Proverbs 8:8-9
(8) All the words of my mouth are in righteousness; there is nothing
froward or perverse in them.
(9) They are all plain to him that understandeth, and right to them that
find knowledge.
The apostle Paul has told us that the law was our schoolmaster (Galatians 3:24-25). In Romans he taught us that sin was not imputed (officially put on the account) until the law appeared (Romans 5:13). Yet, law or no law, the consequences of sin were there because “death reigned from Adam to Moses” (Romans 5:14). In Romans 7 Paul teaches us that the law brought clearer conviction. In a sense it made things worse for us, not better: “I had not known sin but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, ‘Thou shalt not covet’” (Romans 7:7). In connection to that, he asks and answers his own questions: “What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid [or, may it never be]! (Same verse)
Like our passage in Proverbs, Paul is making it clear that the Word of God is never our problem. If we are struggling with conviction over something God has revealed to us from His Word, the Word is not our problem, it is our heart, because the “law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good” (Romans 7:12). Wisdom says her words are “plain to him that understandeth, and right to them that find knowledge.” It’s scorners who cannot see the truth in the Scriptures and mock at those who do because scorners have no heart for God’s Word.
In Exodus, the Bible tells us that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. Yet that same God turned Moses into the meekest man who ever lived (Numbers 12:3). How could God do both? Was he a different God to each man? No, not if Scripture is true. We are told that Jesus is the same yesterday and today and forever (Hebrews 13:8). So what is at play here if the same Word of God can be a blessing to one person and an offense to another? It’s the heart.
I’ve heard the difference between Moses and Pharaoh explained this way: Take a pound of butter and a pound of clay and put them out in the hot sun. After a time, the butter is melted and the clay is hardened under the same sun. People could say the sun melted the butter and hardened the clay and be correct. But they could also say that the butter was predisposed to melting and the clay to hardening and also be correct. The difference is in the nature of the butter versus the clay.
If your Christian growth seems stagnated even though you are in God’s Word, or if you are away from God’s Word for any reason, you can give any number of reasons why the Word of God is not for you, and you’d be wrong. The Word of God is for everyone. If you have a problem with the Word of God, you can mark it down that God’s Word is not the problem!
Grace in Waves 