Proverbs 21:1 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Proverbs 21:1

Comments

The subject of the first verse is this: man is a subject being. We have all been in this position; we do not realise it but we are subject beings. Why the king? The king is mentioned twice in the previous chapter in a quite different connection. But why here, suddenly: the king’s heart? It is the only observation about a king in this particular block. And the reason would appear to be – the king is the most powerful person in the land. So if his heart is in the hand of the Lord, so is the heart of everyone else. Your heart, my heart, saved hearts, unsaved hearts, ultimately are in the hand of the Lord.‘As the rivers of water,’ what are they? Well, they are more rivulets, streams in the Hebrew. And possibly what is suggested is irrigation and the ditches and the trenches that would be dug to divert water, to turn a large arid area into fertile land. The farmer will divert quantities of water to different parts of the land according to his irrigation requirements, and he will do whatever he pleases, and the water will run wherever he sends it. Of course, God is not making himself responsible for the sins of the king. The king may be a tyrant. He may be a violent man, a treacherous man. He is subject, as is any king, to temptation. But here is the reality – if God chooses to overrule the king in any matter, at any time, if he chooses to put some good in his heart to carry out some particular purpose, as he put good in the heart of Cyrus, that great emperor to issue the decree that the people of God would return to Jerusalem. If God chooses to do that, he can overwhelm and overpower the king. Much of the time he may give him over to his lusts and to his temptations. It may be his will to do that.

Application

This is said as an encouragement to us. We think of the powerful man who is the president of China, and we think of the persecutions which seem to be reapplied and gathering power at the present time. But any king’s heart is ultimately in the hand of God. And if we pray, then our prayers may prevail with God on high, they may have been taken account of before the foundation of the world, and there may be renewed deliverance and opportunity and blessing for his people. People are not as independent or as powerful as they imagine. Even the most haughty and proud atheist is not as independent as he thinks. He is subject to the devil, he is subject to his own lusts and temptations, and he is subject to the sovereignty of God, if God chooses to restrain or to hand him over to his sin. He is a subject being. We imagine we are free, but we were never free before salvation. The difference between a lost person and a saved person is the saved person is willingly subject to Almighty God and serves him and loves him and seeks him.

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Proverbs 21:1 Commentary and Bible Study