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

Confidence in an unfaithful man in time of trouble is like a broken tooth, and a foot out of joint.

Proverbs 25:19

One of the great lessons to learn about life, and the sooner we learn it the better, is the fact that some people are flakes.

Sometimes they flake in a moment that doesn’t cause too much consternation. Their flakery affects mostly just themselves. They get hired for a new job, and fail to show up the first two days—and are astonished to discover on the third day that they actually don’t have a job anymore.

But this proverb envisions their unfaithfulness as happening at the worst possible moment. Right when everyone was depending on them to show up, they do not show up. When their performance was most needed, their performance went missing. Confidence was placed in them, and it was a “time of trouble,” and their failure to perform discombobulated everything. It is like a broken tooth. It is like a dislocated ankle.

When someone fails in this way, causing the whole enterprise to fail, the thing is public. When an employer is writing a letter of recommendation for this fellow for a prospective employer, and he mentions the disaster that was caused by this man’s failure, this is not gossip. When a businessman consistently over-promises and under-delivers, and the fact gets around, this is not a problem of wagging tongues. Some men are not faithful. Some men are not good for their word. Some men let you down.

The reason this is a proverb is not simply so that we might understand this in the depths of our heart, enabling us to nod when it happens. Rather, proverbial wisdom is supposed to obtain the wisdom in such a way as to equip us to act. In this kind of situation, flakes are never going to discover that they are flakes unless they are fired for flaking. They might not discover it even then, but it is far more likely than when exasperated employers keep them around for some reason.

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

Every way of a man is right in his own eyes:
But the Lord pondereth the hearts.

Proverbs 21:2

The first part of this proverb should be self-evident, but it is surprising how many people miss it. Every man thinks he is right. In fact, this is what it means to think.

I don’t believe that I am always right, but I always believe I am right. Believing that what you believe is right is another way of saying that you believe it. If we take a few steps back to look at ourselves, we know and acknowledge that we have often been wrong, but the reason we were wrong is that we didn’t think so at the time. So we know that we are not always right, but while we are doing it, we always think we are right.

Confusion enters when people assume that this is a problem that “some” people have. No, this is the condition of every man. Everyone, if thinking, thinks he is right. When I have had people come to confront me with the problem of my cock-sureness, they did not undertake that difficult task because they thought they were wrong about it.

And so, confronted with this dilemma, a number of modern milquetoasts have retreated into a dogmatic minimalism. They think they can escape this dilemma by reducing the number of their dogmatic convictions to almost zero. The problem is that this itself is quite the dogmatic conviction. They think this, do they? Someone has somewhere defined a liberal as someone who is incapable of taking up his own side in an argument.

But let us return to the problem of bombastic self-assurance, which was the target of this particular proverb. Every man—conservative, liberal, and moderate—is right in his own eyes. The statement that is made in the second half of the proverb is that the Lord knows the real story. He knows the story we are weaving for ourselves, and He also knows all the various motives and concerns that we have tucked away in the various cupboards of our hearts. He knows, and He ponders it.

And so it would appear that the only real way of escape from self-deception is to be close friends with the one who could tell us the truth at any time.

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

Who can say, I have made my heart clean,
I am pure from my sin?

Proverbs 20:9

This is a rhetorical question, with the expected answer of “no one,” but all of us would still like to be able to answer in the affirmative. But unfortunately, we cannot see the backs of our own heads. The eyes we use to look around for sin in our lives are themselves marred by sin, and how can we use sinful eyes to look for the blemishes in our eyes?

When it comes to the day-to-day matters of conscience, we are supposed to keep a clean conscience, but even a clean conscience is no absolute.

“For I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me” (1 Cor. 4:4, ESV).

“for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything” (1 John 3:20, ESV).

So having a troubled conscience means that it is likely that something is wrong and needs to be put right. But having an untroubled conscience doesn’t mean the same thing. We have to leave that kind of ultimate evaluation up to the Lord. He knows all things. He knows exactly how much we are kidding ourselves. Not only so, but He loves us anyway.

How is this possible? And how is it possible for us to recognize that we cannot identify all of our sins and not have this understanding paralyze us with holy terror? The answer of Scripture is justification, the forensic and final declaration of God that we are in fact righteous. Because the Father has uttered the great “not guilty” over us through the bloody death of Jesus, and because He then uttered the stupefying “well done, good and faithful servant” over us through the resurrection of Jesus, it is possible for us to be liberated into the task hunting down our remaining sins through the process of sanctification. When we find and kill one, we might feel chagrin, but no dread. The entire process of sanctification is taking place under a banner that reads “no condemnation.” And this means that the fact that I do not know the extent of my remaining sin does not matter. And all of it is nothing but a cleansing grace.

“Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water” (Heb. 10:22).

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

A talebearer revealeth secrets:
But he that is of a faithful spirit concealeth the matter.

Proverbs 11:13

There are times when Scripture tells us to go in opposite directions, sometimes this way and sometimes that. Should we answer a fool according to his folly (Prov. 26:5), or should we not answer him according to his folly (Prov. 26:4)? And because we are dealing with wisdom literature, and not stacking blocks of wood, the answer comes back to us in the form of it all depends.

If someone has done something particularly ripe, and won’t deal with it, are there times when it should be told to the church? Absolutely (Matt. 18:17). And when Paul rebuked Peter at Antioch to his face, he did so in front of them all (Gal. 2:14). It is a sin to sin, and it is another sin to hide the sin. “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: But whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy” (Prov. 28:13). That seems plain enough.

And of course, these are the sorts of passages that the talebearer will be quick to point to. He reveals secrets, and he is doing as a gossip. So the gossip has a line of defense—he portrays himself as a truth teller. He is not a snitch. He is not a security risk, or a criminal leaker, but rather a whistleblower. He is one of the good words, not one of the bad words.

But the contrast should be plain. In those circumstances when the talebearer is sharing everything he knows all over the place, what does a faithful spirit do? He conceals a matter. But if we remember what we have discussed just a moment ago, this is righteous when it is done righteously, and it is wicked when it is not. How are we to tell? This is wisdom literature, and so we should be steeped in the way this principle is taught.

We begin with the fact that it can be a scriptural requirement to cover up sins.

Cover ups can clearly be a godly endeavor that we are called to strive for. Joseph, being a righteous man, determined to divorce Mary quietly (Matt. 1:19). Had Mary actually been unfaithful to him, she would have been pilloried by the discernment bloggers. This would have been right before they keel-hauled Joseph for “hushing it up,” and that would be right before they tarred and feathered their pastor for the counsel he had given, forcing him to apologize for protecting “that hussy.”

But . . .

“He that covereth a transgression seeketh love; But he that repeateth a matter separateth very friends” (Prov. 17:9). “Hatred stirreth up strifes: But love covereth all sins” (Prov. 10:12). “A fool’s wrath is presently known: But a prudent man covereth shame” (Prov. 12:16).

This is something that pastors are particularly summoned to understand. The devil is the one who accuses the brethren, day and night, and I am afraid there are far too many Christians who do not really understand the diabolical spirit they are of (Rev. 12:10; Luke 9:55). They think they are doing the work of God when they are indulging in what He flat prohibited.

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

Hatred stirreth up strifes: But love covereth all sins.

Proverbs 10:12

The second half of this proverb is quite familiar to us. It is quoted two places in the New Testament, and a variation of it is found elsewhere in Proverbs. “He that covereth a transgression seeketh love; But he that repeateth a matter separateth very friends” (Prov. 17:9). “And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8). “Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins” (James 5:20). In all these places, the practice of covering sin is contrasted with an alternative behavior, or amplified by a compatible attitude.

Solomon contrasts this covering of sins with the attitude of hatred, which stirs up strife. Elsewhere in Proverbs, the contrasting behavior is that of talking out of school. And Peter tells us that we are to have fervent love for one another, with the implication that it is this kind of love that is capable of covering a multitude of sins. In James, we are shown that the behavior that actually covers sin is the evangelistic endeavor of turning a sinner away from his wandering path.

If we put all this together, what do we find? We cover a multitude of sins when we refuse the temptations of tale-bearing, when we refuse stir up strife by digging up bones, when we seek to persuade someone away from a pattern of behavior that is destroying him, and when we love one another fervently.  

This last item, the one that Peter mentions, is the key to all of it. Without fervent love, refusal to be a tale-bearer can be silent complicity. Refusal to stir up strife can be craven compromise, accompanied by a fearful reluctance to address something that should have been addressed years ago. Without fervent love, evangelistic endeavors are nothing but a hectoring nuisance.

This word is particularly important for pastors, who are called to cover things up for a living, which is obviously a calling that can go badly wrong. Without fervent love for the flock, warning the people about their sins is just being a time-serving hireling, not to mention a pain in the neck. Without fervent love, neglect of the people’s sins is cowardice and compromise masquerading as a judicious pastoral approach.

Fervent love imitates the love of Christ, which provides the only real covering for sin.

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