Proverbs 2, verses 1 through 9, these are God's words. My son, if you receive my words and treasure my commands within you, so that you incline your ear to wisdom and apply your heart to understanding, yes, if you cry out for discernment and lift up your voice for understanding, if you seek her as silver and search for her as for hidden treasures, Then you will understand the fear of Yahweh and find the knowledge of God. For Yahweh gives wisdom. From his mouth come knowledge and understanding. He stores ups and wisdom for the upright. He is a shield to those who walk uprightly. He guards the paths of justice and preserves the way of his saints. then you will understand righteousness and justice, equity, and every good path. Amen. This ends this reading of God's inspired and inerrant word. Well, we are in danger. We are in danger from ourselves, from our sinful nature, having sinned in Adam and fallen with him, having given our consent to his sin with every subsequent sin of our own and being full of sinfulness. a great generosity that we heard about last week when God, addressing us, compares his wisdom to the sinners who might entice us and invite us, and describing his wisdom as giving a counter-invitation. And the need to do, need to to respond to hear and heed this invitation to get wisdom while we may, lest we be destroyed. And this wonderful conclusion to last week's passage, but whoever listens to me will dwell safely and will be secure without fear of evil. And so the father here addresses his son again, tenderly, earnestly, dearly, my son. Of course, setting for us an example of how fathers should instruct their children, but also reminding us that God deals with us. as a father to his own children, that his law is not harsh or tyrannical or domineering, but that his law is fatherly instruction and commandment, that we who are his children might live consistently with the character of him who has given himself to us as a father. And so we must hear and heed wisdom's invitation and now he comes to us and he tells us what that hearing and heeding is going to look like, what that response to wisdom's invitation is going to look like. In the first four verses, he gives us the if, the what we must do, That is the if, and if we do what we must do in verses one through four, then he tells us what we will obtain, what we will find, what we will receive in verses five and six. So first what we must do in verses one through four, and then what we find, what we shall find if we do so in verses five and six because of what he does. as we'll hear in verses 7-9. First then, what we must do. My son, if you receive my words and treasure my commands within you, so that you incline your ear to wisdom, And so the first thing that we must do is this receiving, this inclining of our ear. And of course, it's not just the body part, children, that God has given us ears and we should aim them. They are designed to be aimed at wherever our faces are pointing, although perhaps you may hear better out of one ear, or maybe have just tried on occasion to aim just one ear. He's not just talking about your ear, is he? He's saying, direct yourself into the path from which wisdom comes. God has given you a Bible. Don't leave that Bible unopened. Don't leave it on the shelf. Make good use of it. He has given you, some of you, many decades. And others of you, not as many decades, but a large portion of your life. has been spent hearing his word all week by week in the assembly. Meditate upon what he has said and incline yourself, direct your thoughts. Don't just let your thoughts drift aimlessly. Don't let your flesh grab them, grab your thoughts. Either stir up anxiety, or desire, or planning what you're going to get, or how you're going to accomplish whatever fleshly aim you might have. No, direct your thoughts towards God's work. Especially since He blesses the reading, but especially the hearing of His word. When His word is going to be preached, particularly if you know some faithful preacher. or the Lord having given you a faithful preacher in the local congregation. Whenever you have the opportunity to go and sit under the word preached, incline yourself, direct yourself towards the words that God is giving. That's the real helpfulness of the word ear there. that God gives his wisdom to us, not by infusion, not by magic, not by taking a pill or some superstitious sort of exercise, but in those actions by which God gives us to draw near to him. He gives his wisdom to us in words. Every word of scripture is breathed out by God and useful. And so we are to direct ourselves into the path, aim ourselves at the words of God. And when we get there, what do you think we should do, children? What do you think inclining your ear is? Okay, pastor said the one application of this is that if there's preaching, I should be there. Well, I'm there, I just checked the box and pretty soon I'll be wise because I was there for a whole bunch of sermons. Is that the inclining of our ear? No, you must do something when you come. You must pay attention, and not just pay attention, but paying attention with all the faculties of your soul, thinking about what is said, taking note maybe if there's a word that you didn't understand and catching it from the context, or just continuing to pay attention, because the pastor may use a word and then explain it to you, and you don't get hung up on it. You pay attention, you ask God for help with your mind, And you think about what is being said, but not just your thoughts, but your affections. When you're told about