Proverbs chapter 4, verses 10 to 27. These are God's words. Hear, my son, and receive my sayings, and the years of your life will be many. I have taught you in the way of wisdom. I have led you in right paths. When you walk, your steps will not be hindered, and when you run, you will not stumble. Take firm hold of instruction. Do not let go. Keep her, for she is your life. Do not enter the path of the wicked. Do not walk in the way of evil. Avoid it. Do not travel on it. Turn away from it and pass on. For they do not sleep unless they have done evil, and their sleep is taken away unless they make someone fall. For they eat the bread of wickedness and drink the wine of violence. But the path of the just is like the shining sun that shines ever brighter unto the perfect day. The way of the wicked is like darkness. I do not know what makes them stumble. My son, give attention to my words. Incline your ear to my sayings. Do not let them depart from your eyes. Keep them in the midst of your heart. For they are life to those who find them and health to all their flesh. Keep your heart with all diligence. for out of it spring the issues of life. Put away from you a deceitful mouth and put perverse lips far from you. Let your eyes look straight ahead and your eyelids look right before you. Ponder the path of your feet and let all your ways be established. Do not turn to the right or to the left. Remove your foot. from evil. Amen. So Father, reading of God's inspired and inerrant words. There's much listening to do in the Christian life, much thinking to do in the Christian life. And this is especially helpful to us who live in an age not of listening and learning, but of feelings and identities, identifying with others. we are to identify with the Lord and our feelings are to be informed by Him and by His Word. And so it's a help to us that so often the Bible uses thinking words, consider, meditate upon, believe, etc. But one of the Things that we have heard over and over again, just four chapters now into the book of Proverbs, are hearing words. Hear, my son, and receive my sayings. Verse 10 begins. My son, give attention to my words. Incline your ear to my sayings. Verse 20 begins. And so we are to be a hearing people, a listening people, a people who give our attention, who incline our ears to the word of God. We saw this in chapter one, verse eight. My son, hear the instruction of your father. Chapter two, verse two. So that you incline your ear to wisdom. Chapter three, verse one. Let your heart keep my commands. Chapter four, verse one. Hear, my children, or hear, children, the instruction of a father. Well, there's not just instruction here to listen to instruction. It's not just telling us to listen and to hear, but the Lord, The Lord presents to us an incentive. He motivates us to listen to Him. He tells us what we will get by listening to him. He's just given us, remember, in the end of last week's portion, the benefits that Lady Wisdom pays. And now he speaks again about what we will get by listening to him. by listening to God as children to a father. And when Christian children listen to a godly father who gives the kind of instruction that we hope that our sons will be gaining from the time that they're newborns, so that one day they can teach their own children like we heard last week. So what we will get, and a big part of the what we will get by receiving instruction is where we will go, where we will go in this life, what path we will travel on, and where we will go when it concludes, where that path ends, because Well, it's become popular in our culture and in the church to say, oh, it's not the destination, it's the journey. Well, praise God, there is blessedness in the journey of a believer, but it very much is the destination. And there is cursedness in the journey, the path of the unbeliever. but oh, it's not so nearly as dreadful as the destination. And so there's the where we will go, and then the manner in which we will get there, verse 20 through 27, as he turns back to the listening again. So what we will get, Hear my son and receive my sayings and the years of your life will be many. Now this is generally true when we live wisely. On balance, God has so ordered his providence that those who live wisely do generally live longer, and we take better care of body and mind. More than that, we take good care of the creation. God, by the creation and by his blessing upon work, takes care of us. Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, says Psalm 128. He will eat from his hand's labor. And so generally speaking, many are the years of the life of the righteous in this world. But there are many righteous who are cut down in their youth, many who live comparatively brief lives in this world. But if you belong to God and the Lord Jesus Christ, If you are living by a wisdom that is not just being clever at life, but is by the life of God in you through union with Christ and applied to you by His Holy Spirit, the years of your life in this world, be they ever so few or ever so many, are not to be counted but a small fraction. of the years of your life, for you will live forever. The man who begins and walks in the good path from this passage spends years shining ever brighter, but he will spend everlasting years in perfect day. And so it is true many years of your life. And only someone short-sighted, thinking apart from the purpose for which we were created, to know God and image Him in His creation. Only someone short-sighted