Hiding His Commandments

"My son, if thou wilt receive my words, and hide my commandments with thee; So that thou incline thine ear unto wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding;" Proverbs 2:1-2 Here, the Holy Spirit calls the people of God individually "My son." It is also applicable to the women of God. In the sight of God, we are all masculine in nature. The Proverbs, a pool of wisdom, does not distinguish a man of God from a woman of God. It does not call any woman of God "My daughter." These days, a howl and cry is raised when a woman of God preaches a sermon in a church, by quoting the words of Paul. They were purely applicable to the Jewish women who were not obeying their husbands at home, but who were interested in preaching to men in the churches. Then, the Holy Spirit did not address a group, but an individual child of God. These days, we are interested in preaching to the multitudes and not to individuals. Preachers want to address a big crowd and not individuals. The words of counsel or instruction from God ought to be received individually. It is up to individuals to receive or reject the same. The Holy Spirit says "My words," "My commandments." The whole Bible gives us instructions on righteousness and on holy living. These are His words, or commandments. You should receive His words into your heart and hide His commandments with you. Hiding does not mean keeping them in your mind. It means loving and preserving them from adulteration, or leaven. The malady that lies with us is that we do not preserve the truth from adulteration, or leaven. If we possess a gold chain or a gold ring, we preserve it in our Almirah (safe) or in some place which is not accessible to robbers. But if we learn the truth from His word, we often allow the same to be diluted or adulterated with a dose of falsehood.

In this regard, I quote an instance to show how the word of truth was allowed to be adulterated with falsehood. God does baptize every child of God with His Spirit for a ministry after he or she has been washed through the Blood of Jesus Christ. This is the truth. But many preachers dilute this truth saying that until and unless we experience a particular emotional experience to be witnessed by others, we have not received the Holy Spirit baptism. The Pentecostal churches, over a period of time, which laid emphasis on the spiritual experience of the Holy Spirit baptism, have since replaced this truth with their own personal experiences. They have failed to hide His commandments with them.

The churches have failed to incline their ears unto wisdom, and apply their heart to understanding. When Pentecostal churches, while placing over-emphasis on this spiritual experience, have diluted this wonderful truth, the non-Pentecostal churches have denied this truth altogether. The preacher concerned failed to "incline thine ear unto wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding."

During 2005, I preached in a Pentecostal Church in Bangalore. In this church, the people of God were highly emotional and could not observe silence while worshipping. I gave them a message of how to worship God. This message hardly went into their heart. These people of God were taught to worship God in a mechanical manner and not in truth (John 4:23). We should incline our ears unto wisdom and should know what we do in the presence of God. We worship a holy God. We shout at Him with a life full of unholiness or uncleanliness. We approach His throne of grace with sin in our life. We do not fall before His presence in repentance.

There are many non-Pentecostal churches who deny the presence of the Holy Spirit and the spiritual gifts of the Holy Spirit. It is an irony that most of the churches--be it Pentecostal or non-Pentecostal in our midst--do not recognize the ministry of apostles and of prophets.

Today, the Wisdom shouts at the streets, in the chief place of concourse, and in the openings of the gates. But we do not listen to Him. The Wisdom speaks to us from His written Word. But we incline our ears unto the false teachers in our midst. Today, the Wisdom exhorts us, individually, to incline our ears unto Him and to apply our hearts to understanding. We should meditate on His word and should search His Scriptures to see what we do today is based on His words of wisdom and understanding. We do not use our faculty of thinking if we do not understand His commandments. God's commandments are righteous and based on equity and justice. You can easily understand them.

We are supposed to preserve and guard the truth against adulterations likened to the fiction, The Da Vinci Code. We should hide the same in our hearts. If you incline thine ear unto wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding, you can easily discern the truth from the error. When Leonardo Da Vinci painted the pictures of Jesus in the 15th century, the Church did sleep and the enemy sowed this great lie. The Church should have awakened and warned the people of God against decorating their walls with these pictures. We should be very watchful these days when many false prophets twist the gospels and the epistles of apostles to suit their own doctrines.

Next.....KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING