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

A man hath joy by the answer of his mouth:
And a word spoken in due season, how good is it!

Proverbs 15:23

Hebraic parallelisms take different forms. Sometimes it is a simple parallel, stated in different words, with each clause informing the other. Other times it is a contrast, setting forth opposites. In this case, the repetition takes the first thought as expressed, and rolls it out a little bit further.

The way this is stated, we do not know exactly where the joy of the apt answer lands. Is it something that brings joy to the one whogives the apt answer, or to the one who receives it? Or perhaps both?

In either case, the additional information that comes to us in this second phrase is found in the words in due season. We are talking about the aptness of a timely word. As one of our sages has expressed it, the only difference between salad and garbage is timing.

Whoever finds this joy, whoever experiences the goodness of a good answer, the goodness is to be found in the fact that it was a word in due season, the right word for the right moment. Someone who spouts falsehoods is never a blessing. But someone who offers truisms at all the wrong moments is like Mary Bennett in Pride and Prejudice. Some are so distracted by the truth of what they are saying that they never notice how their timing makes the truth into an odd sort of lie.

So when we have done something that is verbally maladroit, we cannot excuse our poor timing by retreating to the dictionary in order to plead for our lexicographical justifications. But I was blessing him. “He that blesseth his friend with a loud voice, rising early in the morning, It shall be counted a curse to him” (Proverbs 27:14).

We must not take our words as though they were an odd collection of silver links of chain and small pearls, tucked into a little box, and pronounced to be a necklace. No. The setting matters (Prov. 25:11), and an important part of the setting is the timing.

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

The hand of the diligent shall bear rule:
But the slothful shall be under tribute.

Proverbs 15:3

The doctrine of God’s omniscience is not a dry theological abstraction. Rightly understood, the doctrine is a consuming fire. As many acknowledge, the God of Calvinistic theology is an “in-your-face” kind of God, but what many do not acknowledge is that this is also true of every form of Christian orthodoxy—provided we think about it for more than a moment. No orthodox understanding of God can be fitted into a box.

God’s omniscience, His knowledge of all things, is not mediated knowledge. He doesn’t find out things because angels tell Him, but before that “He didn’t know.” He doesn’t discover things, as though He were a learner. No, the knowledge that God has of all things in heaven and on earth, and of all things past, present, and future, is a knowledge that He simply possesses immediately.

And we have to be careful that we don’t think of the omni-doctrines in pie dough terms—as though the farther we spread God’s knowledge, the thinner it gets. No, as all of God is present anywhere that God is present, and as God’s knowledge of what we are doing this moment is not a fraction of His knowledge, it follows that God is in no way distant from us. God knows all, and all of God knows all.

This is something we ought to think about more with regard to what we are doing when we sin. Our proverb says that the eyes of the Lord are in “every place,” and that those eyes behold “the evil and the good.” In order to sin at all, we must actively suppress our knowledge that God is in the room with us, that God is not sleeping, that God is considering every one of the back-and-forth thoughts we entertain in the course of temptation, and that He knows absolutely everything about it.

Further, this knowledge that God has is not that of a passive spectator.

“Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do” (Heb. 4:13).

The Word of Scripture cuts us up as though we were a sacrificial animal being arranged on an altar of fire (Heb. 4:11-12). And when it says in v. 13 that we are “opened” unto the eyes of God, the verb used is trachelizo—meaning “laid bare.” It is related to the word for neck or throat, and creates the image of an animal’s throat being pulled back just before it is slit. God’s knowledge is not distant and removed. We are not Deists, serving a god who resides on the other side of the galaxies, and who can only dimly make out what we are doing.

No. The eyes of the Lord are everywhere present. The eyes of the Lord behold all the evil, and all of the good.   

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

The hand of the diligent shall bear rule:
But the slothful shall be under tribute

Proverbs 12:24

We live in a time where we love to talk about leaders, but we rarely talk about rulers. In addition, we tend to think of this as though it were the result of a great advance of liberty. But it actually is not. Rulers obviously need to be constitutionally bounded, but leaders? As long as they secured the necessary buy-in from their base, they can lead us all right over the cliff.

