Benefits of Instruction (Proverbs #7)

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Some things in life you pick up along the way and you hold on to, you keep, and it’s not a good thing. It possibly takes years off your life. You picked it up somewhere along the way and you carried it around like a heavy weight. You picked up a drug habit along the way and much of your time became consumed with when you get the next fix. The drugs hurt your body, hurt your mind, cost you money, and ate up valuable energy that could’ve been used for something productive. You can insert any bad habit in there. It consumed your thought life, it cost money, it required time and energy and in return it hurt you. But it was something you kept, though it diminished the quality of your life substantially.

Maybe it was a bad piece of advice. And you hobbled through life in fear, maybe hopelessness, and anger until the day you realized you’ve believed this lie. And this lie had taken over your life.

There is a positive side to this as well. Some things you pick up along the way in life and it brings joy, hope, and love to you. Whether it be good or evil, you pick up things along the way, some things you keep, some things you let go of. And those things you hold on to affect you for good or for evil. With that in mind let’s consider these two verses, Proverbs 3:1-2.

You won’t waste your life

It seems like there is a little distinction between the length of days and long life here. Have you ever asked, Where did the time go? Have you ever been tangled up in something that stole your time? A bad relationship? A financial obligation?
You’ve been lost before. Maybe you spent a half-hour, an hour, a day trying to find your way back?
Instruction from a loving parent who’s been where you are and knows how the road goes is a help.
- You won’t waste your life.
- You won’t have it stolen from you by scheming people who don’t care about you.
- Some relationships, financial connections, pleasure-seeking, take years off your life. Maybe not cutting your life short, but requiring you to waste so much of your time that you’ll wonder where the time went. Many of them can be avoided by listening to someone who cares for you and who’s been there.

You won’t die before your time

This is a medical statement.
- A truly thorough medical diagnosis would have to include spiritual problems.
Ecclesiastes 7:17 Be not over much wicked, neither be thou foolish: why shouldest thou die before thy time?
Exodus 20:12 Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob all died in a good old age the LORD said.

It’ll be well with you

Ephesians 6:1-3 Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. 2 Honour thy father and mother; (which is the first commandment with promise;) 3 That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.
That added life looks like the commandments.

Keeping the commandments does not mean sinlessness

Keep my commandments is the opposite of forgetting the commandments (Deuteronomy 4:9). It means walking in the light. When the LORD says to sinners to keep His commandments, that’s what He expects them to do. This isn’t a “gotcha” statement that God knows is unattainable. When parents tell their children to do what they say it’s the same thing as the LORD saying keep my commandments.
The LORD expects sinners to keep his commandments about 130 times in the Bible, both old and new testament. This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased, hear ye him is a commandment of God.
There is a difference between a sinner that can’t wait to get away from the commandments of God and a sinner who loves the commandments of God. The difference is what the heart is fixed on.
Solomon says let your heart keep my commandments. You and I need to train our hearts to love instruction. And that is something you tell your heart to do. You can also tell your heart to hate instruction. Get defensive, get angry, hateful, but you and I are supposed to obey from the heart.