Pray constantly that He will grant his grace and Holy Spirit to you that you might be able, above all else, to guard your heart. Then the God of peace will be with you (cf. "Above all else, guard your heart." Do not let the wickedness of the world infiltrate your heart, but rather think about whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy. It is the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ that is our fortress and our defense. Even as Psalm 119:11 says: "I have hidden your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you." It is the Word of God that we must use to guard our hearts. Keep them within your heart (Proverbs 4:20). How then do we guard the heart? By listening to the words of the teacher, the master. If the enemy poisons the well then life dies off. If the enemy takes over your heart, then your life is his. If the enemy takes over the well, then the city falls. Guard your heart from being taken over by the enemy, by the evil one. It is out of men's hearts that wicked thoughts come: thoughts of sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly (Mark 7:21). In another place the Lord Jesus Christ says that what comes out of a man's heart is what makes him unclean. Christ Jesus says that evil men bring forth evil and good men bring forth good. The Lord Jesus might have been alluding to this verse when he said, “.for out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks” (Matthew 12:34). Rather, life wells up, as truth is made one’s own and then flows out. True life is not just something that you have. Do not let them out of your sight, keep them within your heart for they are life to those who find them and health to a man's whole body. My son pay attention to what I say listen carefully to my words. In the verses leading to our passage, we can read that the teacher says, It represents the whole inner being of man: who he is. In the Proverbs, the heart often signifies what we think of when we speak of the mind. But above all else, do this: Guard your heart! He gives instruction about character, prudence, discretion, and sound judgment. He urges obedience, commitment, and character: diligence, discipline, and devotion. He tells his son to seek wisdom, to be faithful, to learn true love of God and neighbour. The master is setting before the apprentice wisdom for living. The first chapters of Proverbs are the words of a wise father to his son, from a teacher to his student. Above all else, do this!" Even as Ahaz and Hezekiah knew that the well that supplied Jerusalem was of the greatest strategic importance and needed to be guarded and kept safe from the enemy, so this proverb directs the young man to guard his heart. "Guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life. All life in Jerusalem flowed from that well. The Gihon well was the wellspring of life. Years later, to ensure the security of the water supply, Hezekiah son of Ahaz, dug a tunnel to the spring outside Jerusalem so that even during a siege the city would have a secure water supply. Without water, a city would fall to siege in a short time. He would need to ensure that the spring and the pools and cisterns were well-guarded. Assyria is about to lay siege to Jerusalem and King Ahaz goes out to inspect the city's water supply. Isaac would dig another and Abimelech would take it by force. Isaac would dig a well and Abimelech's men would take it by force. In Genesis 21 and 26, we can read of the conflicts between Abraham and Isaac's herdsmen and those who worked for Abimelech. Wells and springs have an important function in a land where there are no rivers. In ancient times water was collected and stored in cisterns or drawn from deep wells. This river flows down a deep valley far below the farmlands of Israel. In Israel, there are no rivers that flow year-round, except for the Jordan which flows from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea. Those who still have some water for their farms understand that it is a precious commodity. The fields are barren, the cattle thirsty, wildfires rage through tinder dry forests. Though in some areas irrigation is available for thousands of acres of farmland, vast areas of land have no water. The fields are parched and the cattle are being sold off because there is no water for them. Each day the local newspapers tell us of farms whose wells and dugouts are drying up. In southern Alberta this year, we are experiencing the worst drought in decades: a drought of severity, some say, not seen since the dirty thirties.
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