PROFITING FROM PROVERBS

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction” (Proverbs 1:7).

Where does it all start? Verse 7 tells us: “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge,” The Lord starts by saying, “First thing first! Here is rule number one!” Here is the Drill Instructor that fresh new recruits see right out in front of the bus when they arrive for basic training. The first thing is, “Fear me!” If any of us are veterans, the first thing we learned was to stay scared of that man that was standing there yelling at us. But you know what? After eight weeks under this man’s tutelage, we were changed men. Well, the Word of God, both the written and the living, will change our lives, and knowledge is one of the key components in the successful Christian life. We need to learn early on that for as long as we live, we need to fear God; and that is not some kind of gosh, reverential awe or any such nonsense. We need to be scared straight!

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge.” If you don't begin there you won't understand love. If you were never concerned about going to hell, you will not appreciate your salvation. If you never got a hold of the fact that God is a lot different than you, then there are going to be some things that you miss and will eventually will to have to learn. It took Israel 40 years in the wilderness to learn some important things, and even then, she didn’t learn enough to get it right.

That’s often what happens when your little kids get saved at 5, 6, or 7. They are literally scared of going to hell but the simplicity of things in a little kid’s mind causes them to look at things naively; and then he grows up to be young adult and then he discovered some of his own depravity. He discovers some of the depravity of his own heart that he hadn't perceived when he was 5, 6, and 7 and it's almost like getting saved all over again. In fact, a lot of people go through thing where they wonder if they were actually saved when they were 6 or 7. It doesn't mean they weren't, and it doesn't mean necessarily that they were; but one of the things that you have to get is that “the fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge” and over in Chapter 9 “the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom” (vs. 10). If you don't start with the fear of the Lord, you didn't start with point number 1.

Daily Bible study is necessary if we are going to begin our day with the right attitude and the right spiritual diet. Proverbs has 31 chapters, and most months have 31 days, so let's read a chapter of Proverbs a day and see what God might have for us. As the Lord leads, share with us what God has shown you in a special way and by His grace let us build up a devotional repository. Let's keep our knives and forks handy for some daily bread! Ideally, a chapter or two of Proverbs will fit in nicely with a good plan of reading our Bibles through each year.

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