Saturday, 9th May 2020

Proverbs 9 :1
”The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.” NIV

All the 18 verses of Proverbs 9 had been shared in detail by Bro Sir Neng on 9th April 2020. For those of you who have somehow missed that, you can find it on our PBC Website under Resources – Daily Devotions.

It has been shared earlier in many of our devotions that Proverbs 1: 7a “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” is the theme of the Book of Proverbs. The writer Solomon again repeats it here in Proverbs 9: 10a “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”.

King Solomon was not the first to give this advice as Job and his father King David had also said the same thing in Job 28: 28 “And he said to man, ‘The fear of the Lord – that is wisdom and to shun evil is understanding.’” And David in Psalms 111:10 “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow his precepts have good understanding. To him belongs eternal praise.”

Solomon again at the conclusion of his life reminded us “Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.” (Eccles 12:13. The fear of the Lord occurs 11 times in Proverbs and “fear the Lord” occurs 4 times. The Bible Knowledge Commentary pointed out that the fear of the Lord means an affectionate reverence to recognise God’s character and respond by revering, trusting, worshiping, obeying and serving Him. The essence of true knowledge is fearing God. Apart from Him a person is ignorant of spiritual things (Rom.1:22; Eph. 4:18; 1 Peter 1: 14).

The dictionary defines “fear” as “an unpleasant emotion caused by the nearness of danger or expectation of pain etc.” This is the type of fear we all know like the fear of contacting Covid 19, fear of sickness, fear of death, fear of losing our loved ones, fear of losing our job, fear of the uncertain future. But my dear brothers and sisters, this is not the fear mentioned here in the book of Proverbs. Like mentioned earlier it is an “affectionate reverence” for God. Respectful reverence for our God who gave His one and only Son Jesus Christ to die for us on the cross so that we will have forgiveness of sin and eternal life.

Don’t you think my dear brothers and sisters, if we truly and really have this “affectionate reverence” for God and love Him with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind (Matt 22: 37), is there anything we will not do for Him? Our right response for our fear and love for Him should be revering, trusting, worshiping, obeying and serving Him with everything we have.

Let us all pray to God for that type of fear and love and not just be a Sunday Christian or a Christian in name and not in practice.

PRAYER:

Dear Lord, we confess before you that we do not fear and love you with everything we have. We know that all we have comes from you – our life, our family, our health, our job, our career, our business, our possessions – every single thing that we now own comes from you as we all came into this world empty handed and we will leave the same way we came – empty handed – no matter how rich or powerful or brilliant we may be. Lord, help us to realise that we are all only stewards of what you have entrusted us with and we all must stand one day before you to give an account of what you have blessed us with.

Lord, help us to live a life that would be a blessing to others. Protect us, our family, our brothers and sisters in the Lord, all our friends. Keep us safe and healthy.
Help us to fear you and love you Lord with everything we have for the rest of our lives. In Jesus name we pray all this. AMEN.

Pastor KK Soong

xxx

每日灵粮
9/5/20
作者：宋国基牧师
箴言9:10

箴9：10 敬畏耶和华是智慧的开端 ； 认识至圣者便是聪明 。

思能弟兄在2020年4月9日已详细分享了箴言第九章的所有十八节经文。错过了的人可以到我们PBC网站上的资源–每日灵修搜寻。在我们之前的许多灵修中都分享过箴言1：7上，”敬畏耶和华是知识的开端”，是箴言书的主题。 作家所罗门在箴9:10上再次重复了这一点：”敬畏耶和华是智慧的开端”。

所罗门王不是第一个提出这个建议的人，因为约伯和他的父亲大卫王在约伯记28:28也说过同样的话。“他对人说： 敬畏主就是智慧 ；远离恶便是聪明 。”大卫在诗篇111：10中说：“敬畏耶和华是智慧的开端 ； 凡遵行他命令的是聪明人 。 耶和华是永远当赞美的 ！”所罗门在生命的尽头再次提醒我们：“你们一切都听见了，总而言之，应当敬畏　神，谨守他的诫命，因为这是每一个人的本分。”（传12:13）。在箴言中，‘对主的敬畏’出现了十一次，对’敬畏主’ 出现了4次。《圣经知识评论》指出，对主的敬畏意味着深切地尊崇上帝的品格，并以崇敬、信靠、敬拜、顺服和服侍祂来回应。 真正知识的本质是敬畏上帝。 除祂以外，一个人对属灵的事物是一无所知的。（罗1：22；弗4：18；彼得1：14）。

词典定义 “恐惧”为“由于危险临近或预期痛苦等引起的不愉快情绪。” 这是我们大家都知道的那种恐惧，例如对患上新冠病毒的恐惧，疾病的恐惧，死亡的恐惧，失去亲人的恐惧，失去工作的恐惧，对不确定的未来的恐惧。 但是，亲爱的弟兄姐妹们，这不是箴言书中所提到的恐惧。 如之前所述，这是对上帝的“深切敬畏”。对上帝的崇敬，因祂赐给我们祂独生子耶稣基督，为我们死在十字架上，使我们罪得赦免和得永生。

我亲爱的弟兄姐妹们，你是否认同，如果我们真的对上帝有这种”深切敬畏”，并且你 尽心 、 尽性 、 尽意爱祂（马太福音22:37），我们能有什么事情不会为祂做呢？ 我们对祂的敬畏和爱的正确反应应该是以我们所拥有的一切来崇敬、信靠、敬拜、顺服和服侍祂。让我们所有人向上帝祈求这种敬畏和爱，让我们不做一位“星期天的基督徒”或只是名义上而不是在实践中的基督徒。

祷告：亲爱的上帝，我们在祢面前承认，我们没有用我们所拥有的一切来敬畏和爱祢。我们知道，我们所有的一切都来自祢-我们的生命，我们的家庭，我们的健康，我们的工作，我们的职业，我们的生意，我们的财产-我们现在拥有的每件事物都来自祢，因为我们都是空手而来到这世界， 无论我们多么富有，强大或出色，我们也会空手离开。主，请帮助我们认清我们只不过是管家，管理祢所托付给我们的。我们有一天必须站在祢面前向祢交账，说明我们如何使用祢所赐福于我们的。
主，帮助我们过一个使别人蒙福的生活。 保护我们，我们的家人，我们在主里的弟兄姐妹，我们所有的朋友。 让我们安全和健康。
帮助我们敬畏祢，用我们余生所拥有的一切爱主。奉耶稣的名祷告。 阿门。

梁玉萍译