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

“He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy” (Proverbs 29:1).

I read somewhere that there is a character in one of Hemingway’s novels who was asked how he went bankrupt. His reply was that it was first gradual, and then sudden. This proverb reminds me of that principle. First gradual, and then sudden.

The picture here is that of a fool who reproved or reprimanded frequently, but he doesn’t want to receive any of it. He is often reproved, but each time he just stiffens or hardens his neck. This resistance is a reflex move. It is habitual. Admonition follow admonition, but the foot can’t be bothered to change course at all.

When someone is stiffening their neck, it looks like they are being vindicated in the event, at least in that moment. Someone reproved, and the exhortation is just shrugged off. After it is shrugged off, the sky is still blue and the grass is still green. Everything is the same, and so the rebuke must have been inaccurate. Then it happens again, and the same state of affairs just continues on. This happens, Solomon tells us, often.

But a day finally comes when everything just gives way. The whole thing collapses, and in a way that makes people think of that “last straw” proverb. The fool believed that everything was going his way, regardless of what these rebukers might say or think. And so he was justified in ignoring their appeals . . . until he wasn’t.

Unfortunately, even after the final event has shown that the exhorters were correct in their caution, it is often the case that the fool is not convinced, even then. It is far easier to blame others, or curse his bad luck, or assume that fate has conspired against him. But it remains the case that God is not mocked, which means in its turn that a man reaps what he sows.

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

“Poverty and shame shall be to him that refuseth instruction: But he that regardeth reproof shall be honoured” (Proverbs 13:18).

There is no one alive who never needs to be reproved or admonished or warned. We all stumble in many ways, as James puts it (Jas. 3:2). And as Solomon put it elsewhere, there is no one who does not sin (1 Kings 8:46). The only person who never sinned was the Lord Jesus. As for the rest of us, if God were to mark iniquities, who could stand (Ps. 130:3)?

The thing that distinguishes the wise from the foolish, therefore, is how we respond when admonished. Our proverb tells us how it goes.

The person who stiffens his neck, who makes his forehead like bronze, and doubles down on his folly, he is the one who is refusing instruction. He doesn’t want to hear it. It looks like it might interfere with his plans. And so he willfully sets his mind to continue on with his previously selected course. But the course he set was a course that leads straight to “poverty and shame.” He has made a series of decisions that will result in his own abject failure, and he refused to listen to those who loved him enough to try to warn him.

By way of contrast, the one who is on the path to honor is not the person who never needs reproof. He needs reproof just as the fool does. We all need reproof from time to time. The wise person receives it.

“Let the righteous smite me; it shall be a kindness: And let him reprove me; it shall be an excellent oil, which shall not break my head . . .” (Psalm 141:5a).

The striking thing here is that a person who embraces the reproof (which assumes that he did something wrong in some way) is a person who shall be honored. This means that in this fallen world honor is not the result of having an unblemished record, but is rather a willingness to have blemishes pointed out.

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

“The backslider in heart shall be filled with his own ways: And a good man shall be satisfied from himself” (Proverbs 14:14, KJV).
“The backslider in heart will be filled with his own ways, But a good man will be satisfied from above” (Proverbs 14:14, NKJV).
“The backslider in heart will be filled with the fruit of his ways, and a good man will be filled with the fruit of his ways” (Proverbs 14:14, ESV).

The backslider here is someone who turns back, who is disloyal, or treacherous. It is not simply referring to a bad man, bad from the get go. This is a man who was once walking on the right path, but who deserted the way Demas did, in love with the world. When someone turns away like this, they do it for the sake of something. Presumably they are gratified when they get it, at least initially.

I started from three different translations of this proverb because the KJV is ambiguous. The backslider in heart is content with whatever it is that he is pursuing, which makes sense, but what does the KJV mean by saying that the good man will be satisfied “from himself”? Both the good man and bad man are satisfied, but with what? And how?

The NKJV says that the backslider is filled up with his own ways, but the good man is satisfied from above. This would seem to indicate the backslider is filled with earthly things while the good man is sustained by heavenly things. That sounds pretty pious, and it is certainly true, but the question is whether this is too much of an interpretive reach by the translator.

The ESV appears to take it as an expression of the truth that a man reaps what he sows. The treacherous man plants crabbed apples and is satisfied with crabbed apples. The good man plants a healthy apple tree and enjoys the fruit of what he has planted. This seems to be the most straightforward reading, and it fills out what the KJV was getting at.

God is not mocked. A man reaps what he sows. This is a truth we are taught in both testaments.

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

“He that is soon angry dealeth foolishly: And a man of wicked devices is hated.”

Proverbs 14:17

This proverb talks about two different kinds of sinful men. The first is the quick-tempered or hot-tempered man. The issue is not anger per se. The Lord Jesus was angry on different occasions. He was angry at the tomb of Lazarus, and He was also angry over the incident with the man who had a withered hand. The text of Scripture doesn’t tell us this explicitly, but he was probably angry when He cleansed the Temple. He was certainly zealous over it because we are told that zeal for the Lord’s House consumed Him.

What then is sinful anger? What is the kind of anger is it that does not accomplish God’s righteousness (Jas. 1:20)? Paul tells us to be angry without sinning (Eph. 4:26), but even righteous anger goes rancid overnight.

But the problem here is that the anger is on a hair trigger. This is a man who deals foolishly because he is soon angry. We see the same thing elsewhere in Proverbs. If a man has discretion, this means that he is slow to become angry (Prov. 19:11), and he experiences the glory of overlooking insults. Men who explode because of slights to their honor are actually foregoing an honor—the honor of being insulted without retaliation. There is something glorious about a man who is secure enough in his own character to simply smile and let it go.

The second kind of sinful man here is the devious one. He is full of plots and stratagems, and he can fool people for a while. But after a bit, the word gets out. People find out about him, and he is hated and avoided. He is not explosive, like the first man, but rather corrosive.

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

“A faithful witness will not lie: But a false witness will utter lies.”

Proverbs 14:5

Taken at face value, this proverb seems almost tautological. A faithful witness will in fact be a faithful witness, but a witness who lies will be the one who is lying. But it is a godly tautology, and one that we really need to keep in mind at all times. Especially if you are on Twitter.

If I may be permitted to bring in an autobiographical element here, I speak and write as someone who has been lied about for a very long time, and the total of the lies, reckoned in tons, has also been significant.

First there are the liars who have given themselves over to the practice. They follow their father the devil, who carries lies with him wherever he goes. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it” (John 8:44). These people, sons of the devil, will chase after lies until they are completely out of breath.

After this are the middlemen. These are not the inventors of lies, but they do circulate them assiduously. Some of them are more than halfway malevolent—they wanted the lie to be true, and it was too good to check. But there are also people who do this that may be classified as chumps. And, truth be known, there are some Christians out there who are the very chumpiest. They will confidently pronounce something to be true, which I know for a fact to be utterly false, and then they will add the extra topping of “just look it up.”

And last in line would be those good-hearted people who do not invent the lies, and they do not circulate them, but they do hear them, and they are unsettled by them. They do not act, but remain right where they were . . . but now in a destabilized and unsettled condition. They don’t have as much trust in their pastor as they did before. They still trust him, but sometimes . . . it makes you wonder. These are the ones who have been softened up by the artillery prior to the invasion proper.

So what should we remember? Liars lie.

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