At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)

The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord: But the prayer of the upright is his delight.

Proverbs 15:8

Scripture teaches us from beginning to end that there is a type of formal worship of the true God that is unacceptable to Him. It began with Cain, when his offering to the Lord was not received (Gen. 4:3-4), and it resulted in the first murder. But ungodly men will always seek out a way that seems to put God in their debt somehow. The New Testament calls this will worship (Col. 2:23), and it is the result of men wanting to worship God according their own will, instead of offering worship that is in accordance with His revealed will.

The central reason we want to do this is that we want a religion that somehow leaves room for our sin. But this is worship that is simply two inches of snow on top of a dung hill. It can be quite striking and beautiful . . . from a distance. When a wicked man offers a sacrifice to God, even if it is an unblemished lamb, God receives it as though the man had sacrificed a lizard. And when an upright man prays, without any access to a physical sacrifice at all, God delights to receive it. 

Sacrifice and burnt offerings God does not require, but a humble and contrite heart (Ps. 40:6). God desires mercy, and not sacrifice (Hos. 6:6). To obey is better than sacrifice (1 Sam. 15:22). End to end, Scripture teaches us that acceptable worship is acceptable and unacceptable worship isn’t.

“Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe,” (Hebrews 12:28, ESV).

And the heart of what makes worship unacceptable is our sinful tendency to budget elbow room for our continued sinning. And in case you were wondering, that is not good.  

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At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)

The fear of man bringeth a snare: But whoso putteth his trust in the Lord shall be safe

Proverbs 29:25

We sometimes gloss over the specific things mentioned in many of the Proverbs, thinking that it all amounts to the same sort of thing, whether good or bad. Thus we read them as “he who does x, bad things shall happen to him, while he who does y shall find the good thing.” But there are often nuggets of wisdom to be found in those specific things.

In this proverb, I have the word snare in mind. The proverb does not say that the one who fears man shall be unsafe, while the one who fears God will be safe—although that is true enough.

No. The proverb says that the fear of man brings a snare. The contrast is with the one who puts his trust in God, and this means that he is the one who will be safe from being ensnared. Now a snare is certainly a threat, but the nature of it is that it is a hidden threat. And notice that the fear of man brings a snare. It creates a trap, a trap that you do not see.

Those who fear man are desperate to avoid certain things, and what they wind up doing is creating traps for themselves. Out of their deep concern to avoid traps, they entrap themselves. The fear of man brings a snare.

If I follow God, what will the cool kids say? If I want to be holy at work, will that cost me the promotion I need? If I take a stand for Christ, will I be mocked? In other words, the fear of man suggests numerous scenarios in which imagined threats keep me from doing right. I trust in my own ability to see the hidden snares, instead of trusting in the Lord, who knows the number of atoms in each snare.

One last thing. Notice how the fear of man and trust in the Lord are contrasted. It is not possible to trust God if you keep casting sidelong glances to see if certain important people are frowning at you.   

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At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)

“For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again: But the wicked shall fall into mischief” (KJV).

“For a righteous man may fall seven times And rise again, But the wicked shall fall by calamity” (NKJV).

Proverbs 24:16

In this fallen world, the difference between a righteous and an unrighteous man is not whether they fall or not, but rather what they do when they fall. What is their reaction to the fact of having fallen? We are told that the characteristic of a righteous man is that he keeps getting up again after he sins. He gets up seven times. In contrast, when a wicked man falls into sin, he is falling into his native environment.

All men sin, whether saints or sinners. Saints sin and sinners sin. “For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not” (Eccl. 7:20). But this does not mean that there is no difference between them. Far from it. The righteous recoils from the sin that affects him. He detests it. The ungodly man treasures it, and that is why he is headed for calamity and mischief.

We have another testimony to this same truth in 1 John.

“Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him” (1 John 3:6).

Taking all of Scripture together, this cannot be saying that a righteous person never sins. That would contradict what John said just a few chapters earlier. “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). We should read this verse as contrasting inconsistent ways of abiding. This means that the person who abides in Christ cannot abide in sin. He may fall into sin seven times . . . but each time gets up again. He cannot abide sin, in either sense of the word.

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At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)

“Be not among winebibbers; Among riotous eaters of flesh: For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty: And drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags” (KJV).

“Be not among drunkards or among gluttonous eaters of meat, for the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty, and slumber will clothe them with rags” (ESV).

Proverbs 23:20–21

The Scriptures do not just teach us to avoid sin because of the sinfulness of the action in itself—although that is part of what we are taught. We are also taught to avoid sin because sin is self-destructive and stupid. 

Let us first consider what this proverb teaches us directly, and then we can make a couple of applications. We are told to avoid the company of drunkards, and to stay away from those who are gluttonous eaters of meat. The reason is that these two characters are going to eat and drink their way into the poor house. In addition, they will eat and drink themselves into a sort of moral stupor. That stupor is going to clothe the individual concerned in the rags he aspires to. 

Two quick applications. The first is that we should let Scriptures define gluttony, and not leave that job to the fitness magazines. Gluttony is to food what drunkenness is to alcohol. In other words, gluttony is “riotous” eating. We are not talking about that second helping of mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving, and not even about the pumpkin pie. Gluttony is a sin of surfeiting. 

At the same time, we want to make sure that we don’t explain away the scriptural requirement of temperance when it comes to all of our appetites. Self-control, after all, is one of the fruits of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22). And temperance here does not mean abstinence, but rather balance. As we have successfully gotten away from the culture of teetotalism, we want to make sure that we do not open the door to a culture of having one drink too many.  But drunkenness is a liar and a cheat, and it especially preys on people who are proud of how they have avoided every form of legalism.

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At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)

“There is no wisdom nor understanding nor counsel against the Lord”

Proverbs 21:30

The short form of this is that God cannot be gamed.

The purposes of the Lord will always, of necessity, be realized. He knows the end from the beginning. He cannot be fooled, or manipulated, or deceived, or sent off in a false direction. And yet every known sin is somehow or other banking on this proverb not being true. 

And this means, in its turn, that every known sin committed by an orthodox believer has to contain some significant element of self-deception in it. “But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves” (James 1:22). Self-deception, by its very nature, can have multiple layers, but one of those layers is the discrepancy between what the believer acknowledges about God’s counsels intellectually, and what he is assuming in the moment of sinning.

He knows, on the one hand, that God cannot be manipulated. And yet the sin, while it is being entertained by the one sinning, has to assume that God can be manipulated.

The more intelligent a person is (that is, the more intellectual rpm his brain can exhibit), the more susceptible he is to a belief that there could be some form of his wisdom, or understanding, or counsel, that might get around the Lord’s purposes. Remember that the serpent in the garden was not the stupidest creature there, but rather the most subtle (Gen. 3:1). And that is why the most gifted are frequently guilty of the greatest follies.

Not only is this the case when we are talking about our own designs against the Lord, but it is also true when we are sometimes cowed by the bluster of unbelievers, claiming—like Rabshekah outside the walls—that they can do whatever they intend to do. In such cases, we should follow Hezekiah’s instructions and answer not a word—while we wait for the inevitable outcome.

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