how God is fatherly, you receive His fatherly love, and you are delighted, and you love Him back. You lift up your heart towards Him. When you hear about how dangerous and wicked our sin is, you hate your sin, and you consider it filthy and disgusting and hateful and an enemy. When you hear about what God has done, we are so glad and thankful. We praise him for his greatness and thank him for You incline your ear and apply your heart. Incline your ear and apply your heart, that's verse two. So incline your ear to wisdom and apply your heart to understanding. And of course, not just your thoughts, not just your affections, but your will, your desires, your decisions. that what God teaches you is good, you desire what is good, and what God tells you you should do, you resolve to do, and you promise to Him in your heart. You've often heard, or some maybe even have prayed, that you would keep your vows to God. We sing that way when we sing the songs that He has given us, and the Psalms. Well, these vows, these promises, these resolutions that we make before God, unto God in worship, apply your heart, your thoughts, your affections, your will. And as you do so, you will be treasuring His commands. My son, if you receive my words and treasure my commands within you, not treasure them as merely to look at and to polish and to be glad I have understood and collected all these theological ideas and I can connect them together. I can tell you what they mean. Well, that is a sort of treasuring, but that's not all of the treasuring here. That's not the major part of the treasuring here. We treasure it as valuable, but we treasure it within us, so that the receiving and inclining our ear and the treasuring commands within us are all feeding into this, applying your heart to understanding. And it's just a problem. We've got a problem with this. You and I can't really change the way that we think. And we're very much under the power often, of how we feel. And many of us have tried but defend that a person can't change for himself, his desires, his will. And so praise God, He hasn't just told us to come to His Word, attending carefully and treasuring and applying our heart, seeking to have our thoughts changed and our feelings changed and our desires and our choices changed, but we can ask Him to do it. Yes, if you cry out for discernment and lift up your voice for understanding. Now, he's not here saying cry out in agony like someone who's just so longing and desiring that he cries out, but it's not aimed at anyone. Certainly the intensity of that kind of cry is implied here. But there's someone listening. There's someone to whom we are to cry out, isn't there? Does He not tell us that we should come to Him? I can't remember how Hebrews 4 verse 16 starts just now. Come boldly to the throne of grace. in order to obtain mercy and find grace to help in the time of need. Now this is a crying out to God. This is a lifting up your voice to God. You're not left by yourself. The one who gives wisdom is the one who has given his word to give you wisdom. The one who tells you to incline your ear and to treasure and to apply your heart is the one who actually works in your mind, works in your heart, works in your soul. He changes your thoughts, changes your feelings, changes your desires and your choices. And so we are always to come to his word, crying out to him, taking his word personally. not just coming and thinking, OK, I've got to figure this passage out. And perhaps when we come to the conclusion that we're unable to understand what we should have gotten out of it, or perhaps we can see how it should move us, but we feel comparatively unmoved. No, don't come as if it's something that you are doing by yourself or from yourself. You have these instructions of what He says to do, but come praying. Come praying. You learn this, don't you, when His Word and various aspects of our use of His Word, our believing His Word, are presented to us in the armor of God in Ephesians chapter 6? And you've got things like his righteousness and salvation and truth and the gospel of peace and all these things that are his word or that we believe from his word or receive by a believing response to his word. And yet he says in all things, praying. that we must always come to his word and come to his worship, praying. Here's a great thing for you to do in that time before the service, and I'll let you in on a secret. You don't actually have to wait until the elder up front says, OK, now let's pray. You can start praying earlier than that. In fact, you can pray when you wake up that morning and you realize it's the Lord's Day and I'm going to go hear God's Word preached today and how often I have come and I haven't learned the way that I wish I had and I haven't been full-hearted towards Him and all of the emotions and affections. that I shouldn't have, that I should have had, and I haven't had dealings with Him in which my will to love Him and obey Him and serve Him and kill sin had not been refreshed and resolved. Oh God, help me today. It's another Lord's Day. You are the one who must do these things. You've told me to receive your words. You've told me to treasure your commands. You've told me to incline my ear and apply my heart. But here I am now, verse three, crying out for discernment, lifting up my voice for understanding. And will not the God who has told you to do this, will he not answer the prayer that he commanded you to cry out to him? He is not some deceitful instructor or commander who will tell us to do this and tell us to cry out