and the title of this message is the Book of Proverbs promise too much and we encounter the problem I think head on in Proverbs chapter three and we'll take the first unit of material, a literary portion which we call pericopate, and we can see very quickly that it's promising us health, wealth, and prosperity. We didn't have any problem last night with the promises that if we internalize the wisdom of this book we identify immediately with the reality that we will have the religious benefit of knowing God and understanding the fear of the Lord that doesn't that rings true to our experience and the other consequence that we would have an ethical education of knowing what's right and just and fair is existentially true as well presents no problem to us and that God will protect us from wicked men and easy money and wicked women and easy sex or wicked men and easy sex for a woman's viewpoint. All of that rings readily true to our experience but when we're promised health and especially wealth I suspect and prosperity that doesn't ring readily true always to our experience. So we begin with chapter three and verse one my son and we comment it last night that he does not intend to exclude the daughter. It assumes that the daughter is also instructed in wisdom literature because the mother stands on equal footing with the father before the children by the way it will always have father and mother as in one eight father and the mother in Hebrew poetry you'll always get the father in the a half of the line and you'll always get the mother in the beef of the line. My son do not forget my Torah it's the same word for the mosaic law and the word forget is I guess we can do with it in English it's the opposite of remember but in Hebrew the word remember is much closer to the etymology of that word which is to remember make yourself a member again of something so when it says to in the Old Testament to remember the Exodus you remember yourself with your fathers and you relive the Exodus experience you remember the opposite of remember is not really forget the opposite of remember is to dismember to separate and somebody saying to the son my son do not dismember yourself spiritually cut yourself off from your heritage and this teaching but constantly remember yourself make yourself a part of the teaching my son do not forget my Torah but keep my and this is the word for commands also used for the mosaic law keep my commands in your heart now what's actually happening here he's building on chapter two where he said store it up in your heart and now he's saying retain it don't let go of what you already have this is an escalation of what we saw last night but they will prolong your life many years and bring you prosperity actually the prolong your life many years means an indefinite future it doesn't mean up until the grave necessarily and that's the end of your life Isaiah 53 10 when our Lord made his soul a sin offering then it says he will prolong his days and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hands so after he's dead he prolongs his days which shows you they're not looking at it from a clinical viewpoint death is not a clinical concept necessarily death is separation from God and this is a way of I think speaking of everlasting life verse three let love and this is very difficult word to translate that's the essence of covenant living the word tested the Hebrew word is tested and it means people have a covenant relationship and one of the parties in the covenant relationship is in desperate need and cannot help himself and the other party in the covenant is able to meet that need and helps out of love kindness whatever that grace is that we feel of divine it's a divine attribute that we see another person in need and we have kindness love grace the King James translates this word 13 different ways including mercy being one of them in the NIV we tended to always translate it unfailing love for simply love you could see it for example when Joseph is dying and he says to his brothers this is the tested this is the kindness she will show me that after I die you will bury me with my brothers with my family he's in desperate need he cannot help himself and he's entirely dependent upon his brothers to bury him this is the virtue of Ruth this was heasted to Makhlaan husband Makhlaan is dead he has no children he has no social immortality and Ruth raises seed for her deceased husband burying his name this is the idea of heasted so for us in the covenant community it means when we see other people in our community who are in desperate need and we can help that need we step in to meet the need you cannot compel it and that's why normally it will add to the love and reliability faithfulness you can count on it that kind of a person that you can always count on to help you in your need that's the essence of covenant living that's being summarized here and that's the essence of what the book is teaching in terms of righteousness and justice and so forth it's teaching us to serve other people and not self love and faithfulness never leave you and those teachings bind them around your neck and here's what we cannot do on our own write them on the tablet of your heart and the New Testament is very clear that the spirit of God has to write them upon the heart we must be open to it and ask God for the spirit of God it's clear in the New Testament is the one who writes the law upon our hearts we are not under law we are in law and because the law is in our nature we live out the law so by God's grace it's written on the tablet of your heart that sounds to me very similar to 2nd Corinthians 3 where we are the ministers of a new covenant where the spirit of God has written the law not on rock but on the tablets of the heart and then you will win favor and a good name in the sight of God and man trust in the Lord and that means the Lord who as we build himself in this book it our faith is not in the book of Proverbs our faith is ultimately in God who stands behind the Proverbs the Proverbs are only as good as God is good we don't know God apart from revelation but ultimately we do not worship the Bible we worship the God who revealed himself in the Bible and so we trust in the Lord who stands behind his revelation they're inseparable but I think it's important to understand we're not trusting the book we're trusting a person who stands behind it trust in the Lord with all your heart do not lean on your own understanding and this might be better translated know him experience him in every area of your life and he will make your path straight or smooth the word straight is a geometric term and we do not know always whether it's horizontal straightness vertical straightness or that it can be all of that but straight works well because it's not only a physical term but it is an ethical term we talk about straight living as well but he's talking about a smooth path do not be wise in your own eyes fear the Lord which we saw last night is trusting his revelation is submitting to it out of awe and shun evil this will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones actually the word body here is that dynamic equivalent it literally says this will bring health to your navel and adl and I don't know any translation who translates that literally but it's at the very center of your life when the beginning of your life this will bring health to your navel so we want to get that one and nourishment to your bones the bones is not just physical the bones is indicative of your psyche god will make some of us will say close my bones to rejoice and so he's talking here about physical health and psychological health
honor the Lord with your wealth with the first fruits of all your crops then your barns will be filled to overprowing and your vets will brim over with new wine to understand what new wine is and I'm just going through an exegeting so we know what all the words of meaning new wine means wine that is not been crushed it means the grapes are so full that just the pressure of the grape clusters on the grape clusters presses the wine it's that full and it's the most potent wine because of that nature of picking up the yeast of the skin of the grape my son do not despise the Lord's instruction or disciplines same word do not resent his rebuke so I suspect discipline is a good translation here because the Lord disciplines those he loves as a father the son he delights in now begin with verse 13 we have a new unit of material that we can discern by form critical studies on your notes I tried to show you that the this section has in the odd verses the human covenant partners obligation one three five seven nine and then eleven tacked on and in the odd verses we have the divine covenant partners obligations so in the even verses we have our obligations in the odd verses we have God's promises or what God obliges himself to this is the nature of covenant in which we take obligations to each other and as you take God initiates it as he takes on obligations we take on obligations because see our obligations are a way of the introduction really the first one is to keep the word the commands the teaching which entails memorizing the books they can know what is saying and you carefully guard them keep them observe them and then he moves from the teacher the father and his teachings to its essence to the community don't let go of this responsibility to one another taking care of each other which is the essence and helping each other in need he moves from himself to the community and the last all deal with the Lord trust the Lord fear the Lord honor the Lord and then finally the last one is a conclusion don't despise the Lord's disciplines now I think you could see that escalation and you could see the kind of language he's using is that the father talks about his teaching as Torah let's vote this is all mosaic language now what happens at the end is that in the beginning the child is in the hand of the human father but when you grow up you're in the hands of the divine father so it begins with my son and then he ends my son don't despise the Lord's discipline and instruction because the Lord disciplines those he loves and so in place of the human father who will discipline us appropriately we end up with the Lord himself who is our heavenly father who will discipline us appropriately and much better than any human father can discipline us so you could see the gradual progression and escalation of the Lord now we move to the divine obligations in the even verses and he says in verse two that it will bring you life and shalom peace it means peace means you're totally in harmony with God creation and society that's peace everything fits together you are in harmony with your situation all relationships are at peace and you are at peace there's no stripe no prize in the ointment and not only that but it's going to give you social esteem favor with God who's over the community and the people within it beside that you're going to have a smooth run of it there's nothing that's going to trip you up you're able to take free strides on hamper you don't have to worry going through life you can take a free run at it and you won't get tripped up is the point of the smooth and straight path those stumbling stones in your way we already saw the healing is both physical and psychological and the idea of the book else well say you will participate in the tree of life which is a healing medicinal so that you're ever renewed with eternal life there will be prosperity your vats will overflow with new will sow which is burst with uncrushed so much great that it will just crush itself is the idea and your granaries will be just bulging will be like the Nasdaq that collapse once in a while and all of this it will be if the if you do not experience it it seems as though it's a proof of the father's flaw that he's disciplining you to get you into line that seems to be the logic I'm most clear about that but how does that fit in that seems to be the way it fits in as I say we have no trouble with the human obligation but it's these heavenly obligations that trouble us because it's not always true to our experience and our our our observation of the church there is a true description I find it arresting that in Hebrews chapter 11 with the great heroes of faith the first one is able next one is Enoch and the next one is Noah was able long life was able a smooth path it was murdered he died prematurely the next one is Enoch yeah he never died the next one is Noah and everybody else dies so the first three able he dies Enoch he never dies and Noah everybody else dies and the only thing I conclude is that the life of faith does not kick out the same for everybody you can't predict how it's going to turn out when I teach the book of kings or I found it interesting looking at the life of Elijah we love Elijah he never died but what about the hundred prophets that Opadiah hitting caves we don't mention those right Hebrews does they had a totally different experience and I don't know that they could identify with peace and prosperity when the hiding in caves in fact most of the prophets were martyred because Elijah complains I'm the only one left Jezebel has killed off everybody else and what about Elijah what happened to him he died at 80 years of age a sick old man very clear in the text so we think about a Elijah the life of faith and you're not going to die but there's Elijah very normal life 80 years of age dies a sickness he's the one that raised the dead how's all this fit in what I'm saying is it doesn't ring true to what we see in scriptures but we'll say that someone that might lead a sick for example how do we put that together and so that's what I'm grappling with in this message is how we put together these heavenly promises of the book of Proverbs with our earth's realities that go with it now to help me think the way through it the way I do is I try to think of all the solutions I can and I came up with four solutions that I find unacceptable that I put down there and I found four truths that helped me think my way through this problem and maybe they will help you to think your way through the problem and you'll understand the book of Proverbs better as a result at least I hope so I'll try first of all unacceptable solutions the first one is is that we can explain all suffering as due to our depravity now don't misunderstand me I think often Christians are not experiencing these promises because we're not living according to God's word and God is disciplining us and we should be corrected if we don't eat properly if we're going to bear the consequences later on and so forth and I think that's very serious but you cannot say that all suffering is due to original sin or acts of sin that solution is as old as LFS in the book of Job he said whoever perished who was innocent where were the righteous ever cut off Job 47 and because they had the doctrine of original sin which is true but they went on to explain wrongly all suffering as due to original sin and acts of sin therefore they went the next step and they accused Job of they trumped up sins against Job in the beginning they praised Job for being so righteous but when it didn't fit is that theology then they began to create charges just the same way we are inclined to do when somebody's going through a deep valley we begin to be suspicious what's wrong with that person's right and they began to do that to Job but they were giving it reality to it Job won't have it one of his arguments is why me and right away God the narrator tells us that Job was righteous what the book is all about it was a wonderful family each one celebrated the other one's birthday he says in Job chapter 27 after they've heard all these charges against him he will not lie it's the great strength of Job he just will not be false and falsify God or his experience he will not lie for God 27 and Job continued his discourse as surely as God lives was denied me justice the Almighty who has made me taste bitterness of soul as long as I have life within me the breath of God in my nostrils my lips will not speak wickedness my tongue will utter no deceit I will never admit you are in the right till I die I will not deny my integrity I will maintain my righteousness and never let go of it my conscious will not reproach me as long as I live for if I were to agree with you I would know I'm lying I just know it's not true and at the end of the book as you know God sustains Job it says he spoke the truth he held his integrity Job chapter 42 verse 7 he says to them if I can find it here verse 7
after the Lord had said these things to Job he said to Elifaz the Temmonite I am angry with you and your two friends because you have not spoken of me what is right as my servant Job has so now take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and sacrifice a burnt offering for yourselves to clenches in my servant Job will pray for you and I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your father you have not spoken of me what is right as my servant Job has so the book of Job debunks that answer well it's often true it's not the whole truth a second solution one could come up with is that he's just overly optimistic he's polyannish he's looking at life through rose colored glasses you don't want to quite say it's not the truth so you kind of tone it down a little bit and say well it's just a bit optimistic something of that sword but that won't do we saw the very nature of the serve of this of the sage and Job chapter 24 verses 30 to 34 they are characterized by keen observation and cogent reflection was he not aware of pain was he not aware that the very first story in the Bible outside of the garden is injustice pain is alive and spared with a mark upon him and it is the righteous able whose blood is crying out for the ground for justice to be done to him were they not aware of that so that is not a solution that's open to me either the third solution is that which is normally taught in the university and in the academic community almost I say universally it's just a false doctrine what happens in academia is they contradict they contrast so-called old wisdom which affirms this kind of moral order with a younger reflective wisdom such as this down in Job and ecclesiastes both of which say it isn't true so they just pit the scriptures against one another funrat for example contends that the reflective wisdom of ecclesiastes condemns this so-called old wisdom as an I quote him a single false doctrine and that is he is one of the outstanding scholars in our field and this is what's normally taught Jay Williams and those who pundit Proverbs contends that the teacher in ecclesiastes composed his Proverbs to contradict traditional wisdom that undercuts the authority of scripture I don't put any canon above the trustworthiness of scripture except perhaps one and that is a law of non-contradiction because if God can say one thing and then say exactly the opposite and contradict himself he's a God of confusion and I am left with no sense that's another way of saying nonsense you can't live with that all scripture is inspired of God and the book of Job of of Proverbs is quoted in the New Testament or alluded to 60 times as the word of God authoritative reliable scripture and Jesus said the scriptures cannot be broken but academia has broken it and they've made it contradict itself if that were true I wouldn't buy give my life to study at the book of Proverbs be ridiculous it's a single false doctrine why should I study a single false doctrine I can study other stuff beside that a fourth solution is very common in evangelicalism today and that is to say these are not promises these are probabilities they are normally true but not always true have you ever heard that it's very common popular today and popularized by some very popular speakers on television and radio for me that has serious problems it has a problem of theology let's just say it seems to me that text is calling upon me to keep my obligations perfectly but God doesn't have to keep his perfectly that's the theology I read in Timothy that though I am unfaithful he abides faithful and he is more reliable than I'm reliable for sure so for me to say it's probably true just seems inconsistent with what's expected in a covenant relationship I'm just not sure God is reliable he's not reliable it's just usually he is but not always that strikes me strange I've put it a bit cartoonish as you can hear secondly it's a I want to know what are the laws of probability man that's a nice platitude it's usually true I want to know 99% well probably go with that 51% no I don't know that's worth it I'll risk it maybe enjoy myself nothing I would but you know it's usually true but you can't count on it I want to know what is the statistic before I mean I'm not playing a game with my life I'm living my life out on this book on the scriptures on Christ the truth of all this and furthermore practical problems how can I trust God with all my heart as is telling me when I don't know it's going to work seems to me I've just got a semantic game going on here so for me that is not a viable alternative I think there's a truth to what's being said as we shall see but it's not satisfactory it's the way it's worded I think it's expressed badly and perhaps we can sharpen it up and say things a bit better at least I'd like to try for myself to say it better than that we have saying that they're not promises for probabilities I believe they are promises and it's absolutely true and you can count on it but let's put it together first of all then toward a solution that helps us out first of all they are true largely validated by our experience that's true I think we would agree that the hot head the sexually immoral this luggard the addict does not have peace or longevity or prosperity as those who live according to the book I'll take one problem that what I think would make the point let me just read a section to you that speaks against substance addiction who has well who has sorrow who has strife who has complaints who has needless bruises who has bloodshot eyes those who linger over wine who go to sample balls of mixed wine do not gaze at wine when it is red when it sparkles in the cup when it goes down smoothly in the end it bites like a snake poisons like a viper your eyes will see strange sight you mind the magic of using things you will be like one sleeping on the high seas lying on top of the rigging they hit me you will say but I'm not hurt they beat me but I don't feel it when my wake up so I can find another drink the tragedy of alcohol addiction and I think we would agree as you look at those promises of peace and life and favor with God and the smooth path and health for the body and the psyche and prosperity we would agree he doesn't experience it it is validated and so we don't want to throw everything out because we've got a problem that's the first thing secondly we need to understand the epigrammatic nature the epigrammatic that is they state but truth they state it tersely but by the nature of these short turtty statements in themselves they cannot qualify themselves you have to read all the proverbs because one proverb qualifies another proverb let me illustrate that if I may why you need to read all the proverbs take for example take a look if you would at proverbs 10 verses 2 and 3 this is after the superscription in 10 1 a the proverbs a Solomon and then a Janus verse that hooks together the prologue with these 375 proverbs a Solomon a wise son brings joy to his father for his son grief to his mother but now we begin this is all about money in the first four proverbs literally treasures gotten by wickedness that is taking advantage of other people namely the righteous you took their treasures somehow and that's what I think what most of the world is about they want to get money out of my bank account into their bank account I mean that's how I read it anyway treasure's gotten by wickedness not at all obviously it's honest money but this is taking advantage of people treasure's gotten by wickedness are of no value that is righteousness delivers from death treasures of wickedness will not save you from death your worst enemy but righteousness will especially the righteousness that's in Christ Jesus none of the next proverb the Lord does not let the righteous go hungry but he thwarts frustrates the craving the unsatisfied craving of the wicked well what do you make of that the Lord does not let the righteous go hungry didn't Israel hunger in the wilderness didn't David hunger in the wilderness didn't our Lord hunger in the wilderness what's going on here is that not true put it together with verse two we just been told that the wicked had treasures but now we're told they're going to be frustrated and we also saw that they got treasures they got it from somebody else namely from the righteous usually so what's the saying you have to look at the end of the matter and when you all finished the angels came and fed Jesus when it was all finished there was mana from heaven and there was a quail when it was all finished David was king but if you just took that verse it would be misleading you have to read the proverbs together and he doesn't stop there notice how he goes from ethics the treasures of wickedness do not profit he goes then directly into theology because the Lord stands behind us he won't let them get away with it and he will feed the righteous and he will frustrate the wicked but he doesn't stop there note the practical theology the righteous have food because they work and they know when to work lazy hands make a man poor the origin hands bring wealth and you got to do it at the right time you got this crops in summers a wise sum but he will sweep during harvest is a disgraceful son you can work as hard as you wish but work at the wrong time it will do you no good you see what he's doing he moves from ethics to theology to practical theology and you have to read the proverbs as a unity and our problem is the average person reads them in isolation is instead of reading it as collective they hang together I'd learn that on my second one through the proverbs which I am discovering that they make sense when you read them as a corpus and not simply in isolation the way I always read the proverbs at any rate the epigraphmatic nature of the proverbs then Luan says at the promises the promise is not holy unlike Benjamin Franklin's poor rich is all on that early to bed early to rise makes a man healthy wealthy and wise it's the truth but it's not the whole truth you have to put it together with other scriptures the aphorisms protect themselves against the accusation of being hampers by being collected with counter proverbs to present the whole truth that's why the proverbs must be studied and memorized collectively not individually the sun must have all of them ready on his rips count of proverbs to allow a tidy calculus wherein the righteous are rewarded immediately with health and wealth as van Luan comments there are many sayings that assert or imply that the wicked prosper while the innocent suffer take the first poem chapter 10 verses 1 through chapter 1 verses 10 through 19 what's that about my son do not join the feeds they dispatch innocent blood to a premature death that's the very first thing you read it's like Genesis chapter 4 where you have the righteous able right away being dispatched to a premature death if that's the end of the Bible then God is a God of injustice you have to look to the whole revelation and the same things true in proverbs the very first thing is a is a can enable story and the righteous are dispatched and the wicked are left behind for the moment you have to see the whole truth the epicomatic nature of the proverbs or just this chapter take a look at chapter 3 and verse 34 when God mocks proud mockers then he gives grace to the humbles the way I understand it the mockers are mocking now and the righteous are being afflicted but there's a day coming when God will mock the mockers and he will give grace to the humble well that runs all the way through the the material look at proverbs chapter 16 and verse 8 where it's not any new calculus at all proverbs chapter 16 and verse 8 better a little with righteousness the much gain with injustice you see this is no simple calculus here you have ethical righteousness with physical lack and you have ethical injustice with physical plenty that's assumed in that proper and there are many like that so if you just took these we'd have a distorted view is my point you have to hold attention with the entire book and I'll make that even clearer these are truths but it's not the whole truth you have to qualify it but I'll I'm going to qualify it but in any case you can't just take these proverbs without reading the entire book to give you a full of view take the proverb about train up a child in the way you should go and when he's old he will not depart from it or even when he's old he will not depart from it now that's a good translation that's what it means as I understand the difficult Hebrew train up the child in the ways you go when he's old he will not depart from it but you can't over read that proverb that the parent is responsible for all the decisions of the child the soul that sends it shall die the parents will not bear the iniquity of the children or will the children bear the iniquity of the parents the soul that sends it shall die the child has an accountability the child makes a choice the parent can't make that choice what the proverb is saying is parental training has its effects it will be there forever but that's not the whole truth and the problem is people wanted to read everything about the child as though the parent dictated the child's life and that we know isn't true we don't pattern the entire job we put a basic orientation that is
uniracable it's like a tape it's there it will bear its effects but you have to qualify it the child has accountability before God too and so that's what I'm saying is the epicumatic nature of the problems the truth but they need some qualification in light of other proverbs the epicumatic natures my second point my third point is the generic effect the genre effect the nature of the proverbs the proverbs are looking at how it turns out this is a primer on morality it's looking at the end that's its focus take for example proverbs chapter 24 and verse 15 I think there you see most clearly the focus of this book proverbs chapter 24 and verses 15 and 16 do not lie and wait like an outlaw against the righteous man's house do not raid his dwelling place no note for though a righteous man falls seven times he rises again but the wicked are brought down by calamity as you know seven means the complete cycle it's like seven days of the week he's out it looks like it's all over it's the end