"Wisdom's Theology" Proverbs 16 Sunday Evening Worship Service

Proverbs sixteen for tonight.

I'll read the first seven verses.

The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from Yahweh.

All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but Yahweh weighs his spirit.

Commit your work to Yahweh, and your plans will be established.

Yahweh has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble.

Everyone who is arrogant in his heart is an abomination to Yahweh.

Be assured he will not go unpunished.

By steadfast love and faithfulness, iniquity is atoned for.

And by the fear of Yahweh, one turns away from evil.

When a man's ways please Yahweh, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.

This is the Word of God.

It is Michael Easley's tagline on In Context Radio.

Don't let the world teach you theology.

Amen.

This is the Word of God tonight, and we want to learn our theology from it.

We don't want to borrow the presuppositions of the world, but we want to take what the Word of God says about God Himself and develop our own doctrine of God from it.

So as we've been studying the book of Proverbs, I've told you we've taken different headings, different uh topic guides, and I'm pulling all of the Proverbs from chapter 11 through 29 together, and then categorizing it, and then going through those categories one at a time.

By the end of our study together, we'll have gone through every proverb in these chapters from 11 to 29.

So tonight is theology, the proverbs that describe God.

This is the one, the topic I've been most looking forward to, I think, because I've always wondered what would a systematic theology look like if developed only from the book of Proverbs?

If Proverbs is the description of wisdom, what does a wise person believe about God?

And so we start tonight with the theology of Proverbs.

I'm breaking these uh headings up into the headings from a systematic theology.

Tonight we'll start with just theology proper.

Theology proper is just the way to say the doctrine of God.

If you only had Proverbs in your Bible, which of course nobody does, Proverbs is written by Solomon, who had the whole Torah and you know, had the historical books and all that.

So Solomon knew more about God than he lets onto in Proverbs.

Yet if you only had Proverbs, what would you learn about God from it?

Well, the first thing is you would learn these headings that God is omniscient, omnipresent, and sovereign.

The God of Proverbs is omniscient, omnipresent, and sovereign.

Omniscient just means he knows all things, he has all knowledge.

Omnipresent means he is everywhere.

He is everywhere.

And both of those words can be kind of confusing.

In fact, from a creature's standpoint, in other words, from somebody who's created by God, there's no real difference between omniscience and omnipresence.

They're the same thing.

You can't divide the two.

God is omnipresent because he knows everything.

God isn't physically present everywhere.

He's not physically present on earth right now, for example.

He dwells spiritually on the earth, but he doesn't dwell physically on the earth.

He dwelled physically on the earth for the incarnation of Christ and ascended into heaven.

So God is not omnipresent in a physical sense, and yet all the world is under his watchfulness.

He sees all things.

You can't hide from him.

So when we describe him as omnipresent, what we mean by that is he's omniscient.

He's everywhere because he knows all things.

Everything is always before him.

Scripture describes that all over the place, but uh here's one place in Proverbs 15, verse 11 Sheol and Abaddon lie open before Yahweh.

Proverbs 15:11

How much more the hearts of the children of man?

Here's a description that should remind you even of David's uh description of God's providence, that there's nowhere you can go from him.

God knows the secret parts of a human being.

Even the shadows of hell are bright white in front of God.

He sees all the secrets even in the darkest depths.

While people in hell feel absent from God, Paul tells the Thessalonians, uh, it's not a true absence.

God knows all of their secrets, he knows their suffering.

They just feel like they are independent of him because they have no recourse, no help, no one to hear their prayers.

But God knows all things.

And that's taught in Proverbs 15, 11.

Like even the depths of hell, the depths of the grave, where souls go when they die.

Recall in the Old Testament, all souls who die go down to Sheol.

There is a place of suffering that it will be future.

God will resurrect the dead who died apart from Christ, resurrect their bodies, unite them with their souls, and cast soul and body into hell.

That's a future event.

And even in that spot, God will know all the secrets of hell.

This phrase, Sheol and Abaddon lie open before Yahweh.

Sheol, like I said, is the grave, it's where people go when they die.

It is enclosed in Greek mythology.

Uh, the concept of the grave, it's the pit that you can't go into.

There's the river that separates the living from the dead, so to speak.

But to God, they're wide open.

There's no restricted access.

God's ID card badges him in even to the gates of hell.

He knows all secrets everywhere.

And the phrase they lie open before Yahweh means he knows every corner of them.

Every corner of them.

And so here's an argument from the greater to the lesser.

If God knows all the secrets of every cavity of hell, how much more does he know all the secrets of your heart?

Are you more hidden than the grave, in other words?

You're alive right now.

So you are active in time and space.

God knows all things in time and space that are ever before him.

He knows even the secrets of your heart.

