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

“Every purpose is established by counsel: And with good advice make war”

Proverbs 20:18

There is a common assumption about that spontaneity represents that which is genuine and sincere, while planning something out beforehand is somehow artificial and contrived. This comes out frequently in discussions about devotion or worship, where a planned liturgy is assumed to be something that will quench the Spirit. 

In contrast to this, our proverb says that good counsel is the foundation upon which every purpose is to be established. And the proverb goes on to emphasize the same thing again if the enterprise is one of great important . . . like a war. You should not find yourself in a war because one of your high-ranking officials lost his temper. Neither should you find yourself in a war ill-prepared because of some impetuous action by the enemy. Planning, foresight, preparation, and thoughtfulness are all to be commended.

A 19th century Prussian general once observed that no plan survives first contact with the enemy. From this, some might conclude that plans are worthless. Why plan and prepare if all of that goes up the chute as soon as you begin to execute it?

The paradox was highlighted by Dwight Eisenhower, who once said that “plans were useless, but planning is indispensable.” The person who plans, provided he does so in wisdom, is more likely to be adaptable than the person who didn’t think about anything beforehand and was caught flatfooted. This means when that first contact with the enemy occurs, one of the features of the wise planning would include the necessity of adapting to the new circumstances. 

If a man is wise and has a sincere heart, there is no downside if he thinks through what he is going to do beforehand. While it remains true that man proposes and God disposes, the man who proposes wisely is aware of this. His plans have budgeted for that possibility. He does not say that he is going to go this town or that one and make a pile of money. He rather says. “If the Lord wills . . .” (Jas. 4:15). 

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

“Cease, my son, to hear the instruction that causeth to err from the words of knowledge”

Proverbs 19:27

Scripture teaches us by implication that there are two distinct kinds of ignorance. One is the obvious sort of ignorance that is the result of not learning. This is borne out of laziness, or circumstances, or native inabilities. The person concerned simply does not know the truth. This ignorance consists largely of the absence of knowledge. 

But the second kind of ignorance is what we see cautioned against in this proverb. There is a sort of ignorance that is the result of assiduous studying, note taking, lecture attending, and book reading. A person who is doing this is growing in his ignorance, layering lies on top of folly, and follies on top of lies. The person in this situation is told to cease listening to that kind of instruction. If you are enrolled in a school that actively promulgates ignorance, then you need to make a point of dropping out.

This kind of ignorance is largely the result of the presence of error. Those errors can be extensively footnoted, and there can be a broad array of widely recognized authorities who blurbed the book. The entire academic world might be all in when it comes to whatever the particular error might be—whether it is socialism, or Darwinism, or climate change studies, or computer modeling of pandemics. 

Smart people, meaning people whose intellectual engine can hit a lot of rpms quickly—they can make the tachometer bounce—can make the most egregious mistakes. And when they are bent on making those mistakes, and they seek to browbeat regular folks with their expertise, it is important for regular folks to simply stay away. 

This will be called anti-intellectualism, but that is not what it is at all. Going back to our first point, there are two ways to be anti-intellectual. One is to avoid the life of the mind, to not care about the truth at all. But the other way is anti-intellectual also, and that is to bury the truth under a rock pile of footnotes.

“I have more understanding than all my teachers: For thy testimonies are my meditation” (Psalm 119:99).

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

“He that is first in his own cause seemeth just; But his neighbour cometh and searcheth him”

Proverbs 18:17

“The first one to plead his cause seems right, until his neighbor comes and examines him”

Proverbs 18:17

This caution, this admonition, is in the book of Proverbs for a reason. The frail human tendency to jump to conclusions is an ancient one. We hear some gaudy report that puts somebody in a bad light, and we then head off to tell somebody else about it. But the wisdom of Scripture says wait. You don’t know the whole story yet. 

The proverb is not telling us that we may not share a bit of news, such as the fact that Cindy just had her baby this morning. There is no accusation in that, there is no charge. Even if the person giving the report were mistaken, and people came to believe something false, the only conclusion they would eventually come to, when they had gotten the truth, would be that Cindy was not yet a mother. But if the statement were something scandalous, such as saying that Cindy had been let go from her job because she had been caught embezzling money, the situation is different. This is the kind of statement—we should all know—that Cindy really might want to dispute. And the principle given here is that there must be an opportunity to dispute it. And why?

The first person to speak into the microphone can make a very plausible case. The facts seem damning. But I have seen many situations where everything seemed to be really clear and really obvious, and when I heard the other side, the whole thing flipped. 

And this is why all conscientious Christians must be adamantly opposed to what we might call “trial by Internet.” As mentioned at the beginning, this temptation to be unjust to the person who is first accused by someone, before a defense has been offered, is an ancient temptation. We have always found it easy to be unjust. But what the modern digital era has done is this. We now have the capacity to be unjust at a high rate of speed.

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

“A reproof entereth more into a wise man than an hundred stripes into a fool”

Proverbs 17:10

In Scripture, being found a fool is a moral failing, not primarily an intellectual one. It results in intellectual darkness, but it is not caused by a deficiency of native IQ. By the same token, there are simple people who are faithful, and who are therefore wise—or at least wise about the things that matter. 

The New Testament speaks a great deal about the intellectual consequences of sin. Their foolish hearts were darkened, and God gave them over to a reprobate mind (Rom. 1:28). The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving (2 Cor. 4:4). Perverse disputes come from men of corrupt minds (1 Tim. 6:5). Put another way, it is not possible to lose your soul without also at the same time losing your mind. 

And so our proverb here says that a wise man has a much quicker grasp of cause and effect than does a fool. When folly has entered into a man, such that he has lost his understanding of the moral nature of cause and effect, our text says that a hundred blows cannot drive that error out of his head. By way of contrast, you can speak just one word about the same issue to a wise man, and he picks it up immediately. He is able to grasp it instantly.

We do not acknowledge as quickly as we should that many of our modern isms, the issues that are roiling our body politic, are at root moral issues, and not political differences at all. And so it is that people cling to their bad ideas, all their isms, and they do so tenaciously. Whether it be egalitarianism, or environmentalism, or socialism, or feminism, or whatever other folly there may be, they will not let go. One hundred blows can’t make them let go.

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

“He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; And he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city”

Proverbs 16:32

The Scriptures do not teach that anger is necessarily a sin. But for us, steeped in sin, anger that operates on a hair trigger, anger that is sharp and sudden, anger that erupts in a flash, is almost certainly sin. 

Paul says in Ephesians that we are to “be angry, and sin not” (Eph. 4:26). He says this, quoting from the Psalms (Ps. 4:4). 

One of the ways we avoid sinning in our anger is by making a point to walk toward the occasions of anger slowly. A godly man is not one who is never angry. He is one who is slow to anger. We are told this by the Lord’s own brother. “Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath” (James 1:19). He says “slow to wrath.” He immediately adds that the wrath of man does not bring about the righteousness of God (Jas. 1:20). What this means is that the wrath of man is sudden and impulsive. 

An angry man stirs up trouble and strife, but a man slow to anger appeases strife (Prov. 15:18). 

When we set ourselves to learn what it means to be slow to anger, we are imitating God Himself. God is slow to anger, and plentiful in mercy (Ps. 103:8).

God is slow to anger, and is gracious, full of compassion (Ps. 145:8). 

God is slow to anger, ready to pardon (Neh. 9:17).

As we set ourselves to the task of learning this, our proverb teaches us that a man who can govern his own temper is greater than a mighty warrior. A man who can accomplish this feat of self-conquest is greater than a man who conquers a city. It is the true test.

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