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

“Through wisdom is an house builded; And by understanding it is established: And by knowledge shall the chambers be filled with all precious and pleasant riches”

Proverbs 24:3-4

This is a proverb that provides an echo of David’s earlier testimony: “The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; Yea, I have a goodly heritage” (Psalm 16:6).

God is good to us, all the time, which all Christians confess. But it is also true that God is frequently good to us in the physical realm. His goodness is not limited to the invisible spiritual realm. 

Now we all recognize this, at least implicitly, when we say grace over our meals, and when we celebrate God’s goodness to us at Thanksgiving. But there is an odd kind of schizophrenia going on, in that many Christians do not want to acknowledge in theological discussions what they every day acknowledge around the dinner table. And that is, that God gives us cool stuff. 

Sometimes this is because we don’t want to be mistaken for some crass health and wealth preacher, and that desire is good, so far as it goes. The “name it and claim it” approach really is simplistic, and the “blab it and grab it” approach is even more so. But let us be frank, you and I. The health and wealth guys do in fact have a lot of verses.

Our proverb is one of them. Wisdom builds the house. Understanding establishes the house. And knowledge fills up all the storerooms, and the basement, and the attic, with all kinds of pleasant things. All kinds of precious things. All kinds of riches. 

This is not true in some sort of automatic vending machine way, of course not. But such passage mean something, do they not? If one man thanks God for his sandwich at lunch, then why cannot another man thank God for the house that wisdom built, the house that understanding established, and the chambers that were filled up with all his pleasant things? All of them are made out of molecules, and all of them were given by a good and generous God.

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

“If thou sayest, Behold, we knew it not; Doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it? And he that keepeth thy soul, doth not he know it? And shall not he render to every man according to his works?”

Proverbs 24:12

“If you say, “Surely we did not know this,” Does not He who weighs the hearts consider it? He who keeps your soul, does He not know it? And will He not render to each man according to his deeds?”

Proverbs 24:12

The problem for those who get into the habit of making excuses is that most of their practicing is on those who are finite and limited, and who are usually not in a position to refute the excuse, whatever it is.

Someone asks, “who left this mess here?” The excuse leaps easily to the lips. “I didn’t know anything about it.” Or, in the words of this proverb, “I knew it not.”

The difficulty is that this is not just said to your teacher, or your supervisor, or your father. It is also said coram Deo, before the face of God. This proverb is therefore an exhortation, every time you think an excuse is in order, to remember that God is the possessor of all the omnis. He is everywhere present, and He knows all things.

Because He is everywhere present, He was there in the room when you left the mess for someone else to clean up. Because He is omniscient, all-knowing, He knows everything about it. 

This proverb pushes this truth down into all the corners. This is saying much more than that God knows the state of the room. He knows the state of your heart when you are telling yourself all those lies. The Lord weighs the hearts. The Lord keeps the soul. And when He renders to all according to their deeds, He is going to go on the basis of what He says, and not on the basis of the excuses we may have offered.

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

“Buy the truth, and sell it not; Also wisdom, and instruction, and understanding.”

Proverbs 23:23

Truth matters, and it matters big time. 

This proverb starts there. Buy the truth, and once you have bought it, hang on to it. Don’t even think about selling. When you have bought the truth, you need to have done so in order to acquire a permanent possession.

What this means is that subjectivism, which amounts to sentimentalism, is prohibited to the person who would walk in biblical wisdom. Truth is objective. It is independent of our feelings, and does not require our affirmation in order to remain what it is.  

And so we are justified in believing that this proverb teaches us that truth is very, very important. Relativism is false. It is not possible to serve God honestly and rightly apart from the truth. Truth matters. 

But it is not the only thing that matters, and many truth-oriented churches get stuck here. The proverb goes on. Also, it says. Three additional things are mentioned, things which need to be used to supplement our possession of the truth. These three things are wisdom, instruction, and understanding. And although I used the word supplement, it is much more than supplemental. Without these things that arrive with the also, truth is not going to remain truth for very long. 

Wisdom is the crown of all learning. It is not just knowledge, and not just understanding. It is the grace to know how all of it should be expressed, how it should all be lived out. What is the incarnational form of the truth? Instruction means that the one who possesses truth does not possess all truth, and must always be willing to learn more. The one who believes in absolute truth is not precluded from being someone who is always learning. And understanding means knowing how it is all to be assembled—how all the pieces go together.

Churches which cling to a set of naked truths do collide with our relativistic age, but they do so ineffectively. They have a clunkity clunkity approach to truth, which is not up to the challenge posed by the deep fog of relativism. 

Truth matters, and has pulled into your driveway. Receive the truth of God into your homes . . . provided it is traveling in company. Are wisdom, instruction, and understanding in the back seat?

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