Grace & Peace

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

“He that walketh uprightly walketh surely: But he that perverteth his ways shall be known” (Proverbs 10:9).

A proverb tells us how it usually goes. It is generally the case that when the ungodly take the kind of short cuts that they want to take, their approach usually comes back to bite them. And when the godly decide out of principle to walk in the way God instructed us to walk, their path is secure.

This proverb tells us that to walk upright is to walk confidently, with no risk of taking a tumble. The other half of the proverb tells us, by implication, that the perverted man reveals his perversion by taking that tumble. God is not mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Driving recklessly is a good way to hurry toward the wreck. You cannot plant Canadian thistle and go out at harvest time to bring in the barley.

The person who is trying to persuade himself that it is sensible to pervert the way will perhaps tell himself that an entrepreneurial spirit is one that “takes risks.” This is certainly true, and there is a wise way to take risks. In the parable of the talents, the slaves who received five talents and two talents went out and risked what they had received. They risked what the worthless slave did not want to risk, which is why he buried his. But realize that this means that the parable could have had quite a different ending. The slave with five talents could have lost everything, as well as the slave with two talents, and the wicked slave could have been the only one who returned any of the money to the master. That would not have changed anything.

So taking risks really is a good thing. But to take the risk of bending or breaking the laws of God is not, according to this parable, taking a risking at all. It is running headlong toward that tumble.

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

“Labour not to be rich: Cease from thine own wisdom. Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not? For riches certainly make themselves wings; They fly away as an eagle toward heaven” (Proverbs 23:4–5).

We have a short pithy proverb in English that says “money talks.” To which a wit might reply, “Yes, my money talks. But it always says good bye.”

Solomon here gives a qualified instruction, an exhortation with regard to getting rich. He says bluntly, do not labor in order to get rich. Doing so would be to rely on your own wisdom, which in this case is clearly faulty. In this case, you would be working hard in order to shoot the moon. You would be setting your eyes on something that was extremely unlikely. Why? Because riches are a winged creature. Riches have the wings of eagles, and when they fly away all you can see are the tail feathers, and they are getting smaller and smaller.

But note that all through the book of Proverbs, young men are urged, again and again, to work hard, to be industrious, to be skilled in their craft, to stay out of poverty, and so on. Urging men to labor hard is actually one of the main themes of the book. That said, here he says, “Do not labor to get rich.” What is going on?

It is a matter of setting realistic goals. Your business plan ought not to be built on the foundation of mounded up cotton candy, mixed together speculative daydreams. The thing you have set your hope on will (almost always) fly away like an eagle. These are proverbs, meaning that they are generally true, overwhelmingly true. It is not like saying “all triangles have three sides,” a statement that is always and everywhere the case. It is more like saying “the early bird catches the worm,” which is occasionally false. A little sleep, and little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and sometimes a lazy man will win Powerball.

Occasionally a man will work hard, and will strike it rich. And while this happens more often in our day than it did in Solomon’s, it is still a rarity. In most cases, a man should work with realistic goals.

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

“The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender” (Proverbs 22:7).

The gist of this famous proverb is both obvious and wise. Rich people have way more influence than do the poor, and so it makes sense that the rich are the ones who call the shots. By the same token, as an example of the former, the person who is in the debtor position is beholden to the one who is the creditor. So much is clear, and these are words to live by. Avoid debt. Minimize debt. Pay off debt.

At the same time, because we are dealing with people and not with math on a page, there are some variables. I would not call them exceptions, but we do need to recognize the variations.

The Scriptures do not condemn being in debt as a flat out sin. The Lord Jesus requires us to lend when we can, doing so with an open hand (Luke 6:34-35). The Old Testament law requires lending to the poor, but without the use of penalizing usury (Deut. 23:19), or taking any of his essentials as collateral (Deut. 24:10).

So unsecured debt is unfortunate for the same reasons that slavery is unfortunate. If a man borrows a thousand dollars, then he is servant to the lender. This is why Paul says to owe no man anything, except for the debt of love (Rom. 13: 8).

