Proverbs 17:9 Whoever covers an offense seeks love, but he who repeats a matter separates close friends.

Heavenly Father, guard my lips in this matter. Make me compassionate over the sins and failings of others, rather than indulging my flesh in repeating their errors to others. Let me love them better. Let me learn to cover their sin. Let me obtain your heart – you, who keeps our confessions in the deepest of confidences, and though you witness my sins a thousand times a day, do not run off to tell others, but cover it in love. Make me more like Jesus.

Proverbs 17:10 A rebuke goes deeper into a man of understanding than a hundred blows into a fool.

1. This is a good test for us to find out whether or not we are men of “understanding” –  i.e. not fools. Do rebukes hit us hard? Or do we ignore them? We are fools if they do not take their toll on us. This does not mean we crumble under every criticism. It DOES mean we listen to criticism and weigh it. If there is something of truth in it, we had better listen and learn. If it is a false accusation, we can toss it aside. But wise men are not impervious.

2. It is good for leadership to be careful not to be excessive in rebuking those who otherwise show themselves to be “understanding.” The danger here is that we can wound the tender heart and mind needlessly. Some who are very sound and good can be dealt severe and scarring blows when our criticisms make them wither and shrink back. Bear in mind how these things often pierce others very deeply.

3. How difficult it is to make any worthwhile impact on a true fool. He does not respond even to a hundred blows. In comparison, how easy it is to impact those who are men of understanding. Do not waste your time with fools. Those who will not listen, will not even if accosted by the truth in drastic measure. “As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned.” Titus 3:10

Proverbs 17:12 Let a man meet a she-bear robbed of her cubs rather than a fool in his folly.

Remember, the fool is the one who has said in his heart “there is no God.” The one who thinks and lives like this, is the most dangerous man in the world. Let history testify to the wicked debacles of religious men gone mad and perverting Christ to seek earthly riches. It is a grotesque picture. But let history also testify to the unspeakable savagery of “fools” in their “folly. Nothing compares to the bloodshed of the godless. The Mao Tse-tungs, Stalins, etc. exterminated multiplied millions. The view of man as without true value in a godless mindset is frightful indeed. Rather to meet a she-bear robbed of her cubs. At least there is no conscious disdain for human life in general, and no extension of rage beyond the immediate perceived danger of her young.

Proverbs 17:22  A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.

Sorrows, trials, woes and difficulties come to all in life. None are exempt. The foolish, fix upon their woes, setting their eyes upon their cares and constantly mulling over their disappointments. Rehearsing their griefs and never letting go of their heartaches. And soon enough there is nothing but dryness to the core. The wise suffer the same, but set their hearts and minds on the good hand of their God. Seeing His wise providence in all, they trust their sometimes dark and painful course to the hand of their loving Master. So their joy, refreshed at the fountain of Calvary’s cross is like medicine to the whole man. Giving strength to endure, patience to wait, and hope for the expected end of their faith.

What a glorious Savior we serve!

Proverbs 17:8 A bribe is like a magic stone in the eyes of the one who gives it; wherever he turns he prospers.

Proverbs contains many sayings like this one which need to be thought about carefully. The idea here is not that bribes are being extolled or recommended, but how using such forms of dishonesty end up actually deceiving the one using them. Repeated sinfulness ruins our ability to think rightly. Again in this case – this observation is not to be construed as an endorsement. Bribers think their bribes move mountains – that they are virtual magic. But of course there is no “magic”- no neutral “force” one can access to bring themselves the good or gain they seek so madly. They imagine it makes them to prosper whether they are walking in righteousness or not. It is a lie. One day, they will find out that not only did they not achieve the goal they hoped, but in fact did damage to their own souls, ruining their ability to discern right from wrong.

Now those who have not yet understood the Gospel that salvation is all of grace and the free gift of God to those who believe His message of forgiveness and trust the substitutionary atonement Christ made on the cross – in essence believe that their salvation is the product of bribes. They think to bribe God with their good works. To imagine that their guilt can somehow be magically removed by offsetting the balances by going to Church, being a good neighbor, perhaps helping the poor or working for social justice. All things which are laudable and good in and of themselves, but are of absolutely no value in removing the guilt and stain of Adam’s sin imputed to us, nor the sins we’ve actually committed ourselves. And the longer they persist in this mindset, the more deluded they become by it. They constructed this imaginary means of salvation, and thus fool themselves into denying the true Gospel for this Gospel of bribery.

But there is a message for Believers here too. Christians cannot interact with God on the basis of bribes either. Yet we do it. We do it sometimes in the aftermath of falling into certain sins, and then make self-constructed deals with God hoping to bribe Him into dealing softly with us. Maybe we ramp up our Bible reading time, or make vows to give more in the offering plate, or attend more services etc. All in essence being attempts to bribe God. And it will not work. In truth, He is far more patient and kind and forgiving than any of us dare to imagine. We could never bribe Him to be any more sweet, for He is already sweeter than we can imagine. When we simply acknowledge our sin and ask for His forgiveness and strength to resist in times to come – trusting fully in Christ’s blood already poured out on our behalf – we know full and free forgiveness in unimaginable proportion.

Nor can we bribe God to move His hand in prayer. Some have treated fasting as a form of spiritual bribery to get what we want. Or, as above, we make vows to consecrate our time or efforts in particular ways in order to get Him to answer a prayer request or meet a particular desire we have. But He will not be bribed by any such thing. It is an insult to His Fatherhood. He delights far more in our simple trust than anything we could ever bring to the table in some effort to move Him.

As Believers we need to banish form our minds once and for all any sort of bribery in dealing with our Loving Father. He is not moved that way. He delights to simply be trusted above all other things. He needs no conceivable incentive to bless us. He has already conspired to bless us beyond our comprehension. So Paul can write: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will”. (Ephesians 1:3–5) What we really need is to grasp: “Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.” (1 Corinthians 2:12)

We never need to coax blessing from a freely blessing God. That doesn’t mean we do not make our desires and petitions known – but rather that in making them known, we come with hearts fully assured of His love toward us, and His delight in us, and His willingness to bless us above all that we ask or think – because we are already in Christ!

Bribes are evidence that we have not really believed in – and therefore do not really trust – the Gospel.

Beloved – He loves you! He cannot love you more, for He already loves you as He loves Christ Himself. Oh how He longs for each of His children to simply live and lavish trustingly in the grace which is already ours in our Lord Jesus.

Once we really digest that truth, no form of bribery will ever seem useful or magical to us again.

Proverbs 17:3 The crucible is for silver, and the furnace is for gold, and the Lord tests hearts.

It is in the heat, only in the furnace, that our hearts will reveal the dross still in them. It is only under extreme pressure that some impurities will at last show themselves and rise to the surface that they may be removed. We do not enjoy the fire. No one does. It isn’t pleasant. But it is so wonderfully useful. The truth is we would rather remain un-assaulted by the trials. But then our sins remain hidden, and still dangerous to our own souls as well as to others.

But here is a time to remember what is really going on. For we can vainly imagine that the soul-work of sanctification that the Spirit is about in us is something which is done in an instant, and that without discomfort. How many times have we prayed with our Beloved Paul for God to just take some thorn in the flesh away? I have. But that is the exception, not the rule – even as it was for Paul too. It is in vain that we seek some single experience to jolt us into a higher stage of spiritual growth. We want someone to utter a single powerful prayer and lay the battle against the flesh to rest. A seminar, a book, a sermon, an experience of some sort to short circuit the process and bring about the maturity in Christ we long for. But that is not His way.

Over and over the Divine Refiner returns to His laborious work in us. Heating and reheating, stirring and filtering and searching out those hidden impurities that seem to defy detection one day, only to finally appear the next. All at once, whole chunks of putrid debris float to the surface to be skimmed off by His loving hand – searching always to make us into the finest vessels imaginable.

Creation was child’s play in contrast to the work of re-creation. Nothing in the material universe as created resisted the will of the Maker the way sin in us seeks to wrest control out of His hands at every turn. But He is not about a mere work of fashioning lifeless clay. He is about His crowning achievement. He is undoing infinite damage caused by the Fall and then bringing about new vessels even greater and higher than in our first estate. It is nothing short of the same power exercised to first speak light out of darkness, and then to raise Jesus Himself from the dead. No wonder it seems gargantuan in scope, and requires a breaking up of the deeps. But the promise is worth it.

I am reminded of those insightful words some attribute to J. Oswald Sanders and others say remains anonymous – but speak the truth of these spiritual matters well:

 

When God wants to drill a man,

And thrill a man,

And skill a man

When God wants to mold a man

To play the noblest part;

 

When He yearns with all His heart

To create so great and bold a man

That all the world shall be amazed,

Watch His methods, watch His ways!

 

How He ruthlessly perfects

Whom He royally elects!

How He hammers him and hurts him,

And with mighty blows converts him

 

Into trial shapes of clay which

Only God understands;

While his tortured heart is crying

And he lifts beseeching hands!

 

How He bends but never breaks

When his good He undertakes;

How He uses whom He chooses,

And which every purpose fuses him;

By every act induces him

To try His splendor out-

God knows what He’s about.

Proverbs 17:2 A servant who deals wisely will rule over a son who acts shamefully and will share the inheritance as one of the brothers.

The obvious first application to be noticed here is how this pictures redemption. Those who hear and believe the Gospel, are given the power to become Sons of God. Though we are but servants to the Creator, we become adopted sons and daughters through the Cross-work of Jesus: “He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. 12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:11–13) The glory of this mystery is unfathomable. We are not just adherents, members, citizens, creatures or worshipers, we are children of the most high, in a relationship to God the Father as close to that of the second member of the Trinity as we can be, without actually being divine ourselves. And this, due to the fact that the Gentiles are grafted in to the promises of Abraham through faith in Christ Jesus. “Hear God, and inherit all He promises” is the call. Even if those to whom the promises were originally given failed to obtain it. “What then? Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking. The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened” (Romans 11:7).

What an amazing salvation we have in Jesus – and to what heights of walking within those realities and privileges ought we to aspire.

But secondly, we have an historic record of how this principle plays itself out in the most tragic of ways.

Moses had two sons, Gershom and Eliezer. As Levites, they belonged to the priestly class. Yet it fell to neither one of them to take Moses’ place. That honor goes not to one of the sons – but to the servant, Joshua. Joshua who distinguished himself in his wise dealing and seeking after God in his service to Moses all his days. On a side note, this is a caution about building ministerial dynasties in the Church today. Being someone’s son or daughter gives no one some spiritual right to a ministerial position, any more than being a son or daughter automatically excludes them. But each must stand on their own record of seeking and following the Lord in fidelity.

What becomes of these two, Gershom and Eliezer? Little is told to us but what we read in Judges. Judges 18:30–31 “And the people of Dan set up the carved image for themselves, and Jonathan the son of Gershom, son of Moses, and his sons were priests to the tribe of the Danites until the day of the captivity of the land. 31 So they set up Micah’s carved image that he made, as long as the house of God was at Shiloh.”

This is extremely important. From the time of Moses’ grandson, all the way until the Assyrian captivity of the northern tribes, idolatry had been tolerated among some of “God’s people”. As it appears, Moses’ own offspring at the very least had no counter influence to be noted against this idolatry, and at worst, they were complicit if not participants as the text would seem to imply. And all this happened while The Tabernacle was still present among them and in full use. It is positively mind-boggling.

But this too is not without an example of astounding grace and patience on behalf of our God. For The Lord will wait hundreds of years before sending the Assyrians to devastate them over this unrepentant use of idols along side of claiming to serve the Living God. They will still be part of Israel’s united kingdom under David’s leadership and halcyon era of Solomon’s. All the while, this corruption is never addressed by them, never abandoned. How tragically sin makes its appearance, indeed builds its own tent along side of God’s.

But how patient God is. How long He strives with them. How he sends prophet after prophet and chastening after chastening and blessing upon blessing upon blessing before He takes drastic action. And even then with the promise of abiding love and compassion, and a willingness to restore upon confession and repentance.

As Tim Keller is wont to say, we are far more wicked than any of us dares to believe, and God is far more loving and gracious than any of us dares to believe.

What a Savior!

Proverbs 17:1 Better is a dry morsel with quiet than a house full of feasting with strife.

As we saw Sunday, there is a word here for all of us in not “despising” – in terms of either hating, or treating as of no importance – the beginning and struggling days of anything. This is especially true of our spiritual lives. It is so easy to get caught up in the world’s mindset of more is better, bigger is better, and nothing ought to take time to grow and mature. Not our careers, not our families, not the home we live in, the car we drive, the entertainments we indulge in, and certainly not our souls. But this is not God’s way.

Having little is not shameful to Him. Nor ought to be to those who are His. This was part of the scandal of Jesus’ opening words in the Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are the poor in spirit” – or in Luke’s account – simply “the poor”. How can anyone who is “poor” by any human standard, also be “blessed”? To the world, even (or perhaps especially) to the Judaistic world of Jesus’ contemporaries, this was an unthinkable contradiction. But it surely is not a contradiction, to the one sets their eyes on inheriting the Kingdom – and sees this life but the bare budding stage of what is to come in Christ.

Think for a moment Christian – where do you locate your own poverty? What makes you think of yourself as poor because you lack it? What is that gnawing ache in your soul? And to what lengths has it driven you to try and either obtain it, or erase the pain? It can be virtually anything. We are so individual in the specifics, even as the reality of the experience is universal. Relationship? Spouse? Children? Career? Position? Recognition? Some physical attribute? Raw mental acuity? A possession? An achievement? The love of someone who never seems to requite your own, romantically or in the familial sense? Approbation or respect from a parent or someone else? Money? What?

It is to this, these opening 7 verses especially speak. And it is this that the whole of God’s Word addresses in pointing us to Christ and Christ alone. As Romans 11:36 reminds us, “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.” We came from Him – as do all things. We were created BY Him, thought the personal agency of the second member of the Trinity. And we were made FOR Him. For His pleasure. For His purposes. Thus it is apart from finding our wholeness and our purpose and fulfillment in Him, we always be driven and tormented by the “lack” we place such importance upon, and in the end, become slaves to. Only in Christ is there freedom from this bondage. Only in finding our contentment in that “morsel” the World considers so “dry” – but who is in truth the very Bread of Life – can the soul be truly quiet and at peace. No matter how much “feasting” we imagine would satisfy us, it will only come with the strife that resides in the creature at war with the Creator.

Now there is also a pointed application in all of this for those who venture upon ministry of any kind.

Ministers, don’t lament the days of small things, hoping for your “big break” and throngs of crowds hanging upon your every word. It is a lie. Enjoy the hour. Break your bread in peace in a quiet household. Yes, a full house is more exciting. Yes, it has its pleasures and advantages. But so does this present place. Each in their season. Remember that the time of growth will also bring with it strife. It will bring another set of challenges and difficulties. Enjoy God’s grace in every season and in every place. And never, NEVER see any place of service as some mere stepping stone to something greater. The greatness of our service resides in the greatness of the One we represent, not in ourselves nor our ministries. Seeking “success” in ministry beyond being a faithful herald of God’s Word, and a loving shepherd of the portion of His flock He has providentially place you among, is the way of the World. But it is not the way of Christ.

How are we ministers to be regarded? Paul summed it up in the Spirit most perfectly in 1 Corinthians 4:1 “This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.” Nothing more. Nothing less. Christ as all.