Proverbs 4:4 (Mini Sermon)

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1.      Pro 4:4 – “He taught me also, and said unto me, Let thine heart retain my words: keep my commandments, and live.”

1. He taught me also,
   1. David loved Solomon and therefore taught him.
   2. David failed as a father in training some of his other sons such as Absolom (2Sa 15:6), Amnon (2Sa 13:14, 21), and Adonijah (1Ki 1:6).

• But with Solomon he did his duty as a father and taught him the scriptures (Eph 6:4).
  1. The other three sons came first (2Sa 3:2-4); Solomon came later (2Sa 12:24).
  2. David was wise in his later end (Pro 19:20).
  3. It’s never too late to make changes and do things better.

1. and said unto me, Let thine heart retain my words: keep my commandments, and live.
   1. Solomon listened to his father’s instruction, remembered it, and then repeated it to his son.
      1. Matthew Henry said it well.
      2. “What his parents taught him he teaches others. Observe, [1.] When Solomon was grown up he not only remembered, but took a pleasure in repeating, the good lessons his parents taught him when he was a child. He did not forget them, so deep were the impressions they made upon him. He was not ashamed of them, such a high value had he for them, nor did he look upon them as the childish things, the mean things, which, when he became a man, a king, he should put away, as a disparagement to him; much less did he repeat them: as some wicked children have done, to ridicule them, and make his companions merry with them, priding himself that he had got clear from grave lessons and restraints. [2.] Though Solomon was a wise man himself, and divinely inspired, yet, when he was to teach wisdom, he did not think it below him to quote his father and to make use of his words. Those that would learn well, and teach well, in religion, must not affect new-found notions and new-coined phrases, so as to look with contempt upon the knowledge and language of their predecessors; if we must keep to the good old way, why should we scorn the good old words? Jer 6:16. [3.] Solomon, having been well educated by his parents, thought himself thereby obliged to give his children a good education, the same that his parents had given him; and this is one way in which we must requite our parents for the pains they took with us, even by showing piety at home, 1Ti 5:4. They taught us, not only that we might learn ourselves, but that we might teach our children, the good knowledge of God, Psa 78:6. And we are false to a trust if we do not; for the sacred deposit of religious doctrine and law was lodged in our hands with a charge to transmit it pure and entire to those that shall come after us, 2Ti 2:2. [4.] Solomon enforces his exhortations with the authority of his father David, a man famous in his generation upon all accounts. Be it taken notice of, to the honour of religion, that the wisest and best men in every age have been most zealous, not only for the practice of it themselves, but for the propagating of it to others; and we should therefore continue in the things which we have learned, knowing of whom we have learned them, 2Ti 3:14.” (Matthew Henry’s Commentary, Pro 4:1-13)
   2. We must retain God’s words (Psa 119:16).
      1. Retain – 1. a. To restrain; to hold back, check, or stop; to prevent or hinder. Obs.  c. To keep in custody or under control; to prevent from departing, issuing, or separating; to hold fixed in some place or position.
      2. When we retain God’s words, we don’t let them depart from our minds.
      3. In other words we remember them.

• When we retain God’s words, we can then keep His commandments.

1. When we keep his commandments we will live a long and happy life (Pro 3:1-2).