But suicidal empathy can afflict the wealthy, and that can come out in perverse ways. There are times when the situations are reversed, and the creditor becomes the debtor’s slave. If I borrow a thousand unsecured dollars, you’ve got me. But if I borrow a hundred thousand unsecured dollars, I’ve got you.

Another variation is this. I have been using the term unsecured. There is a difference between an unsecured poverty loan, taken because the person is hard up, on the one hand, and a fully collateralized home loan, for example. If the homeowner gets in financial trouble, he can always discharge his obligation by means of the home. He has not extended his arm farther than he can draw it back.

One last example. There is a difference between a business investment and a business loan. In a business investment, the entrepreneur does not owe anybody anything apart from his best effort and hard work. The investor is assuming the risk, and doing so knowingly. With a loan, if the people involved have any sense, it will be collateralized.

In the meantime, Polonius in Hamlet was not a wise man, but he did say a wise thing.

“Neither a borrower nor a lender be,
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.”

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

“The hearing ear, and the seeing eye, the Lord hath made even both of them” (Proverbs 20:12).

The import of this proverb is simple to understand, but unless the Lord God grants it, also impossible to understand.

In the grip of his conceits, the unbelieving mind wants to think of knowledge as an achievement of our own. We would love to believe that the reason of man is a lamp to light our way. But in this, we have demonstrated the blindness of carnal wisdom . . . we have inverted the thing entirely.

The eye does not shed light, but rather receives light. The ear drum is not something you can beat in order to establish a rhythm for our lives. The ear was an exquisite creation of God, a gift of God to man, and one that enables us to receive the words He speaks to us.

And so it is that what God has done for us all on a physical level—given us the capacity to receive truth—He also does on a spiritual plane for His elect. “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear” (Matthew 11:15).

We do not meditate enough on what a mystery meditation is. We do not wonder enough at what an amazing thing it is to know anything. Do we know that Christ is the incarnate One? Do we know that He is Messiah the Prince? Do we know that when He was raised up on that cross, that this was the death of that ancient serpent? When we know such things, it is the gift of God, lest any man should boast.

The skeptic wants to say that such knowledge is not real knowledge. It is not the kind of knowledge we gain when science demonstrates the boiling point of water at sea level. That can be empirically ascertained, or so the argument goes. But for the one who has been given spiritual eyes and ears, the existence of the pot, the water, and the stove is every bit as mysterious as the waters of baptism.

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

“The sluggard will not plow by reason of the cold; Therefore shall he beg in harvest, and have nothing” (Prov. 20:4).

The sluggard in this proverb only offers one excuse. It was too cold to be out there plowing. Why didn’t you plow? Because it was too cold. Seems straightforward, and maybe it was too cold. But given the way it usually goes in the book of Proverbs, probably not.

Only one excuse is offered here, but the inventiveness of the sluggard makes it likely that he has a bag full. It might be too hot next time. Or the plow needs to have some adjustments made. Or he twisted his ankle. Or he had to visit a sick friend. There is always something.

Now the reason that sluggards offer these kinds of excuses is that it often works on their supervisors. The boss frequently doesn’t feel right about cracking down on the person who is a perpetual slacker. Okay. It should be warmer tomorrow.

But the import of this proverb is that there is a supervisor behind the supervisor, and this one—he goes by the name of reality—cuts no slack at all. He just plain doesn’t care.

The harvest gives us no reason why it didn’t come up. It doesn’t know. The seed doesn’t know whether the day for plowing was too hot or too cold. It knows nothing whatever about twisted ankles or sick friends. It just knows that it can’t grow if it is not there, and actually, it doesn’t even know that. It just doesn’t grow, not being there.

And so it is that the sluggard will have to go begging, hat in hand. Just as he gave excuses at the time, he now gives others a string of post mortem reasons. He had a string of unfortunate circumstances conspire against him.

He stuck his finger in the fire, and calls the consequences “bad luck.”

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