MARKS OF WISDOM'S CHILDREN
MARKS OF WISDOM’S CHILDREN
Proverbs 3: 6 - 12; Proverbs 4: 23 - 27.
Deep is the joy, and great the peace, of Wisdom’s children who walk in her ways, “for her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace”. Gloominess of spirit and a melancholy visage are not among the marks of Wisdom’s children; they are rather indications of self-occupation, and clearly show that the soul has not yet crossed what a dear aged servant of the Lord used to call “the vanity line”. All that is of the world and of ourselves as in the flesh is “vanity”, and if we look to find satisfaction in that quarter we shall be grievously disappointed. The death of Christ has drawn the line, and proved that there is nothing in the world or in man after the flesh for God. On the other side of the “vanity line” is a new world called “the things of the Spirit”, and the Centre of that world is Christ risen and glorified at the right hand of God. There is no “vanity and vexation of spirit” in that world, and Wisdom’s children have their life there.
But if in heart and spirit we have “crossed the line”, we are still, as to bodily presence and actual condition, in a world where Wisdom has not her home — where she is a stranger walking in ways and paths of her own. And her children are known by the fact that they walk in her ways, turning not aside at the seductive invitation of the world, nor straying into bypaths and crooked ways. The instincts of Wisdom’s children lead them to walk in her ways, but they have also Wisdom’s [p. 22] Guidebook in which all her ways are accurately marked, and every bypath carefully pointed out, so that they are without excuse if they go astray. Tonight, with Wisdom’s Guidebook in my hand, I should like to call your attention to five marks of Wisdom’s children.
1. DEPENDENCE
“Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding”. Dependence is no way of pleasantness and peace to an unconverted man; it is a dreadful moment to him when he is compelled to realize his dependence on God; he never turns to God unless he is in dire extremity — on a sinking ship or something of that kind. The reason of this is that he has no confidence in God. There is nothing more galling than to be dependent on someone we have no confidence in; and on the other hand, nothing gives such rest and peace to the heart as dependence, if there be perfect confidence in the person on whom we depend.
Dependence is the first lesson in the school of God; it is the way of our earliest blessing. We had to be entirely dependent on God for pardon, assurance, peace, and all the blessings which filled our hearts with the joy of salvation; so long as we leaned to our own understanding we got nothing.
As I have said, there can be no happy dependence if there is not confidence. Now what is the first mark of confidence in God? To find the answer to this question let us read Psalm 32: 6: “I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin”. God had [p. 23] put His hand upon David, and brought conviction of sin into his conscience, but for some time he “kept silence”; he had not confidence in God. It is the power of darkness and unbelief that keeps a man silent when he is feeling the burden of his sins. The devil says, Don’t think that a man like you will get anything from God; and the unbelieving heart only too readily accepts the foul lie that is intended to keep it in distrust of God. But the first mark of Wisdom’s children is that they justify God; that is, they are prepared to own their sin and guilt without reserve before Him, because they have confidence in His grace. They recognize His holy hatred of sin, but at the same time they give Him the honour and glory of His grace (see Luke 7: 29 - 35).
I think it must be a great surprise to the devil when a man, crushed under the burden of his sins, turns to God about them. I do not think the devil can understand a sinner having confidence in God. He knows nothing of grace himself, and cannot understand its actings either for sinners or in them. Distrust of God makes the sinner hide from Him, as Adam and Eve did in the garden, but when Grace has wrought confidence in God in the soul the sinner turns to God. As Augustine said, the difference between a sinner and a saint is that the sinner hides from God and the saint hides in God. The first true sign of confidence in God is that we go to Him about our sin, and uncover it in His presence. When a sinner uncovers his sin before God, he learns how, in infinite grace, God can cover it. The word “hid” in verse 5 is the same as “covered” in verse 1. To such a man “God imputeth righteousness without works”, and this “through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 4: 6; Romans 3: 24). God has secured for Himself in righteousness the title to abound in grace towards every guilty sinner who turns to Him.
