PROFITING FROM PROVERBS

“My son, forget not my law; but let thine heart keep my commandments: For length of days, and long life, and peace, shall they add to thee” (Proverbs 3:1-2 KJV).

Now, look at that. You talk about a promise! This is not talking about medicine adding long life to you—people in America are trying to break the law—they break the law, they live like the devil, and then when they get sick from sinning, they try to use science and medicine to try to prolong their lives. Whereas if they will just live by the law and the precepts of the Bible they will do it.

“For length of days, and long life, and peace,” medicine won’t give you any of that. Medicine will not give you any peace. Which one of the commandments promises long life? “Honour thy father and thy mother.”

This is a general truth. Can anyone think of an example of a person that might keep the law, and do everything they can to be law-abiding, and not have long life? How about a Christian martyr? A man might be found suffering for Christ, and they might cut his head off for it. There is certainly at least one religious fanatical group that is doing it now, and believe it pleases their Allah. That is the exception, but what Solomon is stating is the general rule.

Now, what the world always does to contradict the Bible, is that they’ll stick some guys picture in the newspaper and he will be celebrating his hundredth birthday and they’ll ask him what he attributes his long life to? Of course, he’ll say “Smokin’ and Drinkin’!” Here you have one guy out of a million that smokes and drinks and lives that long, there is 999,999 that have died young. The Devil always magnifies and advertises the exception. They used have that healthy guy on the billboards advertising “Marlboro Country.” Well, that isn’t “Marlboro Country.” Marlboro Country is in the throat ward or the cancer ward of a hospital. The people there breathe through tubes and speak through a portable box. That is Marlboro Country. And still, people are dying to go there.

“For length of days, and long life, and peace, shall they add to thee,” this is a biblical principle. What is the principle of sin? “The wages of sin is death.” What is the transgression of the law? “Sin is the transgression of the law.” If the transgression of the law is sin, and the wages of sin is death, then it behooves you to keep the law. Not for salvation, mind you, but “for length of days, and long life, and peace.”

Look what God says about a Christian in Romans. A Christian is a peculiar individual. You cannot measure Christianity by America. America is probably the only country that has ever existed where Christianity has the liberty is has, for as long as it’s had. The problem is that we measure Christianity by our experience. America is the exception. The rule is that hundreds and thousands of people have tragically died before they even reached the age of 30 because they stood for Christ. In other countries, that is still the rule.

“But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you. Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live” (Rom 8:11-13 KJV).

“If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you,” you are saved.

“Therefore, brethren,” seeing that the Spirit of God is in you, and you have the quickening power of His presence.

“we are debtors, not to the flesh,” we don’t owe nothing to the flesh . . . it is our mortal enemy.

“mortify,” put to death. A mortician is somebody that works on you after you die.

“mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live,” but the problem with that is you might live for somebody to torture you or to hand you. When a Christian starts to live right, everything is against him, even other Christians that are worldly, except God. The nice thing about the Lord is if they take you out, you just keep right on living. I believe that if a man is living for God, death is going to be a very easy passage, but if a man is not living for God, death is going to be painful, assuming you are not all doped up with Morphine.

“For length of days, and long life, and peace, shall they add to thee.”

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