Okay, well let's get started tonight by attempting to do our memory work. Now some people slipped up a little bit on their memory work on the exam and really these are short verses and I hope you knew they were coming. That may have been the problem. Some might have thought, oh this is going to be tested separately. We can arrange that if you'd like. By the way the memory work, someone asked me if it's cumulative. I think memory work, the idea of memorizing a verse is to remember it and so that portion will be cumulative, okay, so I can ask you the earlier verses on the final. All of them, you know, it's only as, well how many is it? Not too many. All right, now, again, having said that, I'm going to have to keep looking down because I'm not being tested and I've never learned all of these, I just, this is the first semester we've done that. So I'll look down to make sure we're on track in terms of the right verses but look how easy the initial ones are, right? Psalm 37, 4, delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37, 4, Psalm 46, 10, be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in the earth. Psalm 46, 10. Proverbs 3, 5 and 6, the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding in all your ways, acknowledge Him and He will make your past straight. Proverbs 3, 5 and 6, Proverbs 3, 11 and 12. My son do not despise the Lord's discipline and do not resent his rebuke. Proverbs 3, 11 and 12, I hate ending a sentence with the preposition. Is this the kind of nonsense up with which I have to put? I think was Winston Churchill the one that said that. Anyway, where are we? Proverbs 3, 11 and 12, we've done Proverbs 4, 18 and 19. The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn shining ever brighter till the full light of day, but the way of the wicked is like deep darkness. They do not know what makes them stumble. Proverbs 4, 18 and 19. Proverbs 6, 16 to 19. There are six things the Lord hates, seven that are detestable to Him, haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, and a false witness is to pour out lies, and a man who stirs up dissension among brothers. Proverbs 6, 16 and 19. Proverbs 9, 10. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Proverbs 9, 10, Proverbs 14, 26 and 27. He who fears the Lord has a secure fortress, and for his children it will be a refuge. The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, turning a man from the snares of death. Proverbs 14, 26 and 27. Proverbs 16, 23. Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed. Proverbs 16, 3. Now remember, a little word of caution there, that means you will experience success as God understands it. You may be looking back at the midterm and saying, that one does not work, did not work for me. Well, I understand, I am not making light of that, but God will work through that, and he will enable us to learn through these things to accomplish the mission for which he has placed us on this earth, and that is what it means to succeed as a child of God, to accomplish your mission for Christian soldiers. That was Proverbs 16, 3, and then we come to Proverbs 27, 21. The crucible for silver and the furnace for gold, but man is tested by the praise he receives, literally by his praise, what was the reference, Proverbs 27, 21. And then we come to the one for tonight, a very well-known Proverb, though in the NIV translation that you have here, sounds a little different maybe than what you have learned. Proverbs 29-18, where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint, but blessed is he who keeps the law, Proverbs 29-18, right. Good. I said I am not being tested. See, so I have learned. Good. Let's think about that last one, the one we did for tonight. I like to think about each one as we go along, if possible. What is the old way of translating that? What is the King James, the one that we all know?
Right, where there is no vision, the people perish. And how is that verse often used? When is that verse often used? Sorry? To get a vision? When your pastor gets a vision, right? Or building programs, right? Yeah, where there is no, you've got to have a vision for this. Where there is no vision, the people perish. That's why it's often used, you know, five-year plan. You know, we're not going anywhere. And the Bible says where there is no vision, the people perish. Where has that been used? Well, I shouldn't identify precisely where it's been used. But do you recall that being used politically recently? I wasn't going to name names, but politicians quote the Bible all the time. And recently a politician used that, you know, where there is no vision, the people perish. And he began to talk then about the vision that his party had and that he had for the American people. And you know, it can hardly blame, and that's the way it's often used. The pastors use it that way, so surely politicians should, lamentably, he probably should have a Bible scholar on his team, you know, to brief him, but what's wrong with that? Why did the NIV say where there is no revelation? Yes. Right. Exactly. The answer was vision, when we say where there is no vision, that means I don't have a vision for my life. Or I don't have a vision for my church or my church's body doesn't have a vision for itself. It's ours. Whereas revelation is something from God. And the Hebrew word means a prophetic vision, a hot zone, where there is no, where there's no prophetic vision, that is, where there is no revelation. So the NIV does very well. Now putting that back into the mouth of that politician would have been very, very interesting, you know, where the Bible is absent, the people perish is another way of putting it, where the revelation is gone, the people perish. Notice the NIV also doesn't translate, the people will perish. The people cast off restraint. That word is very interesting in that it is the same, again, the same verb that's used of the people of Israel at the foot of Mount Sinai, as Moses descended, and remember they had tired of waiting for him, and it says that they got up and essentially went wild, they cast off restraint. That's what it's saying, not just where there's no vision of the people perish, but when the word of God is absent or ignored, people cast off restraint, they go nuts, they go wild. My wife's father often says wise things, and I quote him from time to time, but he said that when we begin to ignore the word of God, we move very quickly into absurdities, it's just the nature of the case, that we really don't have very good sense, apart from what God reveals. So the word of God is absent, the people cast off restraint, and knowing that, as I was listening to that political speech, I thought I wish he would finish the verse, because the rest of the verse says, but blessed is he who keeps the Torah, the law. What law is that? The law of God. Now that would be a great thing to hear a politician say that. Without the Bible, we'll run wild. If we despise God's revelation, we're going to go wild as a society, but blessed is he who follows God's instructions. Let's make that our platform. Well, it's hard to find any party that does that, so I'm not comparing parties by any means, but it's something we can pray for, and it's something we can recognize in our own lives, that if we depart from the word of God, if we think, I know what it says, but I've got to go my own way this time. I think I know a better route this time, and I just don't want to go the right way because it looks too uncomfortable, it looks too miserable. In casting off that restraint, we do perish. We don't get from point A to point B, and one of our earlier memory verses said, trust in the Lord with all your heart, do not lean on your own understanding and all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your path straight. He'll get you where you really want to go, but it may be a difficult route, and you may not think you can walk that path, but he knows you can, and he will walk it with you. Just an encouragement to value this word, value this word that we're studying. Don't take it lightly, and don't just follow it when it's convenient. Treasure it as a revelation from God, and follow it even when it doesn't seem to make sense. Remember, and I'm going to stop with this, but I remember one time giving a talk in England, my wife and I were asked to give a talk to a group of young teenagers about dating and sex and sex before marriage, and all that kind of thing, and it was funny because this was, I'm old enough that, and most of your old enough, to remember before AIDS became a big problem, before even had heard of AIDS, that problem, and it was interesting in talking to those young people, we were trying to emphasize the value of waiting until marriage and restraining yourself and saving yourself for marriage, and a few of them in the group said, why, you know, why, and about all we could come up with is, well God says it's better that way, and you know, you could think of psychological reasons, the various, you know, the downside, but nowadays you can just say, well to do otherwise, just might kill you, okay, it's just that simple. You know, but at the time it didn't, the answer was not so easy, it maybe didn't seem to make sense into those young people, maybe, you know, you don't buy a car without test driving at first, you know, why would you get married without, you know, test driving the relationship first, is that kind of thinking, and yet God says, no, that's not the way it's going to work, that won't work best, and believe it or not, my subscription of the new woman, actually I don't subscribe to the new woman, but I heard that, I heard that report on the radio of a study that was done on cohabitation before marriage, where it was discovered that, and I think I may have even mentioned this in this class, on this tape, I'm sorry, if I repeat myself, but, and maybe I haven't because no one seems to remember it, but anyway, the study had discovered that far from leading to a greater chance of success in marriage, that cohabitation prior to marriage increased the likelihood of divorce by 80 percent, you know, and we could sit and actually, no, I think it increased it for a fold, I'll have to look back at my issue of new woman to get that exactly right, but it was interesting to see how sociologists conducting an experiment discovered what God has known all along and what God has instructed us on all along, if we will, but follow the instructions. Okay, well let's, let's go to prayer and commit this time to him, Father we do indeed treasure your instructions, we treasure your word, and yet even as we say that, we must confess before you how far we fall short of glorifying you through obedience, as we ought. And yet Lord we thank you that you're a God of grace, that you do not have a grand scale in the sky that is weighing up our good deeds and our poor deeds, but rather you redeem us first through the blood of Christ, and then as we then are made your children, you graciously extend to us wise instruction that will teach us how to live, and so we want to recognize before you that even in thinking of our obedience, we're not in any way thinking that we can merit your favor, we have that already as your children, and yet as part of that since you have instructed us, I pray Father that you would give us hearts that are desirous of obeying you, that it may go well with us and that you may bless