If death will not separate you from the knowledge of God, then obviously your life is on full display before him.

And this is the rub of mankind.

People think they have secrets from God, they can keep secrets from their spouses, their siblings, their bosses, their neighbors.

You can keep secrets from all kinds of people.

But you cannot keep secrets from God.

He knows even your hidden motives.

The motives that you would never confess out loud to friends or to your spouse.

God already knows them.

In fact, the language here, how much more in Proverbs 15, 11, makes it seem like in an exaggerated sense.

It's not just that God knows them, it's that they're flashing in front of him.

All of your secret thoughts, the thoughts you don't want to confess.

And this is why, by the way, confession of sin is so critical to repentance.

Because the person who doesn't confess their sins thinks they're hidden.

When a person confesses their sins, they're telling the Lord what he already knows.

The fact that you're confessing them is bringing your knowledge into where God is.

It's just you simply acknowledging that God is higher than you and greater than you and holier than you.

So you confess your sins to him, but he already knows them.

You confessing your sins isn't telling him something he doesn't know.

He knows all the secrets of your heart of all people at all times.

That's his sovereignty, that's his omniscience, his omnipresence.

Despite this, he relates to people.

Despite all this, he relates to people.

Look at Proverbs 16, as your Bibles are open there.

Look at, for example, Proverbs 16, verse 4.

Proverbs 16:4

Yahweh has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble.

Here's a declaration that God has designed everything with a teleos or purpose, an end result in mind.

God has a goal or an objective in all things that he makes.

When he created the universe, he created every atom for its own purpose.

Every atom has a function to play in God's design.

That speaks of his sovereignty.

He knows the ins and outs of the universe.

He knows everything.

Verse 4, everything is made by Yahweh.

Not just made by Yahweh, period.

Everything, Solomon says, is made by Yahweh for his own purpose.

God has a goal, an intended story arc, if you will, for every molecule in the every molecule in the universe.

He is sovereign over all things, and all things work for him.

Now that's easy to understand when it comes to inanimate objects.

Like God made a rock, God made a tree.

He made a tree that would grow wood that would be used for the cross of Christ.

You know, that's a pretty easy example.

Here's an inadimate tree that was designed by God, grown by God, cut down, fastened into the cross of Christ.

It had its purpose.

Everything in the universe is made that way.

And like I said, with an inanimate object, it's no big deal.

But when it comes to people, we tend to get a little bit uh touchy-feely with that one.

That God made me with a purpose, that he designed me with a purpose.

Well, who is God to declare what my purpose is?

Especially in the language of verse 4.

It's talking about the wicked.

It's the language of Romans 9, that there's vessels of destruction, vessels of wrath prepared beforehand for destruction.

That God made people that he knew would not be saved, and he made them to glorify himself even in their own damnation.

He made the wicked for the day of destruction.

And he made the righteous to display his mercy and his salvation through their own lives, both on display by God.

Every human being has an intended purpose in their creation, to magnify God, one way or another, in heaven by magnifying his glory, or in hell by magnifying his wrath, which magnifies his mercy to the objects of his mercy, which God prepared beforehand to receive salvation.

And people recoil at this.

A very common line is doesn't that make me a robot?

If God designed all things that I would do, doesn't that make me a robot?

No, it doesn't make you a robot because, and check out this logic, you're not a robot.

You can write that down.

You're not a robot.

Or just draw a robot with a line through it.

You're not a robot.

You're a creature with volition.

You have choices.

You make choices.

You have your own will.

This is what keeps God from being morally responsible for your sin.

Although God ordains your sin, He's sovereign over your sin.

It's you that enacts it in a way that God is not morally responsible for.

You're judged for your sin, not God.

God's sovereign over your sin, but you're judged for your sin.

You're morally responsible for your actions, even though God is sovereign over them, because you're not a robot.

You are a volitional creature.

A creature, by the way, that more often than not chooses sin.

You're not a robot, you're not a puppet.

God is not pulling your strings, but God is sovereign over the course of your life.

I think it's helpful to take uh a couple extra minutes here to talk about this.

An analogy that has helped me with this so much is thinking about where I want to go for lunch tomorrow.

I'm with friends and we want to go to lunch, and we look out the window and there's a McDonald's right there, but maybe we want to go to Burger King instead.

You know, which do we choose to go to?

McDonald's or Burger King?

Like there's nothing more morally neutral than that.

Although I would say it's morally better to go to Burger King, but that's for a different time.

It's a pretty, you can it's practically a coin flip.

But now you start to think through, you know, I think that I'm making my own choice, my own free will about where I'm gonna go to lunch, but that's that's not true.

What are the factors involved in this?

What are the factors involved in my choice?

