Proverbs 3, verses 19 through 35, these are God's words. Yahweh, by wisdom, founded the earth. By understanding, he established the heavens. By his knowledge, the depths were broken up, and clouds dropped down the dew. My son, let them not depart from your eyes. Keep sound wisdom and discretion, so they will be life to your soul and grace to your neck. and you will walk safely in your way, and your foot will not stumble. When you lie down, you will not be afraid. Yes, you will lie down and your sleep will be sweet. Do not be afraid of sudden terror, nor of trouble from the wicked when it comes. For Yahweh will be your confidence and will keep your foot from being caught. Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in the power of your hand to do so. Do not say to your neighbor, go and come back, and tomorrow I will give it, when you have it with you. Do not devise evil against your neighbor, for he dwells by you for safety's sake. Do not strive with a man without cause, if he has done you no harm. Do not envy the oppressor and choose none of his ways. For the perverse person is an abomination to Yahweh, but his secret counsel is with the upright. The curse of Yahweh is upon the house of the wicked, but he blesses the home of the just. What gives grace to the humble? The wise shall inherit glory, but shame shall be the legacy of fools. So far, the reading of God's inspired and inerrant word. Do you feel safe? Of course, that's not the main question that we ought to start with. The main question we ought to start with is, are you safe? Because there are those who feel safe, and they're not safe at all. Namely, in this passage, all those who belong to the category of the oppressor or the wicked, those who are the scornful, those who are the fools, however safe they may feel themselves to be, they're not actually safe, are they? Because all of their wickedness and folly this morning, all of their oppressing is done before the face of God. God who made the heavens and the earth, and God who has made men in his image. And so they despise the God who made all things, and they abuse man who is made in God's image, and they do all of this before God's face. Well, God watches the whole time and observes in His justice and His holiness, and He will surely respond in a just and righteous manner with His judgment, with His fury. And so, it is important that we be safe. And of course, there is no safety except for in God himself, in Christ himself. If the greatest threat to our safety is God, then who can make you safe from him? Can you make yourself safe from God? Is there any creature or number of creatures that can make you safe from God? Any amount of money that can make you safe from God? Any army? Any status? Any position that you might have? None of these things. And so, we may feel unsafe in our life in various things, forgetting that God is truly the great danger and that for those who are His, of course, He is the great safety. We're about to come here from Proverbs 3, verses 19 through 35. But if we do not have God himself as our safety from God, if we do not have him himself in Christ by his word, this of course is what Roberts has been urging us to do, that we would get wisdom, that we would get it at all costs and that this way of His Word. And when we come to His Word and discover how it is that we are to have God Himself, how can a man who is a sinner against God, how can he have God to be for him? We find that the answer, of course, is in His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, in faith, in the promised seed, the one who would crush the serpent's head, the seed of the woman, the seed of Abraham. in whom all the nations of the earth would be blessed. And so it is God himself who must be our safety. And this is what we have been seeing, that when you seek wisdom, when you find wisdom, what you find ultimately is the knowing of God. not just knowledge about Him, but knowing Him, fellowship with Him, fellowship with the living God, our Creator, that which He has in Himself for all eternity, that wonderful blessedness that He now gives to those whom He redeems from sin in His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. And so safety is the great theme of this second half or so of Proverbs chapter three. We have verse 23, you will walk safely in your way, you won't be afraid, et cetera. Verse 26, Yahweh will be your confidence. And then we see precisely why as the chapter closes out, we have all of these contrasts, these four contrasts. between the perfect insecurity, the complete lack of safety for the wicked, but the perfect safety, the complete security of the righteous who have the Lord. And so the passage begins with the one in whom all this safety is. Yahweh, by wisdom, founded the earth. By understanding, He established. He is the uncreated Creator. And so, He established the heavens. Verse 20, taking us into the next day of creation. By His knowledge, the depths were broken up, and clouds dropped down the dew. Everything that is created declares to us the Creator. This is wonderful. This means that if you are a believer, and if you are in fellowship with God, He is yours, and you are His, and the Lord Jesus Christ, then when a hurricane comes, it is the Lord who is your Redeemer, the one who belongs to you, that brings the hurricane, and you know that He does you good by it, even if He should take you from this world. He perfectly then, he then perfects your holiness and he takes you to be with himself. However, he uses it to sanctify you, whether he uses it to give you patience and perseverance. Maybe to bring to your attention some way in which you've been sinning or backsliding, and he shocks you and calls you to repentance by his word, which helps you understand his providence. Or he gives you opportunity to serve your neighbor, gives you opportunity to give him praise as you are spared in the midst. and you give him thanks and now you are the more free to lay yourself down for your brothers and then even