would look at how short or few were the years of some of those who have walked according to the Word of God and say, that's not true. Oh, it is true. It is true, generally speaking in this life, it is true in the case of every single believer when we count their life as a whole. So you've got life, and you get guidance. Verse 11, verse 12. I'm sorry, verse 11. I have taught you in the way of wisdom. I have led you in right paths. how often we in life wish to know that we are on the right path. It is a great anxiety. It weakens a man. It keeps a woman from doing her duty cheerfully. It keeps a man from diligence and zeal. If he's always wondering if he's on the right path, wondering if what he's doing is useful, wondering if what he's doing is going to have a good effect, If you walk according to the Word of God, you know that you are in the way of wisdom. You're in the way of knowing the Lord and fearing Him. Not only that, you are in the right path, the straight path. And so you get, by listening to wisdom, you get everlasting life. You get reliable guidance that frees you to live with joy and diligence and zeal, not second guessing, but always moving forward in the straight path. You get effectiveness. This is the consequence of verse 11. In verse 12, when you walk, your steps will not be hindered. When you run, you will not stumble. You get genuine life. Take firm hold of instruction. Do not let go. Keep her, for she is your life. We'll think about this more when we come to the third section and the manner in which we get there and the life that God gives us by fellowship with him in his word. But this is life for the human being. It's not merely to have organs that are functioning and to have your body animated by your soul. To have life as a human being is to live in fellowship with God. We received our life. We received our soul by the breath of God into our first father's nostrils. God, who is preparing us. to know the Lord, to see the Lord and producing in us that peaceful fruit of righteousness and teaching us to pursue the holiness without which we will not see him. He is the father of our spirits. And so it was a continued giving and sharing of his life with the man when he gave Adam instruction about what to do in the garden, where God spoke to him face to face. This is life. To know our creator, to know him as our purpose, to know him as our pleasure, and to know him as one who speaks to us, who communicates himself to us, who gives us his fatherly instruction. Isn't it sweet for you, dear children, When you not just know your dad, have a good relationship with your dad, but when you get those moments, when you get to sit face to face with him, and he talks to you, he communicates himself to you, Perhaps other households are like ours, where my children don't just tolerate the same recounting of things from my childhood and things from my life, but they enjoy the fellowship that we have together. That's such a small picture, a father communicating himself to his children in this life. That's a small picture of your Heavenly Father, your Creator, your Redeemer, the purpose for which and for whom you exist, communicating himself to you, and not just communicating himself to you. but giving you that guidance, giving you life from himself, and guidance from himself, and effectiveness at living from himself. This is the path of the righteous. And so he's already characterizing for us what the path of the righteous will be in the first section, verses 10 through 13, what we will get. Because a big part of the what we will get is where we will go. There are two paths. One is the path of the righteous. One is the path of life, the path of light. The other is the path of wickedness. It's a path of death. It's a path of darkness. Oh, do not let your remaining fleshliness, do not let any suggestion of the devil or any of the devils. Do not let the ideas and desires and words of other people deceive you into thinking that walking in your own way, walking without the counsel of God, that this is somehow freedom. that the pleasure of that path is somehow good and that the things, the comforts that you have in that path are safety or security. No, it is the path of death and the path of darkness. And so if we have been taught in the way of wisdom, one of the things that it does for us is it assures us, urges us, exhorts us, keeps us on the right path. Verses 14 and 15 tell us, warn us off the path of the wicked. Do not enter the path of the wicked. This is so important that we're going to get even avoided in verse 15. So it's not just do not enter the path of the wicked, but as far as you can see the path of the wicked in your life, don't go near it. Don't play the foolish game or tell yourself the idea that so long as you don't enter the path of the wicked, you can go near it. We can tolerate a little bit of worldliness. We can live for ourselves a little bit. After all, God created man to be joyful and to celebrate things. That's true. We must be careful to define what is truly joyous and to be guarded in how we celebrate things, what we call pleasure by His word. Do not think that you can go near it. And if you happen to come to a place where you've got the option, you've got the choice, then you will be tempted, especially the more you know about the Bible. The easier it is and the stronger the temptation to start rationalizing, choosing what you know is wrong with clever theological arguments and clever spiritual reasoning. No, when you get to