That I can see McDonald's out my window.

That it used to be uh that McDonald's used to be owned by somebody at Emmanuel Bible Church.

You know, that's neat.

There's a lot of people from IBC that work at that McDonald's.

That makes me want to kind of go over there and see one of them.

But then I remembered that those those guys all lost their jobs and don't work there anymore.

So I think, all right, maybe Burger King.

It's just down the street.

But then I think of that stoplight down there that doesn't have a turning arrow on it.

What a drag that thing is.

Come on, Fairfax County.

Get with it.

So I'm like, oh, maybe not, go to that one.

I remember last time I went to McDonald's, it was like disgusting.

I remember that.

Um, Burger King used to have those bacon milkshakes.

Maybe they're back.

Go check out a bacon milkshake tomorrow.

Think of all like the factors that are in play in my thinking.

I'm not sovereign over any of those factors.

Like, I didn't design them.

I don't even know when those restaurants were built.

They were built way outside of, you know, Fairfax County zoning voted on those things and where they got to be placed.

That's so far removed from what I'd have control over.

And yet I'm making a decision over th over where I'm gonna go lunch, a morally neutral place, but God has directed my decision through all of those outside circumstances.

What building is where, where the traffic lights are, who I end up going to lunch with, for example.

All those things have been designed by God in ways that I am not in control of at all, and yet I think my decision is free.

It's not free.

God is directing my life to one end or the other.

I'm making the choice, but God is sovereign over my choice.

As R.C.

Sproul used to say, God is free, man is free, but God is definitely more free than man is.

God is directing our choices to his own end and purpose.

We don't have, in that sense, free will.

We're volitional creatures.

But we are acting out the purpose that God intended for us.

And that has got to be a humbling thing for us to recognize.

We're responsible for our choices, but God is sovereign over them.

We are the subject of God's decree.

We are acting it out.

We're making our choices, and we're morally responsible for them.

That is the point of verse 4.

Yahweh has made everything for its purpose.

Even the wicked will be judged by God on the day of judgment.

This is repeated all over the place.

Look at verse 9 of Proverbs 16.

The heart of man plans his way, but Yahweh establishes his steps.

I mean, how many times have you set out to go somewhere, even to lunch?

Again, something as simple as lunch.

You set out to go somewhere for lunch, and yet the on-ramp to the freeway is closed.

There's a traffic accident in Braddock and Backluk, so you have to go the other way.

The restaurant is closed.

You got there and it was closed.

I mean, how many times in life do you have those?

You think you're acting out on accord on your own free will, on your direction.

You've planned your steps.

But it's the Lord who directs your steps.

He establishes.

And listen, if you go beyond lunch, the actual events in your life, you see God's fingerprints all over them.

I mean, how many people the story of how they met their spouse is they were, you know, gonna go to some one place and they ended up at some other random place, and there was this person there, and they weren't expecting to see that person there, and they ended up getting married.

A very common kind of story.

Your conversion stories are like that.

Your career stories were like that.

You put in for some job in the military, and yet you got directed somewhere else.

You got told one thing and something else happened, and it turned out being for good.

Your whole life is like that.

You make choices all you want.

You know, it's it almost sounds condescending, but you can just picture God in heaven going, oh, that's what you're gonna do?

Good luck out there.

We make choices all the time, and yet it is God who directs and establishes our steps.

They're all according to his will.

Chapter 16, verse 33, it keeps going with that theme: the lot is caught cast into the lap.

But it's every decision is from Yahweh.

You think you can flip a coin?

Rock, paper, scissors.

No, God is sovereign over even rock, paper, scissors.

I used to work for a landscaping crew, and we had we listened to a lot of um John Piper sermons when we were cutting grass, and so because of that, we had what we call the Lord's Will Penny in our truck.

And we would flip the coin to decide if we're gonna cut, we're gonna go do this neighborhood first or that neighborhood first.

We flip the coin and the Lord would tell us where to go.

It was the Lord's will penny.

That's because we believed in the sovereignty of God.

That's just a silly little thing.

You recognize that's even that that is foolish, right?

God has given you wisdom so that you don't have to cast a lot.

You don't actually make decisions by casting lots.

Please don't do that.

You're using the wisdom God gave you to make good decisions with the information God put in front of you.

Don't cast a lot.

But if you did cast a lot, its decision is from the Lord.

And maybe the Lord's decision is to humble you and to teach you a lesson about how dumb it is to cast a lot.

But every decision that comes from it is from Yahweh's own decree.

Every dice roll in Batgammon.

I'm losing to my daughter in Batgamon right now, it's killing me.

And I remind myself, it's okay.

God is sovereign over the rolls of the dice.

Batgammon.

That's Proverbs 16, 33.

