Posted on 05/03/2022 6:33:40 PM PDT by Pilgrim's Progress
“For I was my father's son, tender and only beloved in the sight of my mother. He taught me also, and said unto me, Let thine heart retain my words: keep my commandments, and live” (Proverbs 4:4 KJV).
“Let thine heart retain my words,” don’t worry about it sticking to your head. Don’t worry about memorizing them. Get them in your heart. Did you know that once you get them in your heart it is easy to memorize them? Once you learn them, once you apply them to your life, once you make them real, and part of your heart—it’s easy to memorize them. Then you don’t have any problem remembering them. But if you just memorize it with your head—aren’t they gone soon? You know why? Because it isn’t in the heart. If you can ever get it down in the heart, you can keep it.
“Let thine heart retain my words: keep my commandments, and live,” well, what is sin? Sin is a transgression of the law; the wages of sin is death. If you want to live a long, prosperous, and peaceful life, keep the commandments and live.
Now, these are laws and doctrines that you can break. Young people are tempted, more than anybody else, to think that they can break the laws and get by—and the reason is—they are so healthy and think they have their whole life in front of them, that they are indestructible. They will break a law, and nothing will happen to them immediately. When Adam and Eve partook of that tree back in Genesis, God said that in the day they ate thereby, they would surely die. Now, they recognized a change right away. They knew they lost their relationship with God and they went and hid from Him. It was hundreds of years later that they died physically, but they did die, eventually. The death process set in immediately, no matter how long it took.
“And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death” (Romans 7:10 KJV). He said, keep the commandments, and live.
This can be applied to a Christian.
“Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die” (Romans 8:12-13a).
If you live after the flesh, what will you do? Die. Why? It is sinful. The wages of sin is death. Lost or saved, the result is the same. How do we know this? Galatians 5 says, “The works of the flesh are manifest,” you see anything good on that list? Fornication, adultery, lasciviousness, covetous, revelry, and such like . . . you walk after that flesh, you’re in trouble. So, Paul says that “if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die,” because it is sinful. You have to deny that flesh or it will kill you. The flesh is an untamed animal, nor can it be tamed.
“. . . but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live” (Romans 8:13b KJV).
You say, “Well, everybody dies.” Yea, that’s right, sooner or later, you will wear out. You can go a whole lot more peaceful than some folks. Moses was a hundred and twenty years old, and his physical powers were not abated.
The problem with a lot of us that were saved later in life is that we were already worn out by the Devil, and the world, and sin. It’s not easy to recuperate when you get to be 30-35 years old what you lost when you were 15 or 20. Bob Jones Sr. used to say, “Every draft on you is a dissipation of old age.” Every time you use your ability to do wrong, every draft on you, is a dissipation of old age. You are just slowly writing your own death warrant. Every draft on you.
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