for your neighbor, whatever it is. That's just one example. Whatever it is, there is nothing in all of history, there is nothing that any man or spirit or What currents in nature can do except that the Lord is ruling and overruling in it. He is the one in whom is all your safety. And so it's good for you to spend time observing the greatness of God's power. It's good for you to observe the stars in the sky, to look out on the beautiful hills where we live, to observe the passing of the seasons, to learn as much as you can in your science classes, children, about all the different things that God has built into his creation because it's all his wisdom and his power and you can say, my God is doing that. There's a man that some say is perhaps the most intelligent person that has, well, the most intelligent American, although it's a little anachronistic. He passed away before we won our independence. There's been a man named Jonathan Everest. But before he was converted, he used to be terrified of thunderstorms. And then after he was saved, thunderstorms gave him great comfort. Now what could take something that was once terrified you and then turn it into something that gave you great comfort? Well, because it is Yahweh by wisdom who founded the earth and by understanding established the heavens. By his knowledge, the depths were broken up and clouds dropped down the dune. And he went from having the Lord as an enemy, which made him the least safe he could possibly be, to having the Lord as his Redeemer, his own covenant God, who rules and overrules everything for his good. And so the greater the display of his Redeemer's power, the greater he felt his comfort to be. So the passage begins in verses 19 and 20 with the one in whom all the believer's safety is, all the wise man's safety is. And then it goes on. in verses 21 to 22, to point out to us the way of the instrument by which he has given us to be safe, that is, by laying hold of his own wisdom. God created everything in his wisdom, and he created us. Remember, he made the first man out of the dirt, he formed his body out of the dirt, and even when his body was fully formed, into his nostrils, the breath of life, and the man became a living being. But God made us in his image, not just by giving us life, by creating man's soul out of nothing, for every individual man for which the scripture calls him the father of our spirits but he has made us in his image the ability to learn and know not just about his creation but to learn and know in himself and for that he has especially given us his word. that we would incline our ear to it and apply our heart to it, as we've been thinking about going out of the beginning of chapter two, where we heard that language. And so he says, my son, let them not depart from your eyes. Let not the wisdom and understanding and knowledge of God depart from your eyes. Now this is a great incentive to learn how to read. I hope that those of you who have not yet learned to read are working hard on learning to read. And I hope that those of you who know how to read are always improving your ability to read, and especially to read the Bible. When He says, let them not depart from your eyes, yes, He's saying that we can observe the glory of God and something of His goodness and His wisdom and His power in the creation, but He is especially talking about His Word. This is the language that He has been using with respect to His Word, His instruction throughout the Proverbs. And so he says, my son, let them not depart from your eyes. Now, there's also the hearing of God's word, isn't there? And especially the sitting under of his word. When we come, we hear his word address us and address us especially from Zion, from Jerusalem. As some of you, I trust, have seen in Amos today, or maybe will see in Amos when you go home. And we're beginning that, and the Lord roars from Zion. And Zion, of course, being the place where the temple was. Zion being the city of David, where the sacrifices continue, even if you are a Northern Kingdom person. You needed to hear the word of God come from the place where he had provided atonement, where he was bringing sinners near to himself. through the blood not of bulls and goats, but through faith in Jesus Christ, who had shed his blood once for all. And so when our text says, my son, let them, let not the wisdom and understanding and knowledge of God depart from your eyes, saying, read your Bible, pay attention to your Bible, Meditate upon his word and especially come and hear his word preached when you are able. Let them not depart from your eyes. So I wonder, when was the last time you looked at a Bible? And when was the last time did you hear teaching or preaching or meditate upon the Word? Well, I actually don't wonder about that middle one. I know you're hearing preaching right now. Did you know it's easy to let time pass? You go a day without reading your Bible, and then two, and then three, Or you miss a few prayer meetings and miss even public worship. And then pretty soon you get into the habit of that. You're doing something else at those times. Or maybe you used to meditate upon his word. with some regularity and even in the occasional sort of meditation where you got into the habit of reflecting upon things that happened or things that you hear or things that you see according to the word, but then something else started occupying your thoughts, maybe the cares of this world, maybe the pleasures of this world. Many are obsessed in this world with what they want to enjoy. Others are obsessed in this world with anxiety over what they may suffer. And how does Jesus describe those things? As thorns that come and choke the Word, which ought to have been growing in us by way of meditation. But here the scripture comes to us this evening and says, my son, let them not depart from your eyes. Don't let the wisdom and understanding and knowledge of God by which he has created all things, by which he is holding all things, by the word of his