PROFITING FROM PROVERBS

“Hear, ye children, the instruction of a father, and attend to know understanding” (Proverbs 4:1 KJV).

A continuation of the theme to “sons,” again, an application of the father to his son. It can be applied in three different ways.

1. God, to the children of Israel—they are His children—His sons corporately. He called them that. There were no individual Old Testament Jews that were “born again.”

We must realize that the new birth is not possible until after the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, regardless of what any other preacher might say. The Bible is very clear about it. “Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1Pe 1:2-3 KJV). [Notice that election is through sanctification, so a man is not elect until he is sanctified] God has begotten us: that is the new birth. You are born of God (Joh 1:12-13, 3:7-8, I Cor 4:15 [Paul says “I have begotten you the gospel”]; 1Joh 3:8-9 [you are born of the Spirit and you cannot sin]. The medium of the new birth is the resurrection of Jesus Christ, so there is no one that is born again before the resurrection.

Was it possible for Nicodemus in John chapter 3? Even though Jesus Christ said “Ye must be born again,” he couldn’t be born again at that time. We see this in Joh 7, “He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified)” (Joh 7:38-39 KJV) He had not yet gone to the cross or rose up from the grave. Nicodemus could have believed all he wanted to, but he would not have been born again at that time. The New Birth does not take place until after the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

“For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren” (Rom 8:29 KJV). Jesus Christ was the first man to be born of the Spirit—so that eliminates everybody in the Old Testament, and John 7 and 1 Peter 1 eliminates everybody up to the crucifixion and resurrection.

And remember that the Bible tells us to “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (2Ti 2:15, KJV). There’s a division there, between the salvation experience of what you and I have, as compared to an Old Testament saint. Now, that ought to tell you something. Every heretic walking that teaches that a man can lose his salvation will go to a pre-crucifixion passage to prove it. Why? Because an Old Testament saint was not born again, because the Old Testament saint was not sealed with the Holy Spirit, because the Old Testament saint was not baptized by the Holy Spirit. So it is possible then to find passages where the Holy Spirit leaves a man, but he’ll never find that in the Pauline epistles.

Because after the New Testament [death of the Testator] is instituted, and after Jesus Christ sends the Holy Spirit in Acts chapter 2, He said when the “Holy Spirit is come He will abide with you forever!” It is eternal!

All right then, to Israel as a corporate nation. God is never going to cast Israel off as a nation. They are His son in the Old Testament. It was corporate. But as to the individual Jews, if they did not keep the covenants of Israel, they died and went to hell.

2. God, to you and I. Proverbs is written to the children of God, so you and I get something from it. “Hear, ye children, the instruction of a father.” God’s the Father, He inspired the words, so we can learn a great deal from it.

3. Solomon’s own children. I assume he must have had plenty, he had 1,000 wives. I imagine he had a house full of kids. “Hear, ye children, the instruction of a father, and attend to know understanding.” Well, pay attention, attend to it. Kids have a short attention span. It’s kind of hard to get them to attend to the right things. Kids in America are attending a lot of things except for the things they ought to be attending. They attend entertainment events, they attend pleasure events, and Solomon tells us what they ought to be doing, “It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all men; and the living will lay it to his heart. Sorrow is better than laughter: for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better” (Ecclesiastes 7:2-3 KJV). It might not do anything for your flesh, but it’ll do something for your heart. Solomon, the wisest man that ever lived, wrote this.

There is nothing like trouble, and grief, and sadness, and sorrow, to bring you back to reality. And to what life really means, and what life really is. It’s hard to really get a grip on reality while you are watching a situation comedy or some other funny show. Americans think that unless they are having “fun,” it isn’t worth the time or the money. “Sorrow is better than laughter: for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better.” “The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth” (Ecclesiastes 7:4 KJV).

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