us because we are walking in those paths that you make straight before us, help us now in this time Father to use it wisely to learn from your word, to learn from one another, to benefit both from the class times and from small group discussion times, and we pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Okay, what I'd like us to do first of all is kind of jumpstart this thing with, we're going to do potentially if things work well, we're going to do two small group interactions, so you're going to have to be efficient, you should be good at it now by finding your groups and you can pass your pleasantries very quickly and then get right down to work because the first one I'm only going to give you about, I'm going to give you about, no, I say it's 10 to 12 minutes, to talk about this question, what is a proverb and I want to give some basis to that, I want you to look at Proverbs 26 verses 1 to 11 and I want you to reflect on that question, what is a proverb based on your reading of Proverbs 26, 1 to 11, I guess we better make it, we better make it 15 minutes, okay, so get in your groups, your task is to, and by the way, let me finish this before you move, I want you to write down as a group, okay, your group names on one sheet of paper, just one of you do this, and I want you to articulate what your group decides would be a good definition of a proverb with necessary qualifications, okay, you're going to bump into something in Proverbs 26 if you don't already know it, that will perhaps surprise you and instruct you as to what a proverb is, so I want you to write down how you would go about explaining a proverb, maybe imagine that someone in your circle of friends comes up to you and says, look at these two verses 4 and 5, you know, the answer of a fool verses, what do you make of that, I thought the Bible was without contradiction and that might spark a discussion of what is a proverb, okay, so maybe cast it in that direction but I actually want something in writing from each group, okay, with the names of all the members of the group on it, okay, all right, you may break, it'll be 15 minutes, just think in terms of someone coming to you, for instance, and looking at verses 4 and 5 and saying, hey, I thought the Bible didn't contradict itself and here it said, you know, two contradictory commands it appears and so then you would say, well no, the Bible doesn't contradict itself but this is a proverb, now let me explain to you what a proverb is and you might say, well, proverb is not this, not this, not this, but what it is is this, this, and this, you know, and this is how it functions and these are qualifiers, just as if you're explaining it to a real real live person, okay, let that person be me because I really don't know and I'm interested in know what you think, okay, you're still coming, she's writing a term paper on this topic here, very good, all right, what we're going to do now, as soon as I get this and as soon as everyone gets resettled and happy and content, I'm going to read just a few of these, I'm not going to go through all of them because there are a lot of groups here and then we're going to have a little discussion on this topic and just see what we see if we can kind of come into a consensus, all right, let me just read a few of them that have come up, okay, in a nutshell, a proverb is insight into the human condition, instruction against folly and righteous living, in other words, instruction against folly and I suppose four righteous living, they are also designed to sharpen our thoughts and motions and to gain right understanding of God and His law, that's good, that's a reasonably long one, all right, a proverb is an indirect approach to preserving truth which is distorted and wasted on fools, that's interesting, you see how that brings in in chapter 26 verses what was it seven and nine, like a lame man's legs that hang limp is a proverb in the mouth of a fool, in verse nine like a thornbushing and a drunkard's hand is a proverb in the mouth of a fool, we'll talk about what that means or think about that and we'll talk about it in just a minute, a proverb, descriptive, short, pithy statements about the wisdom of God in opposition to foolishness that are individually appropriate at different times, that's interesting, what does that suggest, and why, why did this group, looking back in your direction, why did this group say at different times, what forced you to say that, four and five, okay, thank you, remember what four and five say, they say do not answer a fool according to his folly or you will be like him yourself, answer a fool according to his folly or he will be wise in his own eyes, now these apparent contradictions forces to recognize, well, there's an appropriate time when a proverb fits and there's another time when those very same words don't fit, do we have examples, give us, give me one example in English of two seemingly contradictory proverbs, right, okay, I'll do that in the old English version, too many, too many cooks spoil the broth is the way I learned it and yet many hands make light work, so which is it, many, you want many hands or do you want, every ever got too many, well sometimes are too many, they're going to spoil the broth and other times you need some help and lighten the work, okay, a proverb, a wise saying that uses comparative language, graphic imagery, seeming contradictions and warnings and consequences to provide instruction and truth for everyday life, that is so self-serving, I have your names here, I know when you're clapping for yourself, right, yeah, right, yeah, what was that, what was that one we learned, yes, a man is tested by the praise, or man is in the generic