Consider the Path: let your ways be established

Consider the Path: let your ways be established

Proverbs 4:20–27 (HCSB)

The Straight Path

    20 My son, pay attention to my words; 

listen closely to my sayings. 

    21 Don’t lose sight of them; 

keep them within your heart. 

    22 For they are life to those who find them, 

and health to one’s whole body. 

    23 Guard your heart above all else, 

for it is the source of life. 

    24 Don’t let your mouth speak dishonestly, 

and don’t let your lips talk deviously. 

    25 Let your eyes look forward; 

fix your gaze  straight ahead. 

    26 Carefully consider the path for your feet, 

and all your ways will be established. 

    27 Don’t turn to the right or to the left; 

keep your feet away from evil.

Key to Solomon’s wisdom in this passage is that it is developed using parts of the body as emphasis to his message.

Pay attention when wisdom is present! V. 20

Obviously the part of the body that is emphasized is the ear.  Significance to what we choose to allow to come into our ears.  

NT admonition to this effect: Ephesians 5:4 (HCSB)

4 Coarse and foolish talking or crude joking are not suitable, but rather giving thanks.

Not a call to be holier than thou.  I can’t believe what you just said.  If you’re going to talk like that, I’m outahere.  What it is a call to do is to make sure that we do more than not participate.  If we know the kind of conversation and it can have no redemptive purpose, then we avoid putting our ears into the situation.  Time for enduring terrible talk for redemptive purpose: you can’t build a relationship with sinners if you don’t recognize that “sinners do what sinners do; sinners talk like sinners talk”.

Psalm 1:1 (HCSB)

    1 How happy is the man 

who does not follow  the advice of the wicked 

or take  the path of sinners 

or join a group  of mockers!

This expands the realm of where we take our ears.  

Modern forms of ungodly counsel: pop psychology.  Many of the television programs that offer self-help are along this vein.  

v. 20 is the total opposite to Ps. 1:1. Psalm 1:1 tells us who we shouldn’t listen to. Proverbs 4:20 tells us clearly who we should be listening to. Wisdom of God.  Listen carefully; listen closely.  

Eyes talked about twice.  First time here in v. 21.  Don’t take your eye off the ball.  Keep your eyes on the prize.  Wisdom needs to constantly stay in front of you.  

Heart in this passage is an all encompassing word.  Refers to your thoughts, moral compass, personality.  The inward core of who you are. Heart also talked about twice. First time: Take godly counsel and you put it at the core of your being.  Ps. 119:11.  Thy word have I hid (where?) in mine heart, that I might not sin against Thee.

Effect of what you do at the heart flows out to the whole body.  Impact on physical health.  More: impact on just living.  John 10:10 (HCSB)

10 A thief comes only to steal  and to kill and to destroy.  I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance..

What happens at the source, doesn’t stay at the source.

Wellspring. Where a spring or well gushes to the surface.  True source of where the water begins.  For us, wellspring is the heart.  Implications.

John Grisham’s book, The Appeal, about a community in Mississippi where cancer rates are off the charts.  Trace back to a chemical company dumping residue where it affects the water table.  Source of water for the community become polluted and it spreads everywhere.

Picture: bubbling pure water.  Place, intentionally, pollutant at the source.  Water flows.  Appears fine; appears drinkable; contagion flowing from the source.  Picture: keep stacking, willfully, pollutant after pollutant.  Gross, horrible stuff.

Heart defiled by sin.  Flows out and affects everything.  Expand the principle: Pr. 23:6-first part of 7: 6 Eat thou not the bread of him that hath an evil eye, 

Neither desire thou his dainty meats: 

7 For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he…

So let’s talk about the world and what it believes. The world says: What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. What you don’t know won’t hurt you. Out of sight, out of mind. God comes thundering along and declares: what happens at the source flows out into all of your life. If you put evil at the core of your being…it will flow out. The true battleground are not actions because actions don’t begin at the source. The true battleground is the battleground for your soul. Who you are the in your heart. Immediate impact?    Ps 66:18  If I regard iniquity in my heart,

      The Lord will not hear me:

So who are you?  Would people be shocked at the amount of evil piling up at the source of your life?

The mouth is a good indicator of what is in the heart. V. 24

NT admonition: Ephesians 4:15 (HCSB)

15 But speaking the truth in love, let us grow in every way into Him who is the head —Christ.

Truth characterizes what we say: bound by the cords of love.

Speak dishonestly.  What do we do?  Does this make me look fat? There will never be any woman more beautiful to me than you.  

Less the tactful than the overt: we tell the truth when our hearts are right.  We tell the truth to the government in our taxes; we tell the truth to our teachers about what work we have or haven’t done; we tell the truth when we know we’ve done wrong.

We don’t deceive.  

Pay attention to the path! V. 25-27

Easiest way to fall…don’t look where you’re going.  Two things we constantly scan.  First is make sure of the path.  Proverbs 3:5–6 (HCSB)

    5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart, 

and do not rely on your own understanding; 

    6 think about Him in all your ways, 

and He will guide you on the right paths.

Second, make sure that we’re not wandering off to the evil that we see to the side.  Come, Thou Fount of every blessing: “prone to wander, Lord, I feel it; prone to leave the God I love.  Here’s my heart,  O take and seal it, Seal it for Thy courts above.”

I’ve asked you to think about YOUR heart today.  Not the person to the left of you; not the person to the right of you.  Your heart.  Is it right towards God?