I trust we all understand something of having this confidence in God; but let me remind you that it is of deep importance that it should be maintained all the way through. When failure comes in, and in many things we all offend, it is always Satan’s effort to undermine our confidence in God — to keep us from turning at once to God about it. “I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not”, said the Lord to His disciple who was so soon to deny Him (Luke 22). The great thing for us when we fail is to turn at once to God about it. That is the true secret and power of holiness. The man who has such confidence in the grace of God that he turns to God at once about his sins is a holy man. The man who says he has not sinned for a week is a self-deceived hypocrite. Having to do with God is the true power of holiness, and this is based on confidence in Him.
Then as to our circumstances and the difficulties of the path. If we are not walking in dependence we are walking in self-will and sin. If we had more confidence in God we should be more in the spirit of dependence about everything. Perhaps you may say, I should like to have more confidence in God, but how am I to get it? You must get to know Him better. The way to get our faith increased is by increasing our knowledge of God. Make it the supreme business of your life to get better acquainted with God. He has told Himself out; He has expressed Himself fully. All that God is has come out in the Person of His Son,
[p. 25] and by the cross, so that we may know Him in the depths of His grace and love. He has loved us and does love us with all His heart, and the answer to that love, when it is truly known, is that we trust Him with all our heart. Unreserved love, when it is known, produces unreserved trust. “They that know thy name will put their trust in thee”. As to His care, He feeds the fowls, clothes the lilies, thinks of every individual sparrow, and has numbered the hairs of our heads. As to His love, He spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all. As to His purpose, He will have us to be conformed to the image of His Son in glory. As to His wisdom, He has pledged Himself to make all things work together for good to them who love Him, and who are called according to His purpose. Why should we not trust Him? Has He not done everything to win and retain the confidence of our hearts?
“And lean not unto thine own understanding”. I remember a man who came round professing to cure people of rheumatism, and the first thing he did was to break the crutches of those who went to him. He wanted people to trust him altogether for a perfect cure, and this may serve to illustrate the point of the verse before us. Wisdom’s children do not lean on the natural crutches to which unbelief clings. The man of faith uses his brains, it is true, for natural things, but he does not trust them. He knows that he may consider and calculate, and take everything into account which could have weight with his “own understanding”, and, having used his best judgment, be quite wrong in his conclusions and decisions. He lives on another principle altogether; he walks “by faith, not by sight”.
[p. 26] In olden times mariners never went out of sight of land, and it was an immense advance when they ventured to embark on the high seas, trusting the chart and compass alone. The Word of God is the chart for Wisdom’s children, and their compass is a simple faith which ever turns with steady purpose to the Lord.
2. DIRECTION
“In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths”. I am afraid that guidance is looked upon by many as a very uncertain and unreliable kind of thing. There is no uncertainty about it. If the conditions are fulfilled on our side, there is always direct guidance for us. The conditions are just what I have already spoken about — Dependence and Confidence. Our chief concern should be that we are in a state to be guided.
A believer’s course indicates where he is in his soul, and sooner or later exposes the motives that control him. It is pretty easy to see when a man has the Lord before him. You find him regulated by divine motives, and ordering his ways with reference to the will of God and the interests of Christ. He will not be occupied with Guidance, but his whole course will evidence that his steps are ordered by the Lord. On the other hand, if a man be carnal and worldly, it will come out in his ways. He will have no divine judgment about things — no spiritual sensibilities or tastes — and, though he may maintain a certain degree of outward correctness, it will be manifest that he is not guided by the Lord. It is in having to do with the Lord that we are enlightened and our spiritual intelligence developed, so that we are enabled to discern the path that is pleasing [p. 27] to Him. God would guide us, as a rule, by forming our souls in the intelligence of His will, and thus enabling us to exercise a spiritual judgment about things.
Many would like to have guidance without any reference to their spiritual condition; but this is never the Lord’s way. I have often been amazed at the devices to which even converted people will resort in a moment of perplexity. A favourite plan is to open the Bible at haphazard, or put a pin between the leaves, and read the text which happens to turn up. This savours more of witchcraft and superstition than of godliness. As we go on with the Lord, and become acquainted with His mind, our vision is cleared in a wonderful way. When Moses pitched the tent of meeting outside the camp, he had no direct word of guidance, but his judgment had been formed in the presence of God, so that he knew what was the fitting thing to be done. This is the great thing to be exercised about. To be guided by the knowledge of God and by an intelligent acquaintance with the mind of the Lord is a much greater thing, morally, than being directed how to act by an oracular utterance.