for the effect of it and not come by His grace. We will not fail to come by His Almighty Spirit and cause His Word to be implanted in your heart. The implanted Word, which is able to save your soul. He says, James chapter one, So what we must do, receive this treasure, apply our hearts, and pray. And when that prayer is answered, what do we find? What do we find, verses five and six? And as is so often the case, Jesus said it was the case, didn't he, when he said, you search the scriptures, for you think that in them you have eternal life, but it is they that speak of me, he said. We so often find that these what questions in the Bible have this whom answer or this who answer because he's active and doing it. What we find is whom we find. Then you will understand. What will we understand? If we've inclined our ear to wisdom and we've applied our heart and we're all ready and we've cried out and it's going to, we're going to get wisdom now. We're going to understand. Then you'll understand the fear of Yahweh. Then you will begin to understand who God is. This glorious being from everlasting to everlasting, who is ever-blessed in himself and dwells in unapproachable light. This triune God who lives in perfect adoration and fellowship. and love between the three persons, among the three persons of the Godhead and who made creatures, created heaven and earth and all that is in them. All of them giving him glory but not adding to his glory as if the creature could add anything to his glory. And why create all of these? If the Father and the Son and the Spirit are enjoying and adoring and loving each the other from all eternity in an unincreaseable way, He's created one of these creatures in His own image to bring into loving and being loved and knowing and being known. to adore him and behold and enjoy his majesty and in this complete generosity, gaining nothing by it, giving everything by it. God creating beings, creatures in his own image, we whom he formed out of the dirt, and yet he himself breathed into our first father Adam's nostrils the breath of life. And how we ought to marvel and wonder with what gratitude we should live, with what joy and zeal we should embrace the purpose of our creation, to know our God, and image Him, and give Him glory. And yet we sinned in our first parents, and we fell. And now we are no longer, we no longer come into the world in knowledge and righteousness and holiness. We no longer come into the world fearing Yahweh. Living in wonder at and worship unto the living God who made us for himself. And so when we make use of his word and respond to his invitation in the way that is instructed in verses 1 through 4, what we find is a what with a, that's really a whom. Whom we find is him. is he, sorry, then you will understand the fear of God and find the knowledge of not just facts, not even just great and wonderful ideas, but the knowledge of God himself, a personal knowledge and knowing him, because God has so designed us that the way that we may be wise, the way that we may learn and understand reality, the first great reality, who He is, and what He has done, and to know and understand who we are, and what we have done, and what our condition is, and what God has done about that, and how He saves us, and what He does in us when He saves us, and what we are to do by His grace, and all these things. They all come, not just in the knowledge of ideas, but in the knowledge of our God. Because He gives it to us personally. You see, verse six, wisdom comes not as an achievement, but as a gift. Remember, after we pointed out the other things that we must do, we noted in verse three that Even doing all these things, we must be crying out, we must be lifting up our voice, because we are unable to do the things that we must do. And He doesn't just then come and supply power and is glorified as the Mighty One who is able to work on our mind and able to work on our heart, able to work on our affections, able to work on our wills. But He comes not merely as the Mighty One, not only as the Mighty One, but as the Good One, as the Generous One. Wisdom comes not as an achievement, but as a gift. For Yahweh gives wisdom. You see, he glorifies himself. He glorifies himself in being generous and giving us wisdom as a gift. Yes, he could have been glorified upon us as he is glorified upon every single one of the angels that fell. None of them are saved. None of them are made righteous or holy. when he could have been glorified in making his wrath and his power known. Remember that from Romans 9, what if God, willing to show his power and his wrath upon vessels prepared for destruction, but he patiently endures those vessels prepared for destruction, why? in order to make the riches of his glory known upon vessels prepared for mercy. And so it's very similar here when we think about how to come to God's word and what we must do and how it works in us. Well, one of the great truths in all of this is that it is a gift that God may show his generosity by how he works in us. For Yahweh gives From his mouth come knowledge and understanding. Now that's a little bit of a head scratcher, isn't it, children? From his mouth. Does God have a body? No, what is God? God is a spirit and has not a body like man. So does he have lips and teeth and tongue? Does he have a mouth? Well, I know he doesn't. Who doesn't have mouths? I see not very well. I tried to put my glasses on earlier and it helped a little bit. I see many mouths. God made you with mouths. He made me with a mouth. So that when you and I have spent time