power, don't let them slip away from you. Don't let them depart from you. Keep sound wisdom and discretion. Keep sound wisdom and discretion. So, not just come to the Word frequently and don't let the Word slip from your mind, but keep sound wisdom and discretion is talking about the putting of the Word into action. And so, let's ask another question of ourselves. What is the chief way, the first way, the primary way you make a choice or you make a decision? You have a choice between two or three or many things. Is the first question that you ask, what does God's Word have to say about this? There may be other factors. God's Word will teach you even what are the factors to consider in every choice, every decision you make. But you want to keep wisdom and understanding and knowledge as sound wisdom and discretion. You want to keep them as that by which you make your decisions in life, that which shapes the choices that you make in life. And so when we ask ourselves, Am I not letting the Word depart from my eyes? Am I employing the Word to shape my choices and my decisions? Then we will be hearing something about whether we are actually spiritually alive. We will be hearing something about whether we actually belong to the Lord by faith. And this is what we see in verse 22, that if we don't let the wisdom, knowledge, understanding of God depart from our eyes, but rather keep, send wisdom and discretion. There will be life to our soul and grace to our neck. They'll be life to our soul and grace to our neck. They will display to us that we are actually alive in Jesus Christ, that the Spirit is actually applying Christ to us. And grace to our neck, identifying Mark. You want to find out who the believers are. We're not like either you know, a street gang might be, or ancient nobility, both of which may perhaps, I don't know anything about street gangs, but both of which may perhaps by a specific piece of jewelry that each one of them wears, you could identify by the insignia that is on the necklace of the one. to whom he belongs. Well, you don't identify believers by a cross dangling from their neck. No, you identify them by his word employed in their life. That's the grace on the neck of a believer. and it identifies not just believers to others, but it helps identify us to ourselves. Even as we were considering yesterday, if you were doing that section of the Psalm, in Psalm 119 verses 153 to 160, and you saw those three, revive me, revive me, and revive me. And the revive me's were all according to your talking to God, reasoning from who God is and what God is like. But then the evidence that he belonged to God was things like, I don't forget your statues. I keep your testimonies. Well, which is it? Is it according to what the psalmist was doing, keeping God's word? Or is it according to God's justice and God's faith? Well, the answer is both, because it's from God's love that the psalmist's obedience came. Like we read in Romans 8, verse 28, that all things work together for good for those who love God. Why? Is it something they earn by how well they love God? No, but their loving God identifies them. It's like, it is a grace to their neck. that identifies them as those who have been called according to God's purpose. And so as you seek to stay in the word and to meditate upon his word, have your thoughts shaped and your choices determined especially by his word, it too will be not just life to your soul, but grace to your neck. a token from God with which he adorns you so that you may even see his handiwork on yourself. Not in perfection in this life, but any presence of any goodness at all must be from him. and it will be as grace to your neck. The Lord, of course, uses this sort of language. Often on a Wednesday night, we'll be thinking from 1 Timothy 2 about the men in every place, leading in prayer, lifting up holy hands without wrath or doubting. And you remember in that context, the women likewise are to be adorned with good works and it is a grace to their neck. to where the fruit of Christ's word work in their lives. That is the beauty of the Christian woman. And here, the keeping of sound wisdom and discretion is that which identifies the believer. Well, that brings us through the one in whom all safety is and the way by which he has given us to be safe and to know ourselves to be safe. Then we see the greatness of this biblical safety. If we are these ones, who have fellowship with the Lord, have the life of the Lord in our soul, are identified as His and works of His grace by what we do with the Bible in our day-to-day life. If we are those safe ones, then here is the greatness of their safety. We'll be safe all day. We'll be safe all night. We'll be safe from the wicked. We'll be safe in the Lord Himself. And there's a parallel in the flow of thought here, in verse 23, verse 24, verse 25, verse 26, to one of our family's favorite bedtime songs. And it's been one of our favorite bedtime songs since our eldest was a newborn. And that's because of the focus on our safety at night. He who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. Yahweh is your keeper. Yahweh is your sheikh, your right hand. And so a similar thing to what verse 19 and 20 was doing, pointing out to us the greatness of this God who has taken us to be his, the greatness of this God who has saved you for himself. And then we read, Yahweh is your keeper. Sorry, that's verse five. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. And that's parallel to verse 24, sorry, verse 23 and verse 24. Verse 23, the sun will not strike you by day in Psalm 121, but now here, then you will walk safely in your way and your foot will not stumble. And of course, the walking time is the daytime in verse 23, but what about at night? Verse 24, when you lie down, you will not be afraid. Yes, you will lie down and your sleep will be sweet. I wonder if there are any children in Europe are afraid of the dark. Now, there's nothing wrong with having a light on for when you need to move around so you don't stumble into things and bump into things. But why are we afraid of the dark? When the light is on, are we safe because we can see what's there? Or are we safe because God can see what's there, and he's the one who's taking care of us? Now, when we turn the light off, we can't see what's there anymore. But you know what? We're going to have to sleep eventually. And you can't see outside of your head while you're sleeping. God can see. God takes care of us. And we can lie down and not be afraid. Yes, we can lie down and our sleep will be sweet. It's one of our favorite bedtime prayers. It's right out of the Bible. Lord, make our sleep tonight to be sweet. Well, if the Lord is your safety, how great is this for your safety? You're safe all day. Wherever you go, you're safe all night. And then you're safe from all the wicked, verse 25. Do not be afraid of sudden terror or of trouble from the wicked when it comes. This too is in the flow of thought. Psalm 121, it goes from, the sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night, to, Yahweh shall preserve you from all evil. Not just from some evil, from all of it. So if all of the consequences of the fall in this world were to combine themselves into one army, and then if all the hosts of Satan and all the wicked spirits that fell after him and with him were to combine in a second army, and all of the evil people that there have ever been were to combine themselves into a third army and somehow all of these armies could attack you all together at once. The smallest believing child is safe enough to withstand all of that attack because the Lord is your safety. He will preserve you from all evil. says Psalm 121. And here he tells us, do not be afraid of sudden terror, nor of trouble from the wicked when it comes. We're safe all day, safe all night, safe from all the wicked because we are safe, yes, in the Lord himself, in that horse. To finish out Psalm 121, he shall preserve your soul. Yahweh shall preserve your going out, your coming in from this time forth and even forevermore. And here again, repeating his name, Yahweh, verse 26. For Yahweh will be your confidence and will keep your foot from being caught. I was very pleased recently to have a conversation with relative of mine who is not a Reformed Presbyterian. He's from the other side of the family, so he's a Coptic Orthodox in background. You never know what you're going to get. It just depends a lot on how much the Lord has blessed his word to them over against the state of their church. And he was talking to me about something that could have been disturbing. But he started out, I am relaxed and I hope you are relaxed. God controls everything. He works all things according to the counsel of his will. And that's a good indication of someone who's read or heard Ephesians one enough times. And praise God, he works all things according to the counsel of his will. Even if there are greatly evil people with greatly evil intentions, like Joseph's brothers were, There is an infinitely greater God with infinitely good intentions, and he works everything. He works everything. He doesn't just react to everything. He doesn't just overcome everything. He works all things. according to the counsel of his will, we are safe in the Lord himself." Well, how great then is our safety. That reminds us to live like safe people, to live like safe people, not in the first place, not to imitate the wicked, but to live as those who belong to God, who know Him to be our creator, who know ourselves to be made in His image, who know ourselves to be redeemed by His Son, at this time whom He had promised, the Savior that He had promised them, all the more for us, His Son, who came into the world and accomplished our redemption, Therefore, we want to live like those who belong to him. Don't you see how terrible disobedience is and being lax about obeying God's commandments are for the believer? When you disobey God, when you get into the habit of breaking His commandments, and it doesn't bother your conscience, and you don't immediately come, and hate your sin, and refresh your conscience, wash it again in the blood of the Lord Jesus, enjoy your forgiveness from Him. If you get into the habit of tolerating your sin, you cut off from yourself. that grace that is on your neck, those tokens, those evidences by which the Lord assures you that you belong to him. And so right in the middle of this passage on safety, he gives us four I only listed three here, but he gives us four. Four places in our lives where living by God's wisdom, living by the knowledge of God as the creator in ourselves and in his image. and sin as the great evil and the great danger. Four ways that will show up in our lives. First, in verse 27, where we take the ability to do good as an assignment from God. Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due when it is in the power of your hand to do so. So you have it in the power of your hand to do them good. And there are a couple of ways, then, that you can find out that they are ones to whom it is due from you. You are not God. You are not able to do good to everyone in all of the world, all the time. Sometimes we hear people talk as if having safety or security or means is somehow evil because there's someone somewhere who doesn't. Well, they have not been assigned to us. But if God has given us means, then we need to pay attention. "'cause there are those who are our neighbors "'and who have needs, and so we should take "'the moment of opportunity as an assignment "'to do good,' verse 28. "'Do not say to your neighbor, "'Go and come back, and tomorrow I will give it, "'when you have it with you.'" You see, sometimes God gives your neighbor a need, gives your brother or sister, especially in the church, a need. Galatians 6, verse 10, let us do good to all, and especially to the household of faith. And he gives you to discover it or learn about it. And you take the fact that they are your neighbor or your brother or sister in