sense, man is tested by the praise receipts, no that was good, you know, some budding scholars here and even when they can put that many subordinate clauses in one, all right, here's another one, short statement in parting wisdom by comparing graphic, direct, these are more, these are sort of sound bites, this is the Nike ad approach to probably, graphic, direct message, parallel statements, instructive by using everyday life, oh they did, they did summarize it down here, those, that was their brainstorm, we almost got wet there, short universal truth that imparts wisdom by comparing or contrasting vivid images common in culture, that's good too, okay, I like these, I'm going to keep these, I want to present them next year as mine, let's see, well this one has a bunch of them, so I'll just choose the last one which is sort of a what they're not, short proverbs are not exhaustive in scope, that's interesting, proverbs are supposed to be independent of each other but build on each other, I'll meditate on that, let's see, what is a proverbs description of life and then they say life is complex, complexity, I think that's part of the formula too in understanding what this is, well one more and then I probably should rush on as I say, there are lots of these and they're all sounding very good, statement of wisdom about one particular aspect of life, personal relationships, human nature attitude and it's not a law command or promise often in short form, okay, that's interesting because it has what it is and what it isn't, not a law or a command or a promise, come in short form but their statement of wisdom about a particular aspect of life, that's helpful, okay, well let me stop with that and just mention, you know, kind of try to pull this together using another student work, now this was, this is a paper that was written by I guess who my own brother, I had my brother in a class one time and boy was I nervous, he may use this tape in his church sometimes, he's a PCA pastor, I had him in a deep in class and I wasn't really nervous because I knew that he had done just slightly better than I had in seminary so I wasn't too concerned about him, at least in comparison to me, but you know I thought about the fact, what if he writes a really, really lousy paper, that's going to be really hard for an older brother to give him a bad, bad, great, but he wrote a good paper so I was relieved and he was lucky, anyway, he asked that question so I'm going to draw a little bit on what he says, now he deferred also to a scholar named Ted Hilderbrand that he learned some things from, so let me just try to pull a few things together the way he did, he begins by asking the question what is a proverb and he says first of all, many people regard proverbs as promises from God and if you pick up one of those little booklets of God's promises, often they're filled with proverbs and that's a little bit of a dangerous thing to think, I read this proverb and it is a promise to me, train up a child in the way he should go and even when he is old he will not depart from it, that's a promise that I cling to and God is bound by that promise because I trained my kid right, he is bound, I have got over a barrel more less, if he's a promise keeping God he has to keep that promise, however it doesn't always work that way, think about proverbs 16, 7 which says I'm just making sure it's the right one, yeah 16, 7, when a man's ways are pleasing to God or pleasing to the Lord he causes even his enemies to be at peace with him,
is that a promise? You know I could see Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane invoking that promise, couldn't you? Father have I not pleased you in the way I've lived? What about proverbs 16, 7? I'm getting ready to go to crucifixion, so it's not a promise quite in that sense, does that mean it's meaningless? He says my brother goes on to say on the other hand a proverb in the Bible is not just sometimes true, in other words it is not sometimes false, there's another danger when we're thinking about proverbs and say well they're generally true but there are a lot of exceptions and they're not always true, it's like the weather report, there's an 80% chance of rain, well it might as well just not rain, and I made the mistake last night of saying to my secretary when we heard that there were snow predicted I said I will believe it when I see it, now for you in video land today is April 10th and we saw it this morning snow, why did I say that? I haven't the slightest clue, no weather reports proverbs are not just generally true, they're not just generalizations, well that's often the way we talk about them, the problem with that is, again I may have mentioned that I've had a student who works in a third world context and he said you know I have lived in a world where a lot of what the proverbs says about industry and about wealth and about you know solid endeavor, getting a person ahead is not even generally true, it's the exception in my context where anyone ever gets ahead materially, so it's not, it's generally false if we're looking at it that way, so then maybe we should instead of thinking of proverb as a promise from God or as only sometimes true, this paper suggests think of a proverb as an insight into one facet of life expressed in a brief and catchy saying, now that sounds a lot like what some of you are saying, it's an insight into one facet of life expressed in a brief catchy saying, therefore you know we may we may be tempted to ask well does does a proverb always come true, but if a proverb is not a promise but rather an insight then the better question would be to ask, is a proverb always a true insight about one facet of life? In other