Proverbs 3:1,2,  My son, forget not my law; but let thine heart keep my commandments:  For length of days, and long life, and peace, shall they add to thee.

Next week we will cover verses 3 and 4, (3) Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: bind them about thy neck; write them upon the table of thine heart: (4) So shalt thou find favour and good understanding in the sight of God and man.

This proverb is addressed to the builder of the family name.

It is addressed to a father's son and is intended to help the son continue in the building of the family name.

The family name is important in its continuance.

Therefore this father has a purpose for his son and all things that the father does toward his son aims his son toward this well defined purpose.

This son is not being reared using hit or miss methods or using no method at all.

This son is not growing like an unwanted weed but is being carefully nurtured as a flower would be in the father's nursery.

This father knows how to rear a son toward a particular purpose that he has in mind, that he has established.

This father is not ignorant of how to rear a son.

Note the purpose of the father in verse 4:

This father desires his son to find favour in the sight of God.

He desires that his son also find favour in the sight of man and he desires his son to be known as a man of understanding before God and before men.

He wants his son to be equipped to live amongst men; he wants his son to receive God's favor or God's grace as he lives among men.

His son's testimony before men is important to him.

This father has a purpose in rearing his son and he intends to instruct his son in order that this purpose be realized.

His first instruction to his son relates to his law.

The father has established law, he has established precepts and statutes.

He has established principles that he wants his son to give attention.

He has established parameters and boundaries within which he expects his son to live.

He tells him not to forget those boundaries.

This does not mean that he wants them only to be memorized.

He does not intend for him to only know them as he would a simple list of facts.

When he says don't forget, he means, don't be oblivious to my precepts, my statutes, my law.

Do not willfully turn your back on my precepts and my statutes!

Give attention to them. I mean for them to be important in life.

The father means for them to be so important in the son's life that he wants his commandments to be kept in the son's heart.

The father wants the son to keep his heart with all diligence; for he knows that out of it are the issues of life.

He wants the son's heart to be the recipient of his instruction and he wants his heart to be the keeper of his law.

Lock them in your heart, guard, protect, preserve, maintain them, he tells his son.

Only by being in the son's heart will the truth of his law be available to withdraw as the needs of life arise.

My law will be that which is there to battle against your nature to sin.

The father does not desire his son to only keep his commandments outwardly.

He desires his son to obey from the heart.

The father's standard is that only obedience from the heart is acceptable to the father.

The father knows that the heart is the problem and therefore the father desires that his son's heart be the repository of the father's laws.

All else is vanity and satisfaction of self and unacceptable to the father.

All else is simply an outward show for self serving purposes, simply lip service, simply religion performed for reward.

And the father promises reward, he promises benefit to the son if he forgets not his law, if he keeps his commandments in his heart.

He promises length of days, and long life, and peace, shall they add to the son.

The father's law, the father's commandments are designed for the betterment of the son's life, they are designed for continued life on earth and they are designed for eternal life.

The father does not make laws for his son that lessen life, that shorten life, that takes life.

The father's laws are not vindictive or grievous.

The father's law, if in the heart, is not a burden, it is not a restraint.

All the father's commands are to promote life.

Length of life is a promise to those that keep the father's commandments because all commandments and all his judgments are given in behalf of life.

Length of days is a promise to the righteous.

Some spend more of those days on earth than others do, but all of the father's sons are promised long life.

We are not to confine ourselves with this life in regard to this proverb.

We know that as regards this life the wicked may live long and the righteous may die young.

As Solomon rightly concludes in Ecclesiastics 9:2,  All things come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous, and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean, and to the unclean; to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not: as is the good, so is the sinner; and he that sweareth, as he that feareth an oath.

The fool makes his conclusions from what he sees in this life and concludes that that is all there is to include in his deliberations.

He sees that all things come alike to all.

But the father tells his son that it is valuable to keep his commandments.

There are great benefits as far as life is concerned.

The fool looks at this life and concludes the father wrong.

But the son believes the father and hides his word in his heart.

The father's words are not written in tables of stone for the believing son, but are written in fleshly tables of the heart of the believing son.

You see he simply believes the father loves him and he believes that anything the father does or says is for the benefit and betterment of the son.

Therefore he believes and this belief opens the entrance of the heart where the law and the commandments can now be safety placed and kept by the son.

But without this belief the heart is locked to truth and locked to the father's law and the father's commandments.

Revelation 22:14,  Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.

Proverbs 3:1,2,  My son, forget not my law; but let thine heart keep my commandments: For length of days, and long life, and peace, shall they add to thee.

The father, as he instructs, says for the fifth time, "My son".

He does this 23 times in the book of Proverbs.

The pattern of personal instruction of a father to his son is clear.

There is much more to being a father than by birth.

A Biblical father is the man who takes on the responsibilities of a father.

