Imagine you are a father teaching your son to be a man, or a monarch teaching your prince to be wise, or an old man teaching a young man to be godly. What would be the most important truth for you to teach? Proverbs 4:20-27 is a profound but practical answer to that question. King Solomon wrote this proverb. Verse 20 addresses it to his son. It is the third fatherly discourse in this chapter. 

• Verses 1-9 teach what not to do. 
• Verses 10-19 teach what to do. 
• Verses 20-27 teach how to do it. 

The proverb teaches us that wisdom is not intellectual. It is not about what you know. Melvin Wade says, “Wisdom teaches knowledge how to behave.” Likewise, wisdom is not spiritual. It does not divorce internal character from external conduct. Wisdom is an embodied way of life. David A. Hubbard calls this proverb “the anatomy of discipleship.” The ears, eyes, flesh, heart, lips, and feet are all mentioned. This proverb is like a doctor’s examination. Open your eyes. Stick out your tongue. Let me check your pulse. The primary concern is the condition of our hearts. Proverbs 4:23 says, “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.”

• Verses 20-21 introduce the exhortation of verse 23. 
• Verses 24-27 apply the exhortation of verse 23. 

 The heart is at the center of this proverb. It is central to all of life. The heart of the matter is the matter of the heart. 

An old fable tells about a mouse that feared the cat. A magician took pity and turned the mouse into a cat. It then became afraid of a dog. So the magician turned it into a dog. It became afraid of a tiger. So the magician turned it into a tiger. It became afraid of the hunter. The magician said, “Be a mouse again, for you only have the heart of a mouse, and I cannot help you?” 

What kind of heart do you have? Proverbs 4:20 teaches three ways to guard your heart. 

Guard Your Heart Attentively. 

Verses 20-22 are a call to wisdom from father to son. It is a general exhortation, repeated several times in this chapter. Solomon appeals to his son to be wise and gives an incentive for following wisdom’s way. 

Be Wise. Verses 20-21 issue a twofold call to wisdom. 

Hear Wisdom’s Call. Verse 20 says, “My son, be attentive to my words.” Hearing is different from listening. What you hear can go into one ear and out the other. To listen is to be attentive to what you hear. Solomon calls for attention to “my words.” Solomon’s words are not merely Solomon’s words. Proverbs is not a king’s personal or private counsel to his son. It is God-breathed scripture to and for us. Verse 20 says, “Incline your ear to my sayings.” “Incline” means to lean over and listen carefully. Psalm 116:2 says, “Because he inclined his ear to me, therefore I will call on him as long as I live.”

• The Lord inclines his ear to hear us when we call. 
• We should incline our ears to hear his word to us. 

Heed Wisdom’s Call. Verse 20 is a positive exhortation. Verse 21 begins with a negative instruction: “Let them not escape from your sight.” The focus shifts from the ear to the eye. Verse 25 will instruct us to look directly forward and straight ahead. We should never lose sight of wisdom’s way. The most practical way to obey this command is to read the Bible and think carefully about what it means by what it says. Psalm 1:2 describes the blessed man: “But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.” Verse 21 adds: “Keep them within your heart.” Psalm 119:9 says, “How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word.” Psalm 119:11 says, “I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.”

Be Whole. Verses 20-21 state the cause. Verse 22 states the effect: “For they are life to those who find them.”What is life to you? Life is more than sex, money, and power. Proverbs 14:12 says, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.” The way of wisdom is the way of life. But you have to “find” it. Vance Havner claimed that many college professors search for wisdom while the janitors who clean their offices discovered it years ago. You find wisdom by seeking God, not gaining knowledge. Verse 22 says that wisdom is also “healing to all their flesh.” Wisdom produces and restores life. It heals “all their flesh”– physically, mentally, emotionally, relationally, and spiritually. Matthew Henry said, “There is in the word of God a proper remedy for all our spiritual maladies.”

You get a new tool, gadget, or appliance. You rip it out of the box, ignoring the instruction manual, assuming you can figure it out. Then it malfunctions. Then you look for the instruction manual to use your warranty. But you find out that the warranty is only available if you use the item according to the manufacturer’s specifications. The Bible is the manufacturer’s manual. Life only works when you follow the directions. When like breaks, consult the one who made it to hear and heed what he says. John 8:31-32 says, “If you abide in my word you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

Guard Your Heart Vigilantly. 

Verse 23 is the key to this proverb: “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs the life.” Metaphorically, the heart is the seat of personhood – the mind, the will, the emotions. The heart is the control center of life. Your desires, deliberations, decisions, deeds, and declarations all come from your heart. Your heart is who you are. It is the real you!

God created Adam with a clean and pure heart. Sin defiled, polluted, and corrupted the heart. But Colossians 2:3 says that in Christ “are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” Sin makes us stupid. Left to our own devices, we play the fool. God sent his Son to save us from the folly, futility, and fatality of sin. Jesus lived righteously, died sacrificially, and rose triumphantly. The wisest thing you can do is repent of your sins and trust Christ as Savior and Lord. Saving faith is not just a ticket to heaven. Salvation changes the heart. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” Yet new life in Christ is an ongoing struggle with old foolish ways. John Flavel said, “The greatest difficulty in conversion is to win the heart to God; and the greatest difficulty after conversion is to keep the heart with God.”

