Proverbs 19:20 Commentary and Bible Study

Every wise man lives with an awareness that there are tests and trials for which he must prepare that lie in the future. Every day is a preparation for tomorrow, and the greatest test of all lies in the final act of life, when we leave this world. If we arrive at that point without wisdom – not the wisdom of the world but the wisdom that only comes from God by taking hold of Christ by faith, for he is the fountain of all wisdom to us – then we are lost forever. Since our state at death decides where we will spend eternity, then death becomes the great test. Of course those who are converted in their youth have spent a lifetime proving the Lord and living by wisdom. They came to love the Lord when they first looked to him for salvation, and from that time on they were eternally safe and he would never let them go. The verse is not suggesting that to obtain wisdom takes years – we have the root of wisdom inside us from the moment we repent and trust in Christ of salvation. Nevertheless, we must not turn aside from wisdom and the believer will want to add to his wisdom every day of his life. Wardlaw points out that the term ‘latter end’ is not the end of our being, for if it were the verse would have no meaning. In that case, we should live for today and not tomorrow. It is because eternity follows compared to which this life is immeasurably small, that our state at death is so monumentally important. The lesson is therefore that we should listen to counsel, and not turn away from the instruction of the Lord, for it is given to us for our great advantage, especially in that final hour of life by which in a sense the whole of our lives is measured. Wise correction is our friend and something we are in tremendous need of. Any tendency in ourselves to rebel against God’s word or turn our back on him and seek our own way is to be feared. We must embrace even his smarting chastisements because they will deliver us from disaster at the end of life. We must listen to the voice of conscience and mortify sin, while all the time depending on Christ alone to save justify us, and bring us to glory.