I will pour out my spirit to you…
Proverbs 1:23b
…I will pour out my spirit to you; I will make my words known to you.
If you are reading this post it is because you want more of God and His Holy Spirit. You are hungry for Him and for a revelation of His word. This is a good thing. We are encouraged throughout the word of God to seek Him, to hunger and thirst for Him, and to long for Him as the dear pants for water. But this is only half of the story, only half of the scripture noted above. The other half carries with it a proviso:
Proverbs 1:23
If you turn at my reproof, behold, I will pour out my spirit to you; I will make my words known to you.
If you turn, if you listen, if you repent. Repentance is one of the keys to receiving from God. Listening to Godly counsel and wisdom is a key to God pouring out His spirit and revealing His word to us. Many of us have a propensity to only look for and listen to the good stuff, the encouraging stuff, the promises of God. Unfortunately we are often blind to the provisos, we often miss the small words like IF.
God tells us in this text that wisdom cries to us and knowledge calls to us and He calls to us and IF we will listen, God will pour out His spirit on us and reveal His word to us. But what if we don’t listen to wisdom, to Godly counsel? What happens if we don’t love knowledge? What if we refuse to listen?
Proverbs 1:24-27
Because I have called and you refused to listen, have stretched out my hand and no one has heeded, because you have ignored all my counsel and would have none of my reproof, I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when terror strikes you, when terror strikes you like a storm and your calamity comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you.
We often quote scripture when it suits us, when there’s no pain involved. We often quote scripture to others like Galatians 6:7 ‘you reap what you sow’. It doesn’t sound as hard as the way Proverbs puts it. But that’s exactly what Proverbs is saying, what God is saying.
If we don’t listen He will laugh at our calamity! If we ignore His counsel He will mock when terror strikes. What? That can’t be!
These are not my words friend, these are God’s words. He has done everything to prevent calamity from striking us like a storm. He has counselled us, He has sent His word, His Son and The Holy Spirit to convict us. He has put family and friends and leaders in our
Iives to counsel us. But if we don’t listen, if we don’t turn, we will reap what we have sown.
I have seen this time and time again. I saw it played out before my very eyes by my brother. My brother was an alcoholic and smoker who was given counsel for years and years. He was loved and family and doctors pleaded with him. He was encouraged to go through various programmes and he did. But at the end he told us all to f-off, this was his life and he would live it as he pleased. And he did. Does this mean we didn’t love him, care for him, cry for him? NO
We did, but in the end he reaped what he had sown; emphysema and cirrhosis of the liver. This lead to his death. Our only consolation is the grace of God and that he had given his heart to the Lord.
Friends we need to love counsel. We need to head counsel. We need to listen to Godly wisdom. Because if we don’t we will reap what we sow.
Listen to the words at the beginning of Proverbs:
Proverbs 1:7
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.