words a proverb is not just something that's generally true but sometimes false, might we not say that a proverb is always a true insight about one facet of life, remember how some of you said, mentioned the complexity of life, mentioned talking about one aspect of life, he uses the word facet and he goes on to say our experience of life is multifaceted and a proverb may not account for other factors in a particular situation, you know I think again of that proverb is 226, train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it does it, the fact that that is not a promise does that mean that we can draw no comfort from that, that that cannot be an encouragement to us to be good parents, well certainly not because that is, this is a true insight into one aspect of life, that it is a true thing that good parenting is wise, good parenting is beneficial, good parents lend themselves to having good children however, that's but one at one aspect, one facet in any child's life and life is complex and life consists of an intersection of a number of different facets, so that you can't just point to the one thing and say that that kid had good parents therefore and they and they reared him well therefore he must turn out alright or conversely and this is very dangerous to say that kid did not turn out right and therefore his parents must have made gross mistakes, that is not the case, I mean we can find many biblical examples that would demonstrate that, so rather than asking does a proverb in the Bible always come true, we should simply ask is a biblical proverb always wise, proverbs are always accurate insights into life with regard to one particular aspect of life that they address and thus they are situational, those four and five do not do not answer full according to his folly or he will be liking himself, yourself answer full according to his folly or he will be wise in his own eyes and you say to someone the wisdom comes in knowing when to invoke verse four and when to invoke verse five, see a proverb is something that is to be used by the wise, it's ridiculous if you're in the kitchen dying for some help and you call out to the other room, too many hands spoil the broth, sorry that was the wrong proverb, you know and you know if you need the help you say many hands make light work, you see, oh yes, wise, wise, parent and they come in and help you, okay, wisdom comes sort of in an ideal world, wisdom comes in knowing when to apply a proverb, that's why I was hoping you would also notice verses seven and nine, like a lame man's legs that hang limp is a proverb in the mouth of a fool, why is a proverb, if it were an absolute truth, you know, if it were simply a propositional absolute truth, true in every situation, true for all time, why would it matter whether it was espoused by a fool or a wise person, otherwise a fool could stand and read scripture to us and we would benefit from his reading scripture, okay, but why is a proverb different, well because it's situational and it takes wisdom to know when to apply it, a fool is spouting off with the wrong proverbs and the wrong situations and they just lie there, they hang limp, they're useless, they don't get us anywhere, and furthermore in verse nine, like a thorn bush in a drunkard's hand is a proverb in the mouth of a fool, they can actually be injurious, you can be whacking away at people or they can injure yourself, the fool who's dispensing the proverb can injure himself or herself, or can injure others, and we can do damage if we blightly go around spouting proverbs insensitive to the particular situation to which we are applying them, and so we pray for godly wisdom to know when to apply what proverb, let me see if there's anything else worthy of quotation here, maybe in summary he says it takes wisdom to apply the wisdom of proverbs to the multifaceted experiences now comments or question then we're going to take a break, yes sir, right yeah the question is whether in verses four and five that phrase according to his folly might actually suggest two different senses or two different situations or nuances in Hebrew, I don't think so, I think they're identical but I think the reason they're juxtaposed this way is to make us recognize that there's a time for the one and there's a time for the other, you know, it's not that there's a particular kind of, well I don't think it's along those lines as best I know, yes, yes, okay yeah the comment is that in relation to verse nine you know someone who is under the influence heavily under the influence may be insensitive to pain so perhaps the drunkard wielding the proverb is not even aware of the injury that he or she himself or herself is suffering, is that is that kind of what you I guess yeah that ties to injury I think probably the and you're not why, right yeah, I think without repeating that whole comment I think you're on the right track that it's that it's saying in the first instance do not answer a fool according to his folly in other words don't allow a fool to draw you into his foolishness okay don't let him bait you on the other hand there are certain situations when a fool is pontificating and you need to answer him according to his folly in other words make known to him the foolie if the foolishness you may even give him an ironic or even a sarcastic answer that points out the folly of what he is saying lest he be wise in his own eyes you know there's situations when a person needs to be checked there are other times when you don't want to be drawn into reducing yourself to the level of the of the of the fool okay well we need to take a break so let's come back in ten minutes when the big hand reaches the four all right exactly ten