The Eagle Way No 19

The Way of Wisdom
In Proverbs 4:23, 24 “Keep your heart with all diligence, For out of it spring the issues of life Put away from you a deceitful mouth, And put perverse lips far from you.”

Keep and guard your heart (attitude): value and protect your mind, emotions, and will. For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. A good person out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth a good nature.

Verse, 23. Keep your heart with all diligence; above all things that have to be guarded, “From everything which is to be avoided guard your heart;” Keep your heart more than any other keeping.
 
Heart: here the affections and the moral consciousness.

For out of it are the issues of life. The fact stated here is that the moral conduct of life, its actions and proceedings, are determined by the condition of the heart. If the heart is pure, the life will be pure; if the heart is corrupt, the life will be corrupt.

The heart is here compared with a fountain.
Physically, it is the central organ of the body; morally, it is the seat of the affections and the center of the moral consciousness.
From this moral center flow forth “the issues of life;” i.e. the currents of the moral life take their rise in and flow forth from it, just as from the heart, physically considered, the blood is propelled and flows forth into the arterial system, by which it is conveyed to the remotest extremities of the body. Even, as the bodily health depends on the healthy action of the heart.

 So the moral health depends on and is influenced by the state in which this spring of all action is preserved. Issues:  “to go forth,” is the place from which anything goes forth, and hence a fountain. For “the issues of life,”
With this passage compare our Lord’s teaching (Luke 6: 45)
"A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.”