together and we've heard things and spoken things to one another, we've opened our mouths as personal interaction with one another. It's one of the things you can't get from an audio recording. even streaming such as it is, and we're grateful for the availability of the technology, but it's just not as personal as coming and seeing one another, sitting under the preaching in person. Well, when he uses the word mev here, from his mouth come knowledge and understanding, he's talking about how personally and intimately God communicates himself to us by his word. That's what 2 Timothy is talking about when it says every word of scripture is breathed out by God. Yes, it means every word of Scripture is God's own word, and since God cannot lie, the Scripture cannot lie. We rest our doctrine of inerrancy on it. And there's the inerrancy of Scripture, and then the next verse, the sufficiency of Scripture, that the man of God may be equipped for every good work. But in verse 16 there in 2 Timothy 3, there's the intimacy of scripture. Every word of scripture is breathed out by God. And so there is not just the effectiveness of God's word because he answers our prayers and he works and he gives us wisdom. There's the relational sweetness of wisdom. There's the relational significance of wisdom as being personally communicated to us by God, who draws us near to himself and who himself draws near to us by his word that he blesses to us. is not merely a, when he gives wisdom, for Yahweh gives wisdom, it's not merely a transaction or an operation, it's not merely transactional or operational, but personal. It comes from his mouth. You remember one of the temptations in chapter one, one of the enticements from among sinners was, Throw your lot in with us. We will all have one purse. Come with us. And one of the enticements was to feel like you belong. And many, many people have fallen into sin in order to feel like they belong in some way, in some fashion. Well, how much better is this? from his mouth comes knowledge and understanding. And so finally, what then does he do? As he brings us near, as he, as it were, opens his mouth and breathes out, not that he has a mouth, but he communicates to us by his spirit and he uses words and he addresses us and he works on our own minds and our own souls God, the Holy Spirit, and love from all eternity in this work that he is carrying out, and the plan of the Father to give people to the Son, and the Son to redeem them, and give them to the Father, and the Spirit giving us the words of God, God loving us and speaking to us. What does he do? What does he give us? Well, we've arranged it, arranged verses 7 through 9 in these four P words, provision, protection, preservation, preparation. Provision, he stores up sand wisdom. for the upright, this word that's translated sound wisdom, meaning effective or successful deciding or acting. It's wisdom that is effective and successful in the use of it, in the employment of it. And he has a treasury We were told to treasure wisdom as silver or hidden treasure. Seek for it as silver and search for it as hidden treasure, verse four. Treasure his commands within us, verse one. But here the treasury, in verse seven, is God's treasury, not ours. And now this is an infinitely smaller treasure. illustration, but when I was a child, I'm not saying that parents should let their children do these sorts of things, but it happened to me in God's providence. No doubt, I have much pleading of my own. There was a cartoon, and there was a very wealthy duck, and he had this giant room full of Heaps of gold, and in the opening scenes of the cartoon, he would dive into the gold and swim around in it. He had this giant treasury where he had stored up his wealth. Well, the living God has an infinite treasury where he stores up sound wisdom. You and I often feel our lack of wisdom. I think for many of us it feels like we're barely making it one day to the next, one week to the next, God giving us just enough grace for the day and we being grateful and looking to him for more. But just because you and I must live one day at a time in continual dependence upon grace, do not fret as if the wisdom is going to run out. God has stored up sound wisdom for the upright. There is no limit to the abundance of the treasury from which we receive our portions from God, who gives his wisdom to us by his mouth. Oh, sometimes we make a mistake, we come into a situation, we've been Christians for a long time, we know our doctrine really well, and we feel flustered because we just can't see what to do in a particular situation. But we have not exhausted the treasury. Shall we not keep going back to Him who has stored up sound wisdom for us? And have we really exhausted his work? Will he not now give more of that effective and successful decision-making and acting? Now, he stores up sound wisdom with the upright provision. And then there's also the protection. He is a shield to those who walk uprightly. Again, an illustration that I'm not meant to reinforce that from which I'm illustrating. I used to play a game in which you need a shield for something. I can't even remember much of the particulars, but you start out with a wooden shield, and you can work your way up, and you get a metal shield, and an iron shield, and a steel shield, We had a diamond and then whatever nonsense, the game people made up. Well, what kind of a shield does God give his people in verse seven? He is a shield to those who walk upright. He himself is our shield. And this is what you love to sing from Psalm 46. God