your church or in your sister church, in a church of which maybe your deacons have knowledge and they have let you know, and you have some ability, that's an assignment from God. Don't ignore that. The one who works all things, according to the council as well, the one who's keeping you safe in everything that he does, working all things together for your good. One of the ways that we live according to his wisdom is by taking what we know about him, what we know about people being made in his image, what we know about his church being in covenant with him, joined to him, redeemed by the blood of Christ, and we combine all those things to interpret the events of our lives. And so we take a moment of opportunity as an assignment to do good. This is so different, isn't it, children? From going around your house and seeing something on the floor that no one picked up and thinking, well, that wasn't mine. or seeing dishes that need to be done, or laundry that needs to be folded, and thinking, well, so-and-so doesn't do enough of their work, or mom didn't tell me to do that. No, you see an opportunity to do good, and you say, aha, an assignment from God, God who made me. put a need right here on the couch in my own living room, and I can do it because God has given me to do it. So you live in fellowship with him, recognizing and interpreting your life according to who God is and whom he has made you to be, and others being made in his image, and especially believers being redeemed by Christ and united to him. And of course, that's a wonderful example because our Nearest neighbors are the ones who are in our own house, and we should take proximity to others, nearness to others in God's providence, also as having divine, placing us under divine obligation. Do not devise evil against your neighbor, for he dwells by you for safety's sake. Societies are God's idea. God does not intend for everyone to be a monk and go live in a cave, or the 21st century Middle Tennessee equivalent. Live off the grid, make a self-sustaining homestead, cut yourself off from society, and just enjoy your tiny little commune. Not that there's anything wrong with homesteading or living off the grid, but God designed us to have neighbors. for mutual help and safety, as it says here, and those whom the Lord has placed in proximity to you. That too is an assignment to do good. And in the last place, of course, recognizing. recognizing that every man is made in the image of God and therefore only for those reasons where we have an obligation, an obligation to strive with a man. whether it's to prevent him from sinning against us, our neighbor, or something like that. He says, do not strive with a man without cause, if he has done you no harm. And so we must respect the image of God in others. Note, however, that this also means respecting the image of God in yourself. Self-defense is preserved here in verse 30. And so this is the way that safe people live. Those who are safe with God live righteously. They cannot live as if they belong to themselves. taking advantage of others or ignoring the needs of others, indulging themselves for the sake of themselves and say, well, I'm safe because I belong to God. Do you? Is belonging to God just something that a man says in his head or feels in his head? that makes a difference in this life? Is union with Christ just a collection of doctrines that we agree with and then it doesn't make any difference, doesn't make any other change in the person's life? Of course, when we ask it that way, we can hear just how nonsensical that is. So, safe people live exercising righteousness, but there's not just the exercise of their righteousness. There's the example that they reject. They do not envy the oppressor. Now, the oppressor may be able to get himself lots of things in this world, like that wealthy man that Asaph was envying at the beginning of Psalm 73. But remember, remember what the great danger is. Remember from whom alone comes real safety. Remember the greatness of the safety that those who have the Lord have in the Lord and from the Lord. And remember that the Lord makes a difference in our lives and then reject the example. Do not envy the oppressor. It doesn't matter what he has. what possessions he has, power or influence he has, don't envy him, don't choose any of his ways. Why? Because there's not just the exercise of the righteousness of those who are safe, and not just the example that those who are safe reject. There is the examination or the judgment that they must remember and that we have in these four comparisons. We don't really have time to consider them in detail, but listen to each one of these and remember that the Lord is always observing men and responding to them. The perverse person is an abomination to Yahweh. So he hates them. But his secret counsel, that is the Lord's secret counsel, is with the upright. So they are his friends. Isn't that a wonderful way to think about the wisdom and knowledge and discretion that we get in the word of God? His secret counsel. Doesn't that just make you want to steal away from private worship, secret worship right now? to take secret counsel with God. And yet every believer can come to God in his word and have that intimate fellowship and take secret counsel with him. The curse of Yahweh is on the house of the wicked, but he blesses the home of the just. Surely he scorns the scornful, but gives grace to the humble. The wise shall inherit glory, but shame shall be the legacy of fools. Everything happens in the providence of God. Everything you do, you do before the Lord and in relationship to him. Therefore, if you would be safe, first and foremost, find your safety in him. and as one who belongs to him, live like one who belongs to him. And knowing that you have him, knowing that he's the one who gave you to live that way, you may then live in the confidence that you are blessed by him, that you have his secret counsel with you, that he gives you grace, and that you shall inherit glory.