It has been truly said that a great deal of exercise about guidance is caused by our self-importance — we are so much objects of consideration to ourselves, and our doings, our movements, etc., are so much before us. None of us are very important personages after all, and probably the Lord intends most of us to tread a quiet and simple path without looking for any extraordinary and special guidance; and yet in blessed assurance that He cares and considers for us, and orders, prevents, and over-rules in a wonderful way for those whose hearts confide in Him.
[p. 28] Mark the connection in which Guidance is spoken of in Psalm 32: “For this shall every one that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found” (verse 6). Here we get Dependence; the grace that forgives iniquity and covers sin, puts the soul on praying terms with God. Then, further, “Thou art my hiding place; thou shalt preserve me from trouble; thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance” (verse 7). Here we see unquestioning and unwavering Confidence. Now, what follows? The Lord comes in and answers the confidence thus expressed by saying, “I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye” (verse 8). The two “Thou shalts” of Confidence are answered by the two “I wills” of Divine Guidance. The Lord will not fail us; we may count upon Him; but to have this guidance we must be near to Him in confidence and in true subjection of spirit to Himself. If confidence and subjection are lacking, we become “as the horse or as the mule, which have no understanding: whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle” (verse 9). The Lord does not, even in that case, give us up; He keeps His hand upon the reins, and uses circumstances to check, restrain, and direct us. But this is sorry and painful work compared with the blessedness of being guided by His eye.
Jude puts the conditions and the result beautifully together, “But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost”. The Holy Ghost would ever maintain us in a dependent spirit, which is the secret of true stability. Then, “Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life”. Here [p. 29] we are viewed as in the confidence of divine love both in the present and as to the future. And what follows? “Now unto him that is able to keep you from stumbling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen”. I understand this to mean that if we were preserved in absolute dependence and confidence, the power of God would be so exercised on our behalf, and we should be so guided, as never to have a stumble all the way to glory. HE is “able” and willing to do this for us — great as it is — if there is on our part dependence and confidence in Himself. “In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths”.
3. DEVOTEDNESS
“Honour the Lord with thy substance, and with the firstfruits of all thine increase: so shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine”. Devotedness is the expression of the fact that the Lord has His right place in our affections. I suppose every Christian would accept this as being true; but if it is true, it means a great deal — there is very much involved in it. There may be activity in service, and liberality in the use of one’s means, without any true devotedness.
By way of illustration, let us suppose that some Israelite had preferred to remain in Egypt at the time of the Exodus, and that he became very wealthy there. Let us suppose him to be professedly very anxious to serve the God of his fathers, and to honour the Lord with his substance; so much so that he devotes half [p. 30] his gains to Jehovah. He looks around on the misery of Egypt — he sees need and oppression on every hand — and he says to himself, What could please Jehovah better than to seek to ameliorate the condition of these wretched Egyptians? Jehovah is merciful and compassionate to all His creatures, and it must be pleasing to Him to do this good work. I will give half my goods to feed the poor, and to improve the condition of the submerged masses in Egypt, and by so doing I will honour the Lord with my substance. I have no doubt that such a man would have passed in Egypt as a very devoted man. But there would not have been an atom of true devotedness in him. He would have been in a totally false position, and the fact that he remained in Egypt would have been a deep dishonour to the Lord. His liberality and benevolence would have only served to emphasize the fact that he was in the wrong place — in a place where he could not have remained a single day if his heart had been right with God.