is our refuge and our strength. No, He gives us a refuge. And He gives us strength. God is our refuge. God is our strength. And so there's protection. And then there's preservation, His keeping us in the right path. I'm very bad at bowling, and perhaps none of you are so afflicted as I am, but they do things for people at the bowling alley, maybe not at my age, it's been a long time since I was born. They used to do things for people, or they do things for people who are the age that I used to be, and they would put bumpers in the lanes. So you could never throw a gutter ball, never fall off the path. It would always end up doing what you wanted. Is that not what God is doing there in verse eight? Is it, they're not something that he guards the paths of the righteous and preserves the way of his saints. Now, this is true in two different ways, isn't it? One, His providence to us is perfect. He works all things according to the counsel of His will. And so, and he does so because he is bringing us into our inheritance in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now that doesn't excuse any foolishness, it doesn't excuse any sin, but it does make certain that no ultimate harm can come to us. That he has ordained even, even when we have fallen, even when we have been foolish, even when we have been sinful, if we have Christ, that we know that he who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us, why did he have to give him up for us? Because we're sinful. But if he did not spare him but gave him up for us, certainly he will together with him freely give us all things. So when he says we know all things work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose, it doesn't just mean as long as they love God. No, but because God has called them, because God has produced what love they have for Him, they may know that He guards their path and He preserves their way. But there is a second way in verse 8. And that is the way of not letting us fall. Yes, we sin, but we cannot ever be disunited from Christ. We can never have the seed of God. That new life that we have been given by the Holy Spirit can never be taken from us. Now, someone who is presumptuous, who hears such ideas, such truths, and says, aha, I can do whatever I want and still be saved. This is probably not a truth that applies in his case. It's unlikely that someone who thinks that way has ever actually been saved. But God guards the paths of the justice. He preserves the way of the saints. He instructs us because He is preserving us, keeping us in the right path. Now, more on this in the rest of the chapter because there are paths that we need to be protected from, the paths of those who rejoice in doing evil, the paths of the loose woman, but even the paths of our own remaining sinful ones. We need to be guarded from that. We need to be preserved to walk in the right way. And then in preparation, this train, verse nine, then you will understand righteousness and justice, equity, and every good path. Yes, there is the forming of ideas, the forming of doctrine. the skill of upright, godly decision-making and wise, beneficial decision-making. Both of those things are here in verse 9. Not just that which is righteous and according to God's law and moral, but also that which is effective and wise and beneficial and good. Decision-making in the Christian life, the exercise of prudence and discernment, especially, is not just right from wrong, but good from better, and best from better and good. And God does give these things to his people. As he matures you, there is such a thing as Christian maturity. There is such a thing as growing in righteousness and justice and equity and every good path. But it is not the way to God. God is the way to it. It's what he does. And why does he do it? because we're his. Did you catch that in verse eight? He guards the paths of justice and preserves the way of his saints. If by God's grace you attend upon him and you treasure him by attending upon his word and treasuring his word, you're crying out to him to give you to do so and you do do so. What you find is that you're attending upon God because he attended upon you first. And that you're coming to treasure him and treasure his word because he has treasured you first. It was he who set you apart to himself before the world began. It's He who, when He brings you to faith in Christ and gathers you, not just to Himself by faith invisibly and spiritually, but even visibly into His church and separates you from the world, He points at you, He marks you, and He says, holy. Just like we say in 1 Corinthians 7 that children of believers are holy. which is why the believing wife in that case is trying to remain with her husband, her unbelieving husband, if you will, at her, so that their children who would be under her and because of her be included in the church, says, as it is, your children are holy. They have the holy name of the triune God upon them, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Oh, this is something that isn't just visibly and covenantally and formally, externally put upon us in the visible church. This is a reality of the life of a believer. God counts us as his. He preserves the way of his saints. And so this is great motivation to do what we must do in verses one through four, that we might find not merely ideas or skill or information, but that we might find him. And that as he provides for us and protects us and preserves us and equips us, prepares us, that we might find that he's doing it because we're his. And he has loved us.