(Through The Bible) – Book of Proverbs: Zac Poonen (Transcript)

Full text of Zac Poonen’s teaching on ‘Book of Proverbs’ which is part of the popular series called Through The Bible.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Zac Poonen – Bible Teacher

Let’s turn today to the book of Proverbs. Psalms and Proverbs go together. And generally speaking, we could say that if the Psalms refer to our worship of God, our expression of dependence upon God, asking for His help, our devotional life with God, Proverbs deals with the other half of our life, our daily walk in this world. The two must go together.

We must not be so heavenly minded that we are of no earthly use, or so earthly minded that we are of no use to God. A devotional life with God, a walk with God, a life of praise and worship and prayer and faith must lead to a practical life that manifests the character and the nature of Christ here on this earth.

And the book of Proverbs is primarily dealing with that. And there’s a lot of instruction here for young people and for our daily working life, for home situations.

Let me share with you what I discovered many years ago when I studied this book. I found there were a number of subjects that the book of Proverbs dealt with. And I just want to give you a brief overview of the type of subjects that the book of Proverbs deals with.

It deals with the subjects of wise and foolish children, laziness and hard work, the use of the tongue, wealth and poverty, telling lies and speaking the truth, being talkative and being subdued in our speech, slandering, justice and injustice, pride and humility, good women and bad women, covetousness and contentment, anger and self-control, gloominess and cheerfulness, good company and bad company, the education and discipline of children, the fear of the Lord, men’s good opinion that they have about themselves, warnings against temptations, how to treat servants, bribery, reproof and correction, friendships, sensual pleasures, drunkenness, flattery, money not acquired in righteous ways, revenge and many more subjects like that.

But if you were paying attention, as I was saying, as you were listening, you’d see that all these have got to do with daily life on this earth. And that’s what the book of Proverbs deals with. And that’s why it’s very good for us when we are young to be taken up with this book.

It says here in Proverbs chapter 1, we could say the first nine chapters are primarily directed to young people. It says, verse 4, to give wisdom to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion and discernment.

A wise person can also listen to this, and he will increase, verse 5, in wisdom.

And the first thing he has to say is, verse 7, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.

And as someone has said, there are two types of fear that we can have of God. One is a wrong type of fear and the other is a right type of fear. One is the fear that God may hurt me. The other is the fear that I may hurt God. And these are completely different.

False religions major on this first type of fear, the fear that God may hurt me in some way. And so we have to appease Him, make Him happy. But the type of fear the Bible speaks about is the fear that I may hurt God by the way I live.