Providence Points: Devotional, August 20 2007
shawn...@gmail.com
Biblical, Devotional & Informative
August 20, 2007
I have not been idle. I have collected various godly non-copy written
books from online. Of course, being over 100 years old may have
something to do with it. So, every other week will be a devotional
insert. Use it with your family; collect them for latter use; collate
them all and have the entire book for future re-use. Enjoy. And be
blessed.
Laws from Heaven for Life on Earth, William Arnot, Scottish
Presbyterian minister, 1858. Book of Proverbs. See: books.google.com
Chapter 1: THE PREACHER
The Proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel.
GOD'S word is like God's world: it combines unity of pervading
principle, with endless variety in detail The whole Bible, considered
as one book, stands entirely apart from all other writings; and yet
every several portion of it is distinguished from every other portion,
as much as one merely human writing is distinguished from another.
This combination results from the manner in which it has pleased God
to make known his will One Divine- Spirit inspires; hence the unity of
the whole. Men of diverse age, taste, and attainments write; hence the
diversity of the parts. Although the books are written by Moses,
David, Solomon, they are all alike the word of God: therefore they
exhibit a complete separation from all other writings, and a perfect
consistency among themselves.
Again, although they are all one as being the word of God, they are as
much the genuine product of different human minds, as the ordinary
writings of men are the work of their authors: therefore there is in
matter and manner, an unconstrained, natural, life-like diversity.
It was God who "spake unto the fathers," but it was " by the prophets"
that he spoke; not by their tongues only, but their understandings,
memories, tastes ; in short, all that constituted the men. There is as
much individuality in the books of Scripture as in any other books.
There is as much of Moses shining through the Pentateuch, as of Gibbon
in the Decline and Fall As are the articulating lips to the soul whose
thoughts they utter, so are the prophets to the Holy Spirit, whose
mind they reveal Every writer was chosen by God, as well as every
word. He had a purpose to serve by the disposition, the acquirements,
and the experience of each. The education of Moses as one of the royal
race of Egypt was a qualification necessary to the leader of the
exodus, and the writer
of the Pentateuch. The experience of David, with its successive
stages, like geologic strata, touching each other in abrupt contrast,
first as a shepherd youth, then as a
fugitive warrior, and last as a victorious king, was a qualification
indispensable to the sweet singer of Israel God needed a human spirit
as a mould to cast consolation in,
for every kindred in every age. He chose one whose experience was a
compound of meekness and might, of deep distress and jubilant victory.
These, when purged of
their dross, and fused into one by the Spirit's baptism of fire, came
forth an amalgam of sacred psalmody, which the whole church militant
have been singing ever since,
and " have not yet sung dry." Solomon did not, like David, pass his
youth in pastoral simplicity, and his early manhood under cruel
persecution.
Solomon could not have written the twenty-third psalm- "The Lord is my
Shepherd;" nor the fifty-seventh-A psalm of David when he fled from
Saul in the cave. His
experience would never have suggested the plaintive strains of the
ninetieth psalm-A prayer of Moses the man of God-" Lord, thou hast
been our dwelling-place." But,
on the other hand, Solomon went through a peculiar experience of his
own, and God, who in nature gives sweet fruit to men through the root
sap of a sour crab, when a
new nature has been engrafted on the upper stem, did not disdain to
bring forth fruits of righteousness through those parts of the king's
experience that cleaved most
closely to the dust. None of all the prophets could have written the
Proverbs or the Preacher; for God is Dot wont, even in his miraculous
interpositions, to make
a fig-tree bear olive berries, or a vine figs: every creature acts
after its kind. When Solomon delineated the eager efforts of men in
search of happiness, and the disappointment which ensued, he could
say, like Bunyan, of that fierce and fruitless war, " I was there."
The heights of human prosperity he had reached: the paths of human
learning he had trodden, farther than any of his day: the pleasures of
wealth and power and pomp he had tasted, in all their variety. No
spring of earthly delight could be named, of whose waters he had not
deeply drunk. This is the man whom God has chosen as the
schoolmaster to teach us the vanity of the world when it is made the
portion of a soul, and He hath done all things well The man who has
drained the cup of pleasure can best tell the taste of its dregs.
