Description
Understanding Proverbs 22:4: Humility, Fear of the Lord, and Their Reward
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Transcript
Riches and honour and life. Sometimes we have to think very carefully when we’re meditating on verses of scripture, like today’s. Its Proverbs 22, verse four. The reward for humility and fear of the Lord is riches and honour and life.
Like all verses in the Bible, we have to weigh this against everything else that the Bible says. The Lord can indeed reward those who are humble and who fear him with riches and honour and life. And indeed we have a great expectation of great riches, not necessarily material wealth, but riches, spiritual riches in the next life that’s to come.
And we can expect that if we’ve feared him, if we’ve served him, then he will honour us. He will say, well done, good and faithful servant. And he will give us life, life everlasting.
But we can’t bend this verse to mean that if we are good, then we will be materially wealthy. Because indeed we see Jesus say to his disciples, those who were close to him and served him, that they were going to lose everything, that they were going to face, difficult deaths, that they had to give up everything to follow him.
And yet, can you imagine how much his faithful disciples are honoured in the next life? We don’t know what those riches might look like. We can only speculate, but we can be sure that God will be true to his word.
And therefore this Proverb is absolutely correct. There is a reward for those who approach the Lord with humility and who fear him, who give him reverence fear, and that reward is riches and honour and life.