Let us suppose another case. An Israelite goes out of Egypt with his brethren, and remains with them until they come to a fertile oasis in the wilderness. Then he says to the others, You may go on to Canaan if you like, but this is the place for me. I don’t want anything better than this, and I mean to stop here. So he builds his house and settles down there. After a few years we visit him, and we find that he has prospered. His family has increased, and two or three runaway Levites have joined him, and he has set up a little private altar for himself, and gives the fifth of his income to support the Levites and to provide sacrifices, etc. And he tells us that he desires to honour [p. 31] the Lord with his substance. This man would no doubt have a great reputation for devotedness among those who were ignorant of the true nature of Israel’s calling. But everyone who knew Jehovah’s purpose for His people would regard him as a man who despised the pleasant land, and who was dishonouring Jehovah by making light of His promises and purposes. If there had been true devotedness in him — if Jehovah had been really enshrined in his affections — he could never have settled down in such a place, and the first genuine bit of devotedness would move him to leave it altogether.
When the Lord is before our hearts we think first of His mind and pleasure, and it becomes our great concern to know what is on His heart for us, so that we may enter into it, and thus be in suitability to Himself and His thoughts. It was a suitable thing that the Israelite who was brought into the land and enriched with its fulness, should honour the Lord with his substance and with the firstfruits of all his increase. He was in possession of that which God’s purpose and grace had bestowed upon him, and the Lord was well pleased to receive the firstfruits, which bore witness that he was in possession and enjoyment of the good land, and that he appreciated the grace which had brought him into it. It may be good for our hearts to consider where we are as to this elementary feature of true devotedness. Are we in Egypt, trying to do good there by helping all kinds of schemes for the betterment of man’s condition in this world? Or are we in a little oasis of our own — carrying on worship and service after our own ideas? Or have we made it our great concern to apprehend the present thought and purpose of God [p. 32] for us? Are we really seeking to enter into and take possession of what He has given, so that we may bring the firstfruits of it to Him? God takes pleasure in our enjoyment and appreciation of that which it has been His great delight to give us.
It is in proportion as we apprehend the purpose of God, and take possession of the things which He has freely given to us, that we can, in a spiritual sense, honour the Lord with our substance. Alas! we are so ready to stop short of His purpose, and to settle down with something that meets our own ideas, without much exercise as to whether it is according to the mind of God. Many stay in Egypt and try to improve the world; many others settle down with an order of worship and service which is according to man in the flesh; while few, comparatively, are like Joshua and Caleb — set in their hearts to fully follow the Lord, and to enter into the purpose of His love.
“And with the firstfruits of all thine increase”. The Lord loves to be honoured by that which is best and freshest in our souls. It is that which is fresh from the Lord that really honours Him. It is very sad to get into a religious rut, and pray and praise just as we have done for years. When a brother takes part in a meeting who has something fresh from the Lord — a fresh sense of divine love in his heart — it affects everybody, and the Lord is honoured thereby. If we have not got any fresh spiritual “substance” it is a thing we ought to be deeply exercised about; and if we have got spiritual prosperity, let us see that we honour the Lord with it. A sister who had been refreshed and helped at a meeting, might think of some other sister who had been hindered from getting there, and might carry to [p. 33] her what she had got for herself. I think that would be honouring the Lord with her increase.
Then, of course, Devotedness will express itself in other ways. If the Lord be really in our affections we shall honour Him in our life, and by our lips, and by the use of our means. Whatever position we occupy, we shall therein “serve the Lord Christ”, and seek to honour Him by the faithful and single-hearted discharge of our duty. We shall also count it a privilege to speak of Him as we have opportunity, and it is surprising how great is the sphere of individual service. We think it a considerable matter to get a few hundreds of men and women to attend a gospel preaching occasionally, but if one hundred Christians were each to speak of Christ to one soul a day for a year, more than thirty-six thousand persons would hear the gospel. I do not say this to underrate the importance of public preaching, but to give an idea of the large possibilities of individual work. And very often a little book may be given or sent by those who have small aptitude, it may be, for personal dealing with souls.
Lastly, if the Lord has His right place in our hearts we shall honour Him with our substance in temporal things. Many saints are positively shrivelled up by a selfish and covetous spirit. They reap sparingly because they sow sparingly (2 Corinthians 9: 6). If they give at all, it is because they feel obliged in conscience to do something, but they keep it within as narrow limits as possible. Others will spend money freely for their own gratification, and on things of no practical use whatever, while probably within reach of their own observation, if they had any eyes, some of the Lord’s poor are lacking bread. Of such we may well ask John’s question, “How dwelleth the love of God in him?” (1 John 3: 17). Nor let the poor think they are excluded from this privilege of honouring the Lord with their substance. What are the brightest examples of this kind of devotedness in Scripture? Do we not read of a widow who had but a handful of meal and a cruse of oil, whose heart was so under the power of Jehovah’s Name that she gave her all to His servant? Do we not read of another whose whole fortune consisted of “two mites which make a farthing”, who “cast in all that she had, even all her living”, into the treasury of Jehovah’s house? Do we not read of another whose “substance” was but a box of ointment, that “she hath done what she could”? The greatest gifts, in God’s account, are the gifts of the poor.
4. DISCIPLINE
“My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord; neither be weary of his correction: for whom the Lord loveth he correcteth, even as a father the son in whom he delighteth”. This is a very distinct mark of Wisdom’s children, for it is written, “If ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards and not sons” (Hebrews 12: 8). Everything that tries us, that is a check upon us, that causes exercise of heart, and makes us sensible of weakness in ourselves, is of the nature of chastisement. It may come in the way of difficulties in the path of faith; or in the shape of such trials and sorrows as are common to men — loss of property, loss of health, or bereavement; or it may be as the governmental consequences of sin; but in one way or other all have it. It is “for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness” (Hebrews 12: 10).
[p. 35] That is, it serves to break down that which is not of God in us, and thus it is a real help to us.
I cannot now go into the subject at any length, but I should like to call your attention to the twofold admonition in connection with it. The two things against which we are warned are Despising and Fainting. “Despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him” (Hebrews 12: 5). To despise the chastening of the Lord is to treat it as if the Lord had nothing to do with it, as if it had happened purely by chance. Suppose I take cold and am laid aside by it, and I take it just as a matter of course — perhaps blaming myself for not being more careful — I think that is despising the chastening. It may be true that I was careless in exposing myself unnecessarily to a draught, and that as a natural consequence I took cold. But behind all that THE LORD permitted it for my profit, and if I recognize the Lord’s hand in it, and bow to His dealing with me, I shall get blessing out of it. It is wonderful what rest and peace one gets under the chastening when one recognizes THE LORD’S hand in it. The moment you turn to the Lord, and your heart says, I wonder what THE LORD intends to teach me by this, the character of the chastening is altogether changed for you. Not that it is removed or altered, but it wears quite a different aspect to you. You own THE LORD’S hand in it, and then you are divinely exercised by it.
It is very common for believers to say, But my chastening is the result of my sin and folly. I am just reaping what I have sowed. How can there be any blessing in that? Well, my brother, if you have judged the sin and folly, and got right with the Lord [p. 36] about it all, you will be most ready to own His hand in the chastening. You will bow under it in subduedness of spirit, and humble yourself under the mighty hand of God, and such is His infinite grace that He will now make the consequences of your sin a great spiritual help to you. If the Lord’s hand is in it, it is surely for your blessing. Then do not for a moment allow yourself to cherish the cold despairing thought that you are suffering under the action of an inflexible and mechanical law of nature. Your suffering is “the chastening OF THE LORD”.
It seems to me that the Corinthians present to us an example of men who despised chastening. Many were weak and sickly among them, and many slept, and yet there does not appear to have been any recognition that this was the hand of the Lord. This shows that ministry may be used to enlighten us as to the object of chastening. Paul’s epistle gave them light, and recovered them from the terrible condition into which they had fallen.
The second danger is that we may faint when we are rebuked of the Lord. The recognition of the Lord’s LOVE would preserve us from this. If we recognise the Lord in it, we shall not despise it; if we recognize His love in it, we shall not faint under it. “Whom the Lord loveth he correcteth”. The consciousness that the chastening is all the outcome of divine love will preserve us from fainting. You have heard of the singer who went to a great master to be trained, and who, to his great surprise and disappointment, was kept singing one sheet of exercises for six years. Very weary did the pupil become of his exercises, but at the end of six years the master dismissed him as a perfect [p. 37] singer. The weary exercises had done their work in training and developing his voice, and all unknown to himself he had profited immensely by them. Many bitter hours of vexation would have been spared him if he had had unwavering confidence in the master’s love. We, like him, have to go through our exercises, and often there is a sameness and monotony about them which makes the tendency to weariness very great. We are often inclined to think that the chastening is doing us no good, and that it is more a hindrance than a help. Beloved brethren, let us remember that a Master Hand has ordered those exercises for us, and deep eternal love is behind them all. How blessed to be able to look upon every trial and difficulty, upon every pressure and cause of exercise, as an express token of the Lord’s love! We feel it to be “not joyous, but grievous”; it is a very real check upon us — it would not profit us if it were not; but we know the love that is behind it, and this is enough.
The Thessalonians give us an example of the liability to faint. The enemy seems to have used their tribulations and persecutions to discourage them, and to make them think that they were suffering in wrath from the Lord. The apostle writes to them to beseech them not to be “soon shaken in mind”, or “troubled”, and he speaks to them as “brethren beloved of the Lord”, and prays that their hearts might be comforted by “our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God, even our Father, which hath loved us, and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace” (2 Thessalonians 2:1,2; 2 Thessalonians 2:13; 2 Thessalonians 2:16,17). He seeks to confirm their hearts in the assurance of divine love, as the great preservative against the tendency to faint.
5. DILIGENCE
“Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life”. The keeping of the heart answers to the “loins girded” of the New Testament. In a scene of evil and defilement our affections need to be held within the girdle of truth (Ephesians 6: 14). This will not be needed in heaven; there will be no need for any restraint upon our affections there; but it is needed here. There is a constant tendency in our hearts to be attracted by things here, and when we come under their influence we are defiled. “Love not the world”, says the Holy Ghost, “neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world” (1 John 2: 15, 16). It may be said that we cannot keep our hearts. Well, that is very true, and important to be known, but this scripture calls our attention to the responsibility side of the matter. For example, if I am earnestly praying to the Lord to keep my heart out of the world and for Himself, I should not think of getting a novel out of the Free Library to read, or of cultivating friendship with worldly people. If I am anxious to be “kept by the power of God”, I shall certainly not fail to cleave unto the Lord “with purpose of heart”. That all is of God’s grace I fully own, but the way that grace works is by awakening and developing in us desire and purpose to “cleave unto the Lord”. Satan is ever seeking to get something into our hearts that will divert us from Christ — that will draw us away from “first love”. There is ever the necessity to keep our hearts “with all diligence”.
“[p. 39] Put away from thee a froward mouth, and perverse lips put far from thee”. The lips have to be kept as well as the heart. In connection with our speech there are two great dangers. The man with the “froward mouth” will say what he thinks, or what he likes, without any consideration for others; and the man of “perverse (or inconsistent) lips” will say what he thinks will be agreeable to his listeners, and will sacrifice uprightness to his desire to please. One pregnant sentence from the New Testament furnishes a corrective for both. “Let your speech be alway with grace” — that will regulate the froward mouth — “seasoned with salt” — that will banish inconsistency and duplicity.
“Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee”. There is a wonderful power of deliverance from present things in having an Object that commands the heart. Someone has said that a mother who heard that her child had been run over would not be diverted by the things in the shop windows as she went along. In Philippians 3 we see a man whose eyes looked right on — “I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ.... This one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus”.
“Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established. Turn not to the right hand nor to the left: remove thy foot from evil”. Wisdom’s pathway is one of separation from evil. It is written, “Come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the [p. 40] Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty” (2 Corinthians 6: 17, 18). And within the Christian profession the same principle is insisted upon, for we read, “Let every one that nameth the name of the Lord depart from iniquity” (2 Timothy 2: 19). Many who would shun other kinds of iniquity are content to remain in association with religious evil. If you go on with that which you know to be contrary to the mind of God, how can you expect to have light or blessing from Him? You may, through His infinite grace, get a few crumbs of food and refreshing, but you cannot expect to have much light from God if you do not remove your foot from evil.
May each of us be characterized in a more distinct way by these marks of Wisdom’s children.