The choice of Solomon as one of the writers of the Bible, at first
sight startles, but on deeper study instructs. We would have expected
a man of more exemplary life-
a man of uniform holiness. It is certain that in the main, the vessels
which the Spirit used were sanctified vessels. " Holy men of old spake
as they were moved by the Holy
Ghost." But as they were all corrupt at first, so there were
diversities in the operation whereby they were called and qualified
for their work. There were diversities in
the times, and degrees of their sanctification. Some were carried so
near perfection in the body, that human eyes could no longer discern
spot or wrinkle; in others the
principle of grace was so largely overlaid with earthliness, that
observers were left in doubt whether they had been turned to the
Lord's side at all But the diversity
in all its extent is like the other ways of God; and He knows how to
make either extreme fall into its place in the concert of his praise.
He who made Saul an apostle, did not disdain to use Solomon as a
prophet. Very diverse were the two men, and very diverse their lifo
course; yet in one tiling they are perfectly alike. Together in glory
now^they know themselves to have been only sinners, and agree in
ascribing all their salvation to
the mercy of God.
Moreover, although good men wrote the Bible, our faith in the Bible
does not rest on the goodness of the men who wrote it. The fatal
facility with which men glide into the worship of men may suggest
another reason why some of the channels chosen for conveying the mind
of God were marred by glaring deficiencies. Among many earthen
vessels, in various measures purged of their filthiness, may not the
Divine Administrator in wisdom select for actual use some of the least
pure, in order by that grosser argument to force into grosser minds
the conviction that the excellency of the power is all of God ?
If all the writers of the Bible had been perfect in holiness -if no
stain of sin could be traced on their character, no error rioted in
their life, it is certain that the Bible
would not have served all the purposes which it now serves among men.
It would have been God-like indeed in matter and in mould, but it
would not have reached down
to the low estate of man-it would not have penetrated to the sores of
a human heart. For engraving the life lessons of his word, our Father
uses only diamonds: but in every diamond there is a flaw, in some a
greater and in some a less; and who shall dare to dictate to the
Omniscient the measure of defect that binds Him to fling the
instrument as a useless thing away ? When God would leave on my mind
in youth the
lesson that the pleasures of sin are barbed arrows, he uses that same
Solomon as the die to indent it in. I mark the wisdom of the choice. I
get and keep the lesson, but
the homage of my soul goes to God who gave it, and not to Solomon, the
instrument through which it came. God can make man's wrath to praise
him, and their vanity too.
He can make the clouds bear some benefits to the earth, which the sun
cannot bestow. He can make brine serve some purposes in nature which
sweet water could not
fulfill. So, practical lessons on some subjects come better through
the heart and lips of the weary repentant Icing, than through a man
who had tasted fewer pleasures, and
led a more even life.
Two principles cover the whole case. " All things are of God ;" and "
All things are for your sake" We can never be sufficiently familiar
with these two: (1.) The
universality of God's government; and (2.) The special use for his own
people to which he turns every person and every thing. All Solomon's
wisdom and power, and glory and pleasure were an elaborate writing by
the finger of God, containing a needful lesson to his children. The
wisdom which we are invited to hear is Divine wisdom ;
the complicated life-experience of Solomon is the machinery of
articulation employed to convey it to the ears of men. In casting some
of the separate letters, the king may have been seeking only his own
pleasure, yet the whole, when cast, are set by the Spirit so that they
give forth an important page of the word of truth. The thought recurs,
that the king of Jerusalem was not from his antecedents, qualified to
sit in the chair of authority
and teach morality to mankind. No, he was not: and perhaps on that
very account the morality which he taught is all the more impressive.
Here is a marvel: NOT A LINE OF SOLOMON'S WRITINGS TENDS TO PALLIATE
[mitigate] SOLOMON'S SINS. How do you account for this? The errors and
follies were his own; they were evil. But out of them the All-wise
has brought good. The glaring imperfections of the mar's life have
been used as a dark ground to set off the lustre of that pure
righteousness which the Spirit has spoken by his lips.