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We are taught to look for the fruit of righteousness in long life and prosperity, for the penalty of sin in premature destruction. We are accustomed to dwell on the promised joys of the future world as if godliness had no promise of the life which now is, and in so doing we take all life and colour from those expected blessings. The true view seems to be, the way of wisdom, the path of the upright, is so full of joy, so crowned with peace; the life of the children of the kingdom is so wisely and bountifully provided for; the inevitable pains and troubles which fall to their share are so transformed, that from this present good we can infer a future better, gathering hints and promises of what we shall be from the realised felicity of what we are. What are the immediate and apprehensible benefits of the life which is lived according to the dictates of heavenly wisdom?

I. THE RIGHT LIFE IS A WHOLESOME LIFE, PHYSICALLY HEALTHY. The body is a sacred trust, a temple of the Holy Ghost; to use it ill is to violate the trust and to defile the temple. The temperance of habit and orderliness of life which Wisdom requires of her children are the first conditions of vitality. Peace of mind, cheerfulness of temper, the transfer of all anxiety from the human spirit to the strong Spirit of God, are very favourable to longevity. Let no one think of measuring life only by days and years. Each day should be a full, rich day, unmarred by recollections, unshadowed by apprehensions. Each day is distinctly worth living. The life in God is undoubtedly a healthy life, nor is it the less healthy because the outward man has to decay, and mortality has to be swallowed up of life.

II. THE RIGHT LIFE REQUIRES FAIR DEALING BETWEEN MAN AND MAN. The main economic principle of wisdom is this, that all legitimate trade is the mutual advantage of buyer and seller.

III. WISDOM COMMANDS NOT ONLY JUSTICE, BUT GENEROSITY. She requires her children to yield the first-fruits of all their possessions to the Lord, and to look tenderly upon His poor. And the teaching of experience is that those who act upon this precept purchase to themselves a good possession.

IV. LOOK AT THE DEEPER, MORE SPIRITUAL RESULTS OF RIGHT LIVING. God is so much to men, that clear vision and strong action are utterly impossible apart from a humble dependence upon Him. The beginning of all wisdom is in the recognition of God, in personal submission to Him, in diligent obedience to all His directions. We do not at first see what is meant by trusting in the Lord with all our heart; we confuse it with that tepid, conventional relation to God which too frequently passes current for faith. They who do entirely renounce their own judgment, who, with their whole heart trusting Him, acknowledge Him in all their ways, find their lives running over with blessing, and become the means of incalculable good to the world and to themselves. It would not be easy to make plain or even credible to those who have never trusted in God how this guidance and direction are given. When a few years have been passed in humble dependence on God, it is then possible to look back and see with astonishing clearness how real and decisive the leadings of the Spirit have been. Our life, we find, is all a plan of God, and He conceals it from us, as if on purpose to evoke our trust, and to secure that close and personal communion which the uncertainty renders necessary. Some are suspicious of the "Inward Light," as it is called. That may be because they do not trust the Lord "with the whole heart." Wisdom calls for a certain absoluteness in all our relations to God, a fearless, unreserved, and constantly renewed submission of heart to Him. And while the external results of wisdom are great and marked, this inward result, which is the spring of them all, is more blessed than any. The supreme bliss of the heavenly wisdom is that it leads us into a detailed obedience to the law which is our life; it sets us under the immediate and unbroken control of God. To know the secret of the Lord, to walk in this world not guideless, but led by the Lord of life, to approach death itself not fearful, but in the hands of that Infinite Love for whom death does not exist, surely this is worth more than the gold and precious stones which belong only to the earth and are earthy.

(R. F. Horton, D. D.)

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KJV: My son, forget not my law; but let thine heart keep my commandments:

WEB: My son, don't forget my teaching; but let your heart keep my commandments: