ResponsiveReiding

Proverbs 21 is especially devoted to making subtle or fine distinctions. Establishing balance.

This is the passage I gave to my grandson Sam on his dedication in Dec. of 2K10. It was my prayer and intent then as now, that in studying it for himself I time, it may guide him in insight to his own disposition, and keep his eyes ever fixed in his Redeemer.

In the whole of it, we come away with the needed warning to not be fooled. Even those things made for us by our God can be misused and abused. We must beware the tendency of ANYTHING made, to be harmful when not kept within its proper bounds. We must not be led astray into letting such things run without being governed by wisdom.

 

“Wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler, and whoever is led astray by it is not wise.” (Proverbs 20:1, ESV)

Even those things which God in His infinite goodness has appointed for our enjoyment like wine (See: Psalm 104:15) – can be turned to ill and great sin. It is our part in wisdom to see such possibilities, and use what God has granted carefully and in accordance with His purpose in giving them.

This can happen with substances like wine or the poppy plant or the marijuana plant. But it can also happen with virtually anything in life. Families can become idols, as can career or any other ambition. Church life can become an escape from conflict at home and an unwillingness to deal properly with the relationships there. Seeking out and articulating sound doctrine can become a bludgeon and a weapon of aggression against those who know Christ but may not hold identical views in all areas of theology. Grace can be turned into licentiousness and church attendance and other spiritual exercises turned into attempts to bribe or bind the arm of the Lord to do our bidding.

But in this example in particular, what a contrast it is to Ephesians 5:18-21. Wine is a mocker, the Holy Spirit inspires praise. Strong drink brings brawling, while the Spirit incites peace. Drunkenness dulls the senses, being filled with the Spirit heightens and sharpens them especially as they focus upon Christ and Biblical truth. Wine distorts the vision, the Spirit gives true insight and understanding into Christ and His glory. Inebriation lowers inhibitions and promotes foolishness and proper decorum – the Spirit binds the heart with love and leads us take up Christ’s sweet and blessed course on a clear path toward Heaven and being conformed to His likeness.

“As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy.” (1 Timothy 6:17, ESV)

What we have been given to enjoy, let us guard lest they bind us and make us slaves to them, rather than servants to us.

 

“It is an honor for a man to keep aloof from strife, but every fool will be quarreling.” (Proverbs 20:3, ESV)

It takes no skill to get into arguments. Any idiot can bicker, fight argue and quarrel. This is the domain of fools. To avoid these or end them once they’ve begun, this takes wisdom, courage, self-control and uprightness. It is sad to see how many who bear the name of Christian are noted almost exclusively for their ability to enter into one conflict after another. They seem to be on endless crusades against others. Oh that we would expend the same energy fighting our own sinfulness. Would we follow the Prince of Peace who sought always to avoid extended argument and instead to make known the Heavenly Father to all who would hear Him. Heavenly Father, make it so in my life.

What seems evident in chapter 19 (Job’s 5^th response to his friends) is that something has broken. The brevity of this response compared to those that came before signals something new.  He doesn’t fill this response with arguments, but instead turns almost entirely to lament.

It seems good to note then that there are times when trying to think through suffering must give way to simple grief. Perhaps we wait too long to get there at times. Maybe we try too hard to muster our strength and our self-respect instead of allowing ourselves to truly be crushed. It is counter-intuitive I know. We want to put on the brave face, to act as though it is all OK even though it is so overwhelming. We want to do it for our own sake – so that we do not fall off the precipice of utter despair.

But giving up trying to completely understand our suffering is not the same as giving up on God. Job sees this. He will weep over his state, and say again that he does not understand it, but here he stops working so hard at keeping it all together, and just folds in tears.

He reduces his reply to two basic concepts.

1 – 19:1-22/ Can’t you see what distress I am in? Don’t you see all that I have lost and how this has alienated me from every close relationship, and that I’m a physical wreck on top of it? Can’t you show me a little mercy in all of this? Why aren’t you as my friends pitying me instead of prosecuting me?

2 – 19:23-29 / Even though I have no way to describe what I’m going through except to liken it to God’s anger with me – the truth is – I am looking forward to the resurrection and standing before God. I don’t fear it. Things are right between us. No matter what, I will not utterly lose my trust in the ultimate goodness of God – no matter how unjust it all seems right now.

What a wail! What a plea! Begging from mercy from his closest friends and peers. We should think we would ever have to beg for mercy from those close to us – but such is the nature of some trials in life.

Richard Baxter, that saint of an earlier age spoke much to this part of suffering: “by the desertion and dissipation of his disciples, Christ would teach us whenever we are called to follow him in suffering, what to expect from the best of men: even to know that of themselves they are untrusty, and may fail us: and therefore not to look for too much assistance or encouragement from them. Paul lived in a time when Christians were more self-denying and steadfast than they are now. And Paul was one that might better expect to be faithfully accompanied in his sufferings for Christ, than any of us: and yet he saith, “At my first answer no one stood with me, but all men forsook me:” (2 Tim. 4:16:) and prayeth, that it be not laid to their charge. Thus you have seen some reasons why Christ consented to be left of all, and permitted his disciples to desert him in his sufferings.

Christians expect to be conformed to our Lord in this part of his humiliation also. Are your friends yet fast and friendly to you? For all that expect that many of them, at least, should prove less friendly: and promise not yourselves an unchanged constancy in them. Are they yet useful to you? Expect the time when they cannot help you. Are they your comforters and delight, and is their company much of your solace upon earth? Be ready for the time when they may become your sharpest scourges, and most heart-piercing griefs, or at least when you shall say, “We have no pleasure in them.” Have any of them, or all, already failed you? What wonder? Are they not men, and sinners? To whom were they ever so constant as not to fail them? Rebuke yourselves for your unwarrantable expectations from them: and learn hereafter to know what man is, and expect that friends should use you as followeth.

Some of them that you thought sincere, shall prove perhaps unfaithful and dissemblers, and upon fallings out, or matters of self-interest, may seek your ruin…Some will forsake God: what wonder then if they forsake you? “Because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.” (Matt. 24:12.) Where pride and vain-glory, and sensuality and worldliness are unmortified at the heart, there is no trustiness in such persons: for their wealth, or honour, or fleshly interest, they will part with God and their salvation; much more with their best deserving friends. Why may not you, as well as Job, have occasion to complain, “He hath put my brethren far from me, and my acquaintance are verily estranged from me. My kinsfolk have failed, and my familiar friends have forgotten me. They that dwell in my house, and my maidens, count me for a stranger: I am an alien in their sight. I called my servant, and he gave me no answer: I entreated him with my mouth: my breath is strange to my wife; though I entreated for the childrens’ sake of my own body: yea, young children despised me: I arose, and they spake against me: all my inward friends abhorred me; and they whom I loved are turned against me.” (Job 19:13–19.)

Many a faithful minister of Christ hath studied, and preached, and prayed, and wept for their people’s souls, and after all have been taken for their enemies, and used as such; yea even because they have done so much for them. Like the patient, that being cured of a mortal sickness, sued his physician at law for making him sick with the physic…

Thus may ingratitude afflict you, and kindness, be requited with unkindness, and the greatest benefits be forgotten, and requited with the greatest wrongs. Your old familiars may be your foes; and you may be put to say as Jeremy, “For I heard the defaming of many: fear on every side. Report, say they, and we will report it. All my familiars watched for my halting, saying, Peradventure he will be enticed, and we shall prevail against him, and we shall take our revenge on him.” (Jer. 20:10.) Thus must the servants of Christ be used, in conformity to their suffer^[1]”

And what wonder it is for us to cling to, that our Christ is one who sticks closer than any friend, than any brother or spouse or parent or child that ever was. Job can know of a certainty that in it all – he will one day still stand with his true “Friend”, his Savior – as all who are His will – regardless of this life’s sorrows. What a Savior!

 

 

 

^[1] Richard Baxter, William Orme, The Practical Works of the Rev. Richard Baxter (vol. 13; London: James Duncan, 1830), 287–290.

Seeing that Eliphaz’s last rebuke seemed to have no impact on moving Job toward owning the sin his 3 friends are convinced is at the root of his woes – Bildad steps up to the plate once more in chapter 18. There is a discernable shift in his language in this latest rejoinder. The first 4 verses are spoken directly to Job with appropriate personal pronouns: ‘How long will YOU hunt for words?’; ‘Why are we stupid in YOUR sight?’; ‘YOU who tear YOURSELF in anger, shall the earth be forsaken for YOU?’ But for the rest of Bildad’s discourse, he speaks as though Job isn’t there and he is only addressing his other friends. It is a cold and callous tactic, treating Job as though he isn’t even in the room with them, and discussing his case with the others like he is off in some other place. It is dismissive and belittling. It adds yet more woes to these already overburdened shoulders. And so Bildad charges in.

Bildad’s basic theme is not far different than anything already said. In short he argues: ‘Your own words condemn you Job. The order of the world – that the wicked suffer – will not change just because its you suffering this time. You brought this on yourself. Every aspect of your suffering is the result of your own wickedness. Just own it, you don’t know God.’

One wonders how Job goes on – why he goes on in the face of all these false accusations. But Job is, as he is proverbially known – the most patient of men. He can argue with his friends and just walk away. He wants to see it through. Deep down He knows there is an answer, and he hopes that he will be vindicated yet.

The rest of Bildad’s words continue to jab our dear sufferer.

18:1-4 / Come on! Is the entire world order supposed to be changed because you now have a situation which seems to not fit? Get over yourself.

18:5-7 / His sin has blinded Job. He can’t see these matters clearly because his own wickedness has clouded his vision – he is in darkness. And such darkness brings on weakness as well. He will not be able to endure much longer.

18:8-10 / Job has brought this entire affair upon himself and he can’t even see it. He’s been trapped by God due to his own self-deception.

18:11-13 / This is why you is frightened and why he has no strength to endure.

18:14-16 / He had pie in the sky hopes that he could continue in sin and prosper, and this is coming down all around his ears. The whole thing smells of God’s judgment. And judgment will continue on all sides.

18:17-19 / What’s more – whatever reputation Job used to have – or thought he had – will vanish. God is in the process wiping out his name. That is why he has no children left. His very memory is to be erased in disgrace.

And so, as though these accusations have not been cruel enough, Bildad takes the roughest, rustiest sword of all – and lays the death of his children at his feet as well. One cannot read Bildad’s words without weeping for Job. What could tear his grieving soul more?

And how we are warned here about how we bring our conclusions to events that are not over yet. Our God sees the beginning from the end – but we do not. We are so prone to look for absolute conclusions when matters are still very much at play. How often we do this with the woes of friends, or even ourselves. So heavy is the mystery of ‘why’ that we feel we MUST conclude SOMETHING, or we cannot go on.

How much then we need to know our Savior better. To rest in His character and His love for us rather than trying to divine those things from external circumstances. What says His Word? What says the incarnation? What says the cross? If we are His – His love never wavers, not in the slightest. And as His, we can trust His hand even in the darkest providences. He never has less than the eternal best of His children at His heart. Never. Never.

Proverbs 19:18 Discipline your son, for there is hope; do not set your heart on putting him to death.

Don’t give up. Keep disciplining – training – correcting, encouraging and instructing your children. Even when it seems to have no effect. Do not let your mind cross the line and deem it hopeless.

At the same time, discipline has to be differentiated from mere punishment.

Discipline includes training, loving guidance and instruction. Showing your child how it is done and coming along side him or her to help them grow and mature and do well. Mere punishment will make a heart hard, resentful, and will make you enemies of each other. How many truly tragic stories revolve around the failure to distinguish these two.

Think of the way in which our Heavenly Father shapes and molds us, never resorting to mere punishment. How He gives us His Word. And then not only supplies it to us, but then gives us infinite helps to better understand and master it. Teachers and preachers, commentaries and devotionals. Biographies of godly men and women and a rich and massive history of the Church. Then add those who come along side us who have known and walked with Christ before us and for many years. And the amazing gift of the prayers of those around us, and not least of all but highest indeed, the never ending and always perfectly tuned intercessions of Christ Himself on our behalf.

Now transpose that to interacting with our own children. For what is our goal in discipline? Not mere to make them feel the sting of poor decisions – though that is an ancillary factor – but to train them and encourage them to do better. When an infant is learning to walk, think how one holds their little hands and supports them in their faltering first attempts. How patient we are. How filled with smiles and constant encouragements of “come on, you can do it, that’s it! Come to Mama, come to Papa, I’ll catch you, you won’t fall…” How much we invest in them growing and mastering this essential of everyday life.

And when they fall or stumble – do we then kick them, or castigate them or berate them? No! We want them to do this and learn to do it better. We kiss their wounds, not inflict new ones. We hold them closer and encourage them all the more.

Now would we imagine for one moment that our Heavenly Father does one iota less for us as we learn to walk in uprightness and holiness? Do we think Him mean and rigid, impossible to please and irate because we still stumble and fall while learning how to take on fully the image of Christ Himself? Does He not know what it takes to grow? Is He not on our side in it? Is His Word not filled to overflowing with encouragements and tactics and techniques and hints and corrections and instructions for every new challenge? Does He not have our very best in His heart? Does He not provide His Spirit to indwell us and Christian brothers and sisters to walk with us and every means at His disposal to bring us to maturity?

Here is life in Christ expounded for us in large and glorious ways. He disciplines in teaching and correction – for there is hope! He does not set His heart on giving us up or over to our failures – to death. He is our Father. And He will love us into Christ’s image, and never beat us into mechanical conformity.

Proverbs 19:1–3 ‘Better is a poor person who walks in his integrity than one who is crooked in speech and is a fool. 2 Desire without knowledge is not good, and whoever makes haste with his feet misses his way. 3 When a man’s folly brings his way to ruin, his heart rages against the Lord.’

Taken as a whole, Proverbs 19 functions as an extraordinary exposition of the nature of the Believer’s inward dialog when tempted by sin. Verses 1-8 demonstrate a vigorous back and forth within the heart and mind, while verses 9-29 list the way the righteous man argues back against the temptation of his own sinfulness until he “shouts it down”, for lack of a better term. The remnant of indwelling sin argues for ascendency and to re-establish the rulership the in the Believer it lost when Christ became Lord. And our need to recognize this form of inward argumentation, to grow in our skill in arguing for righteousness and against sin, and the need to arm ourselves with the Word of God richly so as to have a ready supply of counter-arguments to win the day – cannot be overemphasized. The renewing of the Spirit of the mind is central to our growth in grace, and to overthrowing the seemingly endless creativity with which our own souls seek to justify sin.

That said, we do not want to overlook some of the more independent concepts which also emerge from this rich portion of God’s Word.

The thought in verse 1 is simple – but so very often overlooked. In a society in which everything seems geared to encourage us that we can every wish or desire fulfilled some way, and that it is only right that it be so – indeed that it is our ‘right’ to have everything we desire – God’s Word counters with a resounding – NO! That’s not true!

When we believe we ‘deserve” everything we want, we cannot help but soon talk ourselves into every kind of vice, compromise and blatant sin we are capable of imagining. Thus verse 1 challenges the prevailing Western worldview – It is Better to be lacking whatever it is that makes me feel deprived – and do so trusting in the Lord – than to be scheming and manipulating both God and man to bring my desires about. And to be perfectly honest, how much of our prayer life reflects this very undercurrent of manipulating God into giving in to our schemes.

As a Pastor, many a person has come through the door of this Church with a great tale of how they had strayed from God, but now they are on fire, and oh, by the way, I’ve lost my job and my wife and pray with me for restoration. All of which is legitimate on the surface. But more often than I care to confess, when the job isn’t restored, the diagnosis not reversed, the spouse remains unreconciled – then it is not long before they are back out the door and serving self like before. The entire matter had been little more than thinking ‘if I just get my religious life in order – God will have to notice and fix everything.’ In other words – sorcery. Trying to manipulate God through vows, commitments and temporary lifestyle changes all tied to getting what they want. It is a sad and tragic reality. Thomas Aquinas wrote: “It is clear that he does not pray, who, far from uplifting himself to God, requires that God shall lower Himself to him, and who resorts to prayer not to stir the man in us to will what God wills, but only to persuade God to will what the man in us wills.”

So it is verse 2 builds on that issue and directs us to gain insight into the true nature of our desires. For if we do not identify the true longings within as in fact a need for Christ and NOT the externals – we cannot help but miss the way, and live in dissoloution.

Aimlessly seeking to fill up inward desires we have not even properly identified will lead us into all kinds of wickedness. The lost person does not realize their deepest need is Christ. And often, even the Believer fails to recognize that deep, still unmet desires, must be brought to Him. He, wants to satisfy us fully. We, do not want to be satisfied in Him. We do not see that our desires unmet in Him, are desires for Him that are mis-labled, mis-understood or perverted from their rightful object. Heavenly Father – open our eyes!

Such driving desire, not knowing why God may have withheld what I want, will lead me to mistrust Him: It will kill faith. I will miss His path.

But then – in verse 3, when we see how empty our pursuits have been, amazingly, we blame God. He, who all the while waits to be our satisfaction, who loves us immeasurably and fully, who desires our best, gets blamed because WE did not stop to recognize it was Him we were meant to be satisfied in all the while, and not the externals of this life in this world.

How often it is when we at last find the bankruptcy of following after the misnamed, misidentified longings – we will blame the disaster on God rather than ourselves.

Wicked man that I am – I am ALWAYS looking for someone to blame for my miseries beyond myself.

What a glorious Savior then is Christ – who leads out of this consuming vortex, to seek our all in Him and Him alone. Where there is never a loss of what is true joy, true contentment, true glory. Oh that our souls might recognize and long only for ‘the unsearchable riches of Christ’ – and NOT, this world’s riches we vainly think He will bring us apart from Himself. That we might never love any of Christ’s gifts, above the Giver Himself.