Proverbs 3:7,8

Proverbs 3:7

I. The text may be paraphrased and expanded thus: God has taught you by various ways by your own experience and that of others; above all, by the warnings of conscience and the voice of revelation what is right and what is wrong. Do not set yourself above this teaching, or think to be wiser than your Maker. Presume neither to cavil at nor neglect those unchanging laws by which the Almighty has separated good from evil, and appointed to each their just recompense of reward. Fear the Lord, for that is the beginning of true wisdom, and not this fancied enlightenment on which you pride yourself, fear the Lord and depart from evil.

II. Notice some familiar instances of the temptation which we incur to be wise in our own eyes, and of the evil into which we fall if we yield to it. (1) On many things the stamp of good or evil is so indelibly planted that no sane man can presume to question it. Who could think murder praiseworthy, or prayer a vice? But there are other things on which the mark, though visible to a faithful scrutiny, is not so patent; or, to vary the figure, between the acknowledged territories of the two principles is a borderland which needs wary walking, lest we pass over before we know it to the enemy. The humble man will avoid that doubtful district if he can; if compelled to enter it, he will walk circumspectly, trusting very little to his own discernment, and greatly anxious to be guided in the right path. Not so he that is wise in his own eyes. This borderland is his favourite resort. (2) It is a common delusion that we can become good and religious when we will. There is a law which is written in the history of a thousand misguided lives, that when habits of sin are once formed they are not lightly broken through; and that, instead of its being an easy thing to turn from the world to God, every added year, aye week, of rebellion, makes it more difficult, till at last, long before we are called to our account, it becomes with some men, humanly speaking, impossible. (3) The devil has his proverbs as well as Solomon, and among the devil's proverbs there is none perhaps more common or more wicked than this, that "young men must sow their wild oats." Facts are clean against this vile assertion, for four-fifths of the men who have been pure and holy in later years have been holy and pure in their youth; and the law that "evil communications" are not a preliminary of sanctity, but "corrupt good manners," is a law of the moral world which this proverb wilfully ignores.

E. H. Bradby, Sermons at Haileybury, p. 232.

References: Proverbs 3:7; Proverbs 3:8. W. Arnot, Laws from Heaven,1st series, p. 121.Proverbs 3:9. J. E. Vaux, Sermon Notes,2nd series, p. 98; W. Arnot, Laws from Heaven,1st series, p. 123.