that point and you have the opportunity to do something that you know, maybe you don't remember at first everything from the Bible why it's wrong, but instinctively, if you feel the battle between your flesh and your new life in Christ and you know it's wrong, verse 15 says, turn away from it and pass on. Verse 14 says, do not enter. But verse 15 says, avoid it. Don't even go near it. And if the avoiding it is unsuccessful and you find yourself with the opportunity, turn away from it. Run away. There are many Christians who struggle with a particular sin, whether it's lust, or gossip, or gluttony, or drunkenness. There are many Christians who struggle with a particular sin that must remember that one of the keys to battling that sin is to give it a strong no whenever opportunity presents itself. And another key to battling that sin is not to go near it, not to make rules about what going near it is or isn't for other people, but for yourself, To know where the entryway is into the path, you've been there before, avoid it. And if you see the opportunity, give it the no, turn away, pass on. If you have, if you have failed on those two things. If you have come near the path, you've had the opportunity, and you entered it, and you are on it, do not walk. Do not walk in the way of evil. As soon as God brings to your attention, as soon as the Spirit convicts you, reminds you of a scripture text, or you have the that sudden realization that you are in the middle or have become sitting. Immediately stop. Do not walk. Do not travel. Do not think to yourself, it's safe for me to do this a little bit. I'll repent later. After all, I've already begun sinning. I've already begun gossiping. I'll just finish this conversation out. No. You immediately say, forgive me. I shouldn't be talking about this. And if you have to leave the conversation, leave the conversation. you are dealing with. You must do the same. Do not enter, do not walk, don't go near, don't travel on it, turn away from it. It may look safe and it may look alive, but behold in verse 16 and verse 17, the living of the wicked is no living at all. It is dying. They do not sleep until they have done evil. Their sleep is taken away unless they make someone fall. This doesn't even necessarily mean that they know that this is what they are doing. It's so much the substance of the life of the one who is an unbeliever, who does not belong to God through faith in Jesus Christ. that his daily doing, his daily life is doing evil. Indeed, earlier we read of the violence of the wicked, and in verse 17 you have the violence of the wicked. Don't you catch the end of verse 16? the violence that walking in the way of the wicked does, they make one another fall. They say things like, has God really said, oh, dear children, how many have grown up hearing and even thinking that they agree with in their mind or in their heart so much of what God teaches us in his word, but they weren't careful about the path in which they walked, and they weren't careful about with whom they walked on that path. And as they shared their life with those who are unbelievers, they shared their life with those who are in darkness and going to death, day after day, the seeds of doubt are sown. For the unbeliever is confused. He does not know God. His path is not straight. His steps are hindered. He's always second guessing and stumbling. and he verbalizes his doubts, and he casts doubt on the existence of God, and he casts doubt on the reliability of the word, and he casts doubt on what is right, and what is wrong, and what is truth. Their sleep is taken away, unless they make others to fall. They may not even know it about themselves. Indeed, for them, wickedness and violence are like eating and drinking. It may look like fellowship. But that's not just bread, it's the bread of wickedness. Oh, we want the bread of righteousness. We want the bread that comes from our Heavenly Father. We want the bread that knows Him, not only to have been the creator of all things, but the one who works all things according to the counsel of His will, so that you learn from our Lord Jesus to pray, give us this day our daily bread. And then it's not just bread that you're eating, is it? You're eating, you're enjoying the goodness of your God to you in that bread. Never more so than when it's the little bit of bread that you get at the Lord's table when your soul is feeding upon Jesus. Not so the wicked. They do not know him from whom their bread come. Even their eating is a wickedness. Even their drinking and the walking in the daily living, they are completely opposite one another. Verses 18 and 19. In the destination, the path of the just is like the shining sun that shines ever brighter. If you are not growing as a Christian and you are troubled by it, that's good. Be troubled by it. Cry out to God with the end of Psalm 119 like we have been thinking and singing and praying, not just this week. Praise God, it's one of your favorites, one of our favorites as a congregation. Seek me who like a sheep has strayed, or as it is, I have strayed like a lost sheep. I've gone astray like a lost sheep. Seek your servant. The Christian life is not one in which there should be plateauing or stagnation. That is not the ordinary way the Christian life operates. There is real sanctification. There is real maturation. There is real increase in the knowledge of God, and the enjoyment of God, and the love of God, and obedience to God. Our catechism children, the littler