The Devotional – 1432 – Polishing the Apple!

The Devotional – 1432 – Polishing the Apple!

Proverbs 7:1-3 – My son, keep my words, and treasure my commands within you. Keep my commands and live, and my law as the apple of your eye. Bind them on your fingers; write them on the tablet of your heart.

 

 Comments and challenges

When is the last time you polished an apple only to take a large bite from it as soon as the apple seemed bright enough to eat? Why do we do that? There may be many warranted reasons, but if you are a student of the Living Word of God you may find the best reason standing tall above the others. Having first to do with the heart, as the Word of God is always at the ready to expose the dullness of the heart we see that Solomon has much to say about Wisdom and understanding in the world around us.

Often I have thought about the subject of wisdom and understanding, I do not have much of either and what I do have can be a blessing or a cursing, yet and basically there are only two sources of wisdom and understanding. One source is the credentials provided by living under the sun. Now one can go to many verses of scripture to see that the wisdom of the world lacks the ability to make things right, just as it lacks the ability to make things wrong, thus the wisdom of the world is pure VANITY. The wisdom of the world is governed by mankind, not by God.

Ecclesiastes 1:14-15 – I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and indeed, all is vanity and grasping for the wind. “What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be numbered”. Now for some of us we would say; yes Ecclesiastes is the in the Word of God; but Solomon was out of fellowship with God when he wrote this little book. Really! And how might you know that? No doubt you understand this from secular viewpoint and not from Divine Wisdom.

Here is the Rub! From the small family to the very pinnacle of government most of the wisdom that controls the thoughts of mankind in this country today is VANITY. Most of US today have allowed teachers to teach them to be “mentally stupid”! Well yes you read that right… go ahead and read it again: “MENTALLY STUPID” of course the Living Word of God is softer with the words like… DULL OF HEARING. Let us take a quick look at the three or four times “dull of hearing” shows up in the Word of God. I say three or four times because of the available translations.

Isaiah 6:10 – Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy (dull) and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed. What is interesting about this verse of scripture is that Isaiah was commissioned by the LORD God to tell the people of Israel regarding God’s love for His people. And Isaiah says to the LORD; how long should I do this? Until the cities are wasted without inhabitant, and houses without man, and the land utterly desolate. Isaiah 6:9-13. Dull of hearing is progressive!

Then in Matthew 13:10-17 – the LORD Jesus quotes from Isaiah 6:9-13; this is before the church age begins and He adds – for assuredly, I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear and did not hear it. What Jesus is saying is that these prophets and righteous men were listening, but the people retained their secular waxed over heart and continued being DULL of hearing.

Again in Acts 28:26-27 the apostle Paul uses the SAME passage of scripture in Isaiah to say that the same dullness of hearing is visible now in the church age. And in 2 Timothy 4:1-5 as Paul understands that his ministry is ending, he challenges Timothy that in the later years of the church that mankind will turn their ears AWAY from the TRUTH and turn to FABLES. Hebrews 5:11 also agrees that the church will become dull of hearing.

So, like a child eager to get to grandmothers house… “ARE WE THERE YET?” Oh yes sons and daughters we are THERE, but of course TOO; we as a nation have become DULL of HEARING the TRUTH. The tablet of the HEART is full of SECULAR NONESENSE in the family; the tablet of the community is full of IMMORALITY and the tablet of the countries government is full of CORRUPTION.

Well we change? Let us hear the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep His commandments: for this is the whole duty of mankind. For God will bring every work into judgment including every secret thing. Whether it is good or it is evil, Ecclesiastes 12:13-14. Mankind cannot change, but God can change each person who comes to Him by FAITH. John 14:1-6 – looking at verse 6; Jesus said to him, “I am the way (the faith), the truth (the TRUTH), and the life (the resurrection); no one comes to the Father (the One True God) except through Me. (the One True God).