C.S. Lewis put it this way:

“The modern State exists not to protect our rights but to do us good or make us good—anyway, to do something to us or to make us something. Hence the new name ‘leaders’ for those who were once ‘rulers’. We are less their subjects than their wards, pupils, or domestic animals. There is nothing left of which we can say to them, ‘Mind your own business.’ Our whole lives are their business.”^[1]

This proverb sets an alternative before us. The diligent go in this way, while the slothful go in another direction. The two directions are rule and slavery, respectively. Diligence in a chosen vocational activity is a combination of hard work, enthusiasm, and competence. When someone gives himself to the pursuit of such excellence, the end result is that he will stand before kings (Prov. 22:29). Are you ambitious to be the right kind of ruler? Then mind your own business, tend your own knitting, and mow your own yard. The hand that reaches for rule for its own sake doesn’t get it. The hand that winds up bearing rule is a hand with its very own calluses on it.

But laziness spirals down into slavery. He is an obvious candidate for corvée. He is put to forced labor. He is conscripted for the use of others. Precisely because he was not a self-starter, someone else decided to start him up.  

^[1] C. S. Lewis, God in the Dock, ed. Walter Hooper (HarperOne, 1994), 349–350.

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

He that keepeth his mouth keepeth his life:
But he that openeth wide his lips shall have destruction.

Proverbs 13:3

The Scriptures have much to teach us on the subject of guarding our tongues, and this is one place where the instruction is quite pointed.

The imagery here is that of a person’s life as a walled city. The person who guards the gates, who has watchmen on the tower, who has sentries with spears at the entry way, is a person who keeps or guards his life. The idea is that if you keep the gates, you keep the city. By way of contrast, we find the talker. He opens his lips wide, as in, wide open, and the eventual result of this will be the destruction of his city.

For a time, it may not look like this. With the gates open wide, it can look like the city is open for business. A lot of profitable traffic going in and out. But other things can go in and out as well, and once again the lesson of history is learned the hard way. Short term gain is often long term loss.

The role of a sentry is to be suspicious. He asks questions, and sometimes the questions are awkward questions. He not only asks questions of those coming in, but also of those going out. A godly man monitors his words carefully. It may even have to take the form of a fake Buddha citation, “There are three keys to the words we say. Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary?”

Never mind the Buddha. Is it accurate, as in, not a lie (Lev. 19:11; Col. 3:9)? Is it both gracious and salty (Col. 4:6)? Was it actually needed at this point (Prov. 25:11-12)?

James reminds us that our tongue can do a lot of damage.

“Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth! And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell. For every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind: But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison” (James 3:5–8).

This proverb reminds us that the damage done does not exclude our own lives.

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

He that is despised, and hath a servant, is better than he that honoureth himself, and lacketh bread.

Proverbs 12:9

There are a number of ways to state this principle. It is better to have beer and no foam than to have foam and no beer. It is better to have cattle and no hat than to have the hat and no cattle. It is better to have steak and no sizzle than to have sizzle and no steak.

In this proverb, actual wealth is enjoyed while not being proclaimed to the world in an ostentatious way, and this is better than to have the ostentatious display and go to bed hungry. But some people prefer the reputation to the thing itself. This seems like a bizarre sin to fall into, particularly when the right choice is obvious (as it is with the extreme example of the hat and the cattle).

But there are situations where we nevertheless need to be disciplined and trained by God’s Word to respond and react in the appropriate way. Here is a pop quiz for your heart. Would you rather be wise and thought a fool, or be a fool and thought wise? Would you rather be a just man who was thought to be a racist, or a racist who was only thought to be just?

Of course, our immediate response is that we would rather have the reality and the reputation to both line up. And so yes, if that is an option, take it. But Scripture reasons with us in this way so that we might learn how to prioritize correctly. “A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and loving favour rather than silver and gold” (Prov. 22:1). We respond to this by saying that we would prefer, if God doesn’t mind very much, to have a good name and great riches. Sure, but that is not how integrity usually comes to us. Solomon was given great wealth because he asked for something else. The wealth was thrown in because he didn’t ask for the wealth to be thrown in.

Abraham came down the mountain with a living Isaac because he went up the mountain willing for it to be otherwise.

Notice finally that this choice of the flashy car over the bills being paid on time is a result of a person who decides to “honor himself.” But when you promote yourself like this, you are asking for God to demote you. You are asking God to do with you what He usually does in this world to such folly (Luke 17:33).

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