Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2150
“Let not your heart envy sinners: but be you in the fear of the Lord all the day long. For surely there is an end, and your expectation shall not be cut off.” Proverbs 23:17,18.
LAST Lord’s-Day we had for our texts two promises [EverlastingLove Revealed, #2149.] I trust they were full of comfort to the tried people of God and to souls in the anguish of conviction. Today we will consider two precepts so that we may not seem to neglect any part of the Word of God, for the precept is as Divine as the promise. Here we have a command given of the Holy Spirit through the wisest of men and therefore both on the Divine and on the human side it is most weighty. I said that Solomon was the wisest of men and yet he became, in practice, the most foolish. By his folly he gained a fresh store of experience of the saddest sort and we trust that he turned to God with a penitent heart and so became wiser than ever—wiser with a second wisdom which the Grace of God had given him—to consecrate his earthly wisdom.
He who had been a voluptuous prince became the wise preacher in Israel—let us give our hearts to know the wisdom which he taught. The words of Solomon to his own son are not only wise, but full of tender anxiety. They are worthy, therefore, to be set in the highest degree as to value and to be received with heartiness as the language of fatherly affection. These verses are found in the Book of Proverbs—let them pass current as Proverbs in the Church of God as they did in Israel of old. Let them be “familiar in our mouths as household words.” Let them be often quoted, frequently weighed and then carried into daily practice. God grant that this particular text may become proverbial in this Church from this day forward. May the Holy Spirit impress it on every memory and heart! May it be embodied in all our lives!
If you will look steadily at the text you will see, first, the prescribed course of the godly man—“Be you in the fear of the Lord all the day long.” Secondly, you will note the probable interruption of that course. It occurred in those past ages and it still occurs—“Let not your heart envy sinners.” We are often tempted to repine because the wicked prosper. When we do, the fear of the Lord within us is disturbed and envious thoughts arise—which will lead on to murmuring and to distrust of our heavenly Father unless they are speedily checked. So foolish and ignorant are we, that we lose our walk with God by fretting because of evildoers.
Thirdly, we shall notice, before we close, the helpful consideration which may enable us to hold on our way and to cease from fretting about the proud prosperity of the ungodly—“For surely there is an end, and your expectation shall not be cut off.”
I. Oh, for Divine Grace to practice what the Spirit of God says with regard to our first point, THE PRESCRIBED COURSE OF THE BELIEVER—“Be you in the fear of the Lord all the day long!” The fear of the Lord is a brief description for true religion. It is an inward condition causing hearty submission to our heavenly Father. It consists very much in a holy reverence of God and a sacred awe of Him. This is accompanied by a child-like trust in Him which leads to loving obedience, tender submission and lowly adoration. It is a filial fear. Not the fear which has torment, but that which accompanies joy when we “rejoice with trembling.” We must, first of all, be in the fear of God before we can remain in it “all the day long.”
This can never be our condition except as the fruit of the new birth. To be in the fear of the Lord, “you must be born again.” The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, as we are taught by the Holy Spirit who is the sole Author of all Grace. Where this fear exists, it is the token of eternal life and it proves the abiding indwelling of the Holy Spirit. “Happy is the man that fears always.” “The Lord takes pleasure in them that fear Him.” This holy fear of the living God is the life of God showing itself in the quickened ones. This fear, according to the text, is for all the day and for every day—the longest day is not to be too long for our reverence, nor for our obedience. If our days are lengthened until the
day of life declines into the evening of old age, still are we to be in the fear of God—yes, as the day grows longer, our holy fear must be deeper.
This is contrary to the habit of those persons who have a religion of show. They are very fine, very holy, very devout—when anybody looks at them—but this is the love of human approbation, not the fear of the Lord. The Pharisee, with a half-penny in one hand and a trumpet in the other, is a picture of the man who gives an alms only that his praises may be sounded forth. The Pharisee, standing at the corner of the street, saying his prayers, is a picture of the man who never prays in secret but is very glib in pious assemblies. “Verily, I say unto you, They have their reward.” Show religion is a vain show! Do nothing to be seen of men or you will ripen into a mere hypocrite.