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. (1 John 1:3‑7)).
Verses 24 to 27, the final words of the chapter, therefore call for our earnest consideration, both regarding the necessity for a clean, pure life apart from the moral depravity all around us, and the equal importance of true hearted separation from all that does not uphold Christ as the Word of God upholds Him.
Messages of God’s Love 5/8/1932