children, are thinking this week about what it means when we pray that it will be done in earth as it is in heaven. Well, it means more and more that your life will be a little bit of heaven. Isn't that what verse 18 is saying? You already have the shining sun because the light of the knowledge of the glory of God is shining in your heart in the face of Jesus Christ. But it shines ever brighter. And it does so with the knowledge that there is a day coming when he who began that good work in you and He is who is working in you both to will and to work according to His good pleasure so that by His working in you, you work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. There's coming a day that when He who has begun that good work in you will have brought it to completion in the day of Christ Jesus, the perfect day of verse 18. Oh, how pleasant is the path on which you walk when its destination is the perfect day of not only seeing the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, but having been conformed to his image, conformed to the image of his Son, so that he is the firstborn among many brethren. And those whom he has justified have glorified. He will have glorified. The opposite is true, or the converse is true, rather. Verse 19. The way of the wicked is like darkness. Not just in darkness. The path itself is darkness. And they fall. They sink deeper than the grave. They fall into hell itself. One of the phrases that the Bible uses over and over to describe what hell is, is utter darkness. So you cannot walk in a path that is darkness and end up with any light. So hear and give attention to wisdom, not just for what you'll get, not just for where you'll go, both the path and the destination in verses 14 through 19, but what you will be like on the way, how you get there. As our time is fleeing from us, we'll have to go quickly in verses 20 through 27. but basically you have guarding input to produce proper output. My son, give attention to my words and climb your ear to my sayings. Guard what you listen to, guard whom you listen to. Do not think that you can continually fill your ears and your eyes. with that which does not begin in the knowledge of God, and have it not affect you. Out of the overflow of the heart, our mouths speak, and our eyes desire, and our feet walk. You see that in verse 24 and following. Put away from you a deceitful mouth, and put perverse lips far from you. Let your eyes look straight ahead, and your eyelids look right before you. Keep your focus, keep your desire on what is right and the path of righteousness. Ponder the path of your feet and let your ways be established. All of these things are what spring out of the well-kept heart in verse 23. Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life. That means be diligent about what you listen to and to whom you listen. Be diligent about what you set your eyes upon, what you read. Lord helping us will take up regular, careful, spiritual well visits, proper pastoral visitation sometime in the near future. One of the things that I would ask is, you know, usually talking to the husband or the father, what are you reading? What is your wife reading? What are your children reading? Be careful what you set your eyes upon. You keep your heart with all diligence. by what you hear and by what you see. These are ways that things enter in your heart. You should focus on having the word of God take up its residence in your heart. And here we are in verse 22, again, thinking about life. They are life to those who find them and health to all their flesh. You know, to be a healthy human being, is not merely to have a good VO2 max and to be strong and have a good muscle percentage and strong bones and a functional immune system. All of those things are bodily health and bodily training profits a little, says the apostle. but spiritual training, the training of the soul, the health of the soul in the Lord Jesus Christ is for this life and the next. You will not be able to maintain the body that you have right now until and through the resurrection. You won't even be able to maintain it the way it is right now for more than a couple of decades before inevitable decay sets in. true health, permanent health, is by the life of God, by the wisdom of God, from His Word in us. And so keep your heart with all diligence. Don't listen to those who might tell you that meditating much on spiritual things, keeping an active devotional life, both secretly you, individually between you and your creator and redeemer, and then also as a household for whom the word of God is not just to be in your heart and on your lips, but as a sign on the doorpost of the house. And then, Lord, blessing enough households together becomes a sign on the gates of the community Keep your heart with all diligence. There is a diligence, a self-discipline, a prioritizing, a regularity, an earnestness to the maintaining of piety. to maintaining the life of God in the soul of man through the means that he is given, because they are means by which the Spirit applies Christ to us. And it is from that life of Christ in our hearts that we wish the overflow to come out of our mouths. It is that life of Christ in the heart that will shape what you look at and desire with your eyes. It is that life of Christ in the heart that will keep your feet on the right path. So keep your heart, keep your heart and the light and life of the Lord Jesus will grow brighter and brighter in you until you finally arrive at perfect day.