How do you win this battle? Proverbs 4:23 says, “Keep your heart with all vigilance.” To keep is to guard. It is one thing to possess a thing. It is another thing to protect it. Keeping the heart involves guarding what gets in and what gets out. 

• The heart must be kept from internal threats. 
• The heart must be kept from external threats. 

You keep some things by caring for them. You keep some things by limiting access to them. You keep some things by using all your strength. You keep some things with the help of others. You keep some things by giving them to God in prayer. Guard your heart by any means necessary. Verse 23 says, “Keep your heart with all vigilance.” The verse literally reads: “Above all guarding, guard your heart.” Guarding your heart should be your ultimate priority. Why? “For from it flow the strings of life.” Life does not flow from the outside in. It flows from the inside out. Matthew 15:19 says, “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.” Godly begins upstream and flows downstream. 

A family had a dog that kept biting neighbors. Something had to be done if they were going to keep it. So they put a muzzle on the dog. It fixed the problem. But it didn’t really fix the problem. The dog was no longer bit legs. But he was still lusting after them. True change does not happen by behavior modification. There must be a change of heart by God’s transforming grace! 

Guard Your Heart Carefully.

In Batman Begins, Bruce Wayne bumps into his childhood friend, Rachell Dawes. They have a brief, tense conversation. Bruce finally says, “Rachel, all of this, it’s not me. Inside, I am more.” “Bruce, deep down, you may still be that great kid you used to be,” Rachel replies. “But it’s not who you are underneath. It’s what you do that defines you.” Verses 24-27 reveal that the state of your heart is defined by what you do. 

Be careful what you say. 

• Verse 23 instructs us to guard our hearts. 
• Verse 24 instructs us to guard our words. 

The two instructions go hand-in-hand. Matthew 12:34b says, “For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” Washing out the mouth with soap was a physical punishment for lying, cursing, or swearing. The tongue suffered the aftertaste but was not the culprit. The sinful speech was the result of a sinful heart. What’s down in the well will come up in the bucket. Verse 24 says, “Put away from you crooked speech, and put devious talk far from you.”

• “Crooked speech” seeks to get one over on someone. 
• “Devious talk” seeks to bring the other person down. 

Solomon gives two parallel admonitions regarding perverse, deceptive, or malicious talk. First, he says, “Put away from you crooked speech.” Proverbs 17:20 says, “A man of crooked heart does not discover good, and one with a dishonest tongue falls into calamity.” So put away from you crooked speech. Solomon also says to “put devious talk far from you.” Don’t just put it away from you. Put it far away from you! Pray Psalm 19:14: “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.”

Be careful what you see. Verse 24 is a negative word about speech. Verse 25 is a positive word about sight: “Let your eyes look directly forward, and your gaze be straight before you.” Like the tongue, our eyes reveal our hearts. Verses 25-27 describe life as a journey. Verses 26-27 will tell us to walk straight. Verse 25 first tells us to look straight: “Let your eyes look directly forward.” 

• Godliness is not living with your eyes closed. 
• Godliness is having the power to look away. 

Verse 25 adds: “And your gaze be straight before you.” Psalm 27:4 says, “One thing I have asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple.” Are you a one-thing man? 

You can’t be if you read and watch sinful entertainment. Don’t look at porn. Like Medusa, watching porn will turn your heart to stone. When I was a kid, you had to find porn. You now have to hide from it! Job 31:1 says, “I have made a covenant with my eyes: how then could I gaze at a virgin?” How do you keep that covenant? Matthew 5:29 says, “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell.” Use internet filters. Make yourself accountable. Don’t trust yourself. Do whatever it takes to guard your eyes from beholding sin.  

Be careful where you step. Verse 26 says, “Ponder the path of your feet; then all your ways will be sure.” To ponder it to carefully consider. This is how you think about “the path of your feet.” If you think about the path of your feet along the way, you will get lost. If you think about the path of your feet when you arrive, it’s too late. Before you take a step, ponder the path your feet. “Then all your ways will be sure.” Isaiah 26:7 says, “The path of the righteous is level; you make level the way of the righteous.” Verse 27 says, “Do not swerve to the right or to the left.”

• On one side is pride, on the other side is fear. 
• On one side is negligence, on the other side is worry.
• On one side is greed, on the other side is asceticism. 
• On one side is license, on the other side is legalism. 
• On one side is slothfulness, on the other side is workaholism. 
• On one side are enemies, on the other side are fake friends. 
• On one side is wickedness, on the other side is hypocrisy.   

Ray Ortlund is right: “Every one of us is always five minutes away from total disaster.” To avoid the perils on the left or right, “turn your foot against evil.” Some places, practices, and people are evil. Turn your foot against evil to go with God and stay with God. 

Portia Nelson wrote Autobiography in Five Short Chapters. Chapter 1: I walk down the street. There is a hole in the sidewalk. I fall in. I am lost. I am helpless. It isn’t my fault. It takes forever to find my way out. Chapter 2: I walk down the same street. There is a hole in the sidewalk. I pretend I don’t see it. I fall in again. I can’t believe I am in the same place, but it isn’t my fault. It takes a long time to get out. Chapter 3: I walk down the same street. There is a hole in the sidewalk. I see it is there. I still fall in. It’s a habit. My eyes are open. I know where I am. I get out immediately. Chapter 4: I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I walk around it. Chapter 5: I walk down another street.