A Biblical father proves he is a father by carrying out his vision for his son.

This father intends for his son to be an extension of himself.

And this is the way it should be for God's children.

God intends for his own to reproduce after their own kind.

Those with a heart for God are to produce those with a heart for God.

If they don't who will reproduce for God?

This father knows that his son is to continue building the family name and all that the family name stands for.

The family name is not just Jones or Smith or Johnson.

That is just an identifying word which opens the door to the family name.

The family name is all that that name represents.

Each name is defined by the heritage of the family.

What does it mean to be a child of one of God's children?

The son should be an extension of the father if he is to be a builder of the family name.

The pattern is established by the relationship between God the Father and Jesus Christ, the Son.

Jesus Christ said in: John 10:30, I and my Father are one.

Jesus Christ was an obedient son and by his obedience he perfectly revealed the Father.

Like Father, like Son!

If you want to know the Father, the Father has provided the Son for examination, for the Son perfectly reveals the Father.

In revealing the Father he revealed his name for his name wraps up all that is in the Father.

Isn't it interesting that many names are post fixed by the word son.

My mother's maiden name was Petersen.

Which means the son of Peter. The son's name pointed back to the father.

In the same sense if Jesus Christ had a last name it would be Godsson.

God is the builder of the family name and he builds it through Jesus Christ.

He shows us Jesus as the pattern of all his sons and he conforms his sons to that pattern.

And the pattern is after the Father for Jesus Christ conforms to the Father.

Paul recognized this in Romans 8:29,  For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

God intends for our earthly father to be the one to prepare the son toward this conforming effort.

The first conforming is to be the conforming of the son to the godly father.

As Jesus Christ obeyed his Father so too is the son to obey his earthly father and do his will.

God expects the son to be an extension of the father.

As God gave the law and commandments to Moses so to is the father to give laws and commandments to his son.

And these laws and commandments are designed to continue the building of the family name.

Building the family name means just that.

Adding to it as one would add to a building.

All things that the father does toward his son aims his son toward this well defined purpose.

This father knows how to rear a son toward this particular purpose that he has in mind, that he has established.

And he therefore has laws and commandments.

The father has established law, he has established precepts and statutes.

He has established principles to which he wants his son to give attention.

He has established parameters and boundaries within which he expects his son to live.

He tells him not to forget those boundaries.

This does not mean that he wants them only to be memorized.

He does not intend for him to only know them as he would a simple list of facts.

When he says don't forget, he means, don't be oblivious or insensible to my precepts, my statutes, my law.

Do not willfully turn your back on my precepts and my statutes!

Give attention to them. I mean for them to be important in life.

The father means for them to be so important in the son's life that he wants his commandments to be kept in the son's heart.

The father wants the son to keep his heart with all diligence; for he knows that out of it are the issues of life.

He wants the son's heart to be the recipient of his instruction and he wants his heart to be the keeper of his law.

Lock them in your heart, guard, protect, preserve, maintain them, he tells his son.

Only by being in the son's heart will the truth of his law be available to withdraw as the needs of life arise.

My law will be that which is there to battle against your nature to sin.

A godly father arms his son.

The father does not desire his son to only keep his commandments outwardly as the wicked would do.

He desires his son to obey from the heart.

The father's standard is, that only obedience from the heart is acceptable to the father.

The father knows that the heart is the problem and therefore the father desires that his son's heart be the repository of the father's laws.

All else is vanity and satisfaction of self and unacceptable to the father.

All else is simply an outward show for self serving purposes, simply lip service, simply religion performed for reward.

That is what you teach a son who simply obeys outwardly, religion performed for reward.

But the father promises benefit to the son if he forgets not his law, if he keeps his commandments in his heart.

He promises length of days, and long life, and peace, shall they add to the son.

The father's law, the father's commandments are designed for the betterment of the son's life, they are designed for continued life on earth and they are designed for eternal life.

The father does not make laws for his son that lessen life, that shorten life, that take life.

The father's laws are not vindictive or grievous.

The father's law, if in the heart, is not a burden, it is not a restraint.

All the father's commands are to promote life.

Note that this earthly father tells his son that his law and his commandments will add length of days and long life and peace.

This is quite a statement for a man to make but it is a statement that this father makes in faith.

He knows that he can make that statement because God made that statement in:

Exodus 20:12,  Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.

He knows that a son who honors his father and his mother in obedience will be in a position of safety and God will be his buckler.

Length of life is a promise to those that keep the father's commandments because all commandments and all his judgments are given in behalf of life.

Length of days is a promise to the righteous because God's commandments promote life.

Some spend more of those days on earth than others, but all of the father's honouring sons are promised long life.

What can be longer than eternal life?

Continuing his instruction he says in:  Go to Proverbs 3:3,4