What about Proverbs 19, 21?

Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it's the purpose of Yahweh that will stand.

We make all kinds of designs in life.

And our designs will never overthrow God's plan.

Have you ever had somebody tell you, oh, I've had I've had people tell me this, oh, I think, what if what if I messed up and I married the wrong person?

The wrong person.

I got married, but now God had somebody better for me in mind and I made a mistake.

Or the opposite.

Like I said no to somebody and they got married to somebody else, but what if that was the person God wanted me to marry?

That's like very bad college student theology right there.

The answer is you can make your decisions all day long.

You're not going to make a decision that undercuts the will of the Lord.

You just can't do it.

The Lord has accounted for all of your decisions.

Every one of them.

Every one of them.

Many are the plans in our mind, but it is the counsel of the Lord that stands.

Proverbs 21, verse 30 says it this way: No wisdom, no understanding, no counsel can avail against Yahweh.

Proverbs 21:30

The horse is made ready for the day of battle, but the victory belongs to Yahweh.

Nations rise and nations fall at the sovereign decree of Yahweh.

Not even one nation will come to power except by the decree of God.

Everything that happens happens according to his decree, even on the international table.

So, big picture, what is the God of Proverbs like?

Well, he's omniscient.

He's at all places, he knows all things, he's omnipresent, he knows even the secrets of Hades, and He is sovereign over all the affairs of the universe, even your plans and the secrets of your hearts.

They're all under his authority.

From theology, we give way to anthropology.

Anthropology is the study of people in light of who God is.

So not anthropology in like the liberal arts sense is you know excavations, what was home life like, and you know, blah, blah, blah.

But anthropology in the biblical sense is how are people in relationship to God?

How are people in relationship to God?

It's always a difficult thing when you're dealing with a systematic theology, be it a book or just a study like this, whether or not you start with God as he oversees man or man as he submits to God.

And so I'm just using this excuse to share with you one of my favorite paragraphs in all systematic theologies.

It's the opening of Calvin's Institutes.

Um systematic theologies today don't start like this.

Systematic theologies today start with lines like, It's good to talk about God.

Here's how Calvin starts.

I'll read it if you can't.

See the tiny font.

Our wisdom, insofar as it ought to be deemed true and solid wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.

In other words, everything you know is either about God or about you.

But as these are connected together by many ties, it's not easy to determine which of the two proceeds and gives birth to the other.

In other words, where do you start, with God or with people?

For, in the first place, no man can survey himself without forthwith turning his thoughts towards the God in whom he lives and moves.

Because it's perfectly obvious that the endowments which we possess cannot possibly be from ourselves.

Perfectly obvious that the endowments which we possess cannot possibly be from ourselves.

Nay, that our very being is nothing else than subsistence in God alone.

In the second place, those blessings which unceasingly distill to us from heaven are like streams conducting us to the fountain.

Here again, the infinite of good which resides in God becomes more apparent from our poverty.

In other words, God is a fountain.

We're just drinking water.

Do you want to start by studying how you drink the water or studying the fountain itself?

You could argue it either way.

Calvin's going to start with theology proper, and so that's why I started with theology tonight, is that paragraph.

I hope you enjoyed as much as I did.

Anthropology.

First point of anthropology: people are made by God.

People are made by God.

God is the creator of all human beings.

Your Bible's still up in Proverbs 16.

You can look at verse 4.

Yahweh's made everything for his purpose.

We looked at that a second ago, but look at it through this light now.

God made human beings.

He created all things.

All things come from him by his word.

He made all things in a trinitarian way, of course, the Father spoke, the Son is the Word, the Spirit hovers over creation.

All things came into existence through the triune God.

Proverbs 17, verse 5: Whoever mocks the poor insults his Maker, he who is glad at a calamity will not go unpunished.

Notice the way God is describing this.

He's sovereign over calamities, of course.

Proverbs already established that.

And so in our mind, that is a contradiction.

If God is sovereign over Over the weather, why would we mourn a hurricane?

You catch the logic of God's sovereign over it, shouldn't we delight in somebody's suffering?

And the answer is no, because those people are made by God.

They're suffering for God's own for his own purposes to glorify him in 10,000 ways that are inscrutable to us.

And if you mock people who suffer, you're going to be judged by God.

Why?

Because God made people.

Here, Solomon points out particularly poor people are made by God.

Just a reminder to you, it's so easy to mock somebody in poverty or somebody who's poor or homeless.

Just a little reminder.

You know, God made that person and he knows how people treat them.

Proverbs 20, verse 12 reminds you of what God tells Moses.

Proverbs 20:12

The hearing ear and the seeing eye, Yahweh made them both.

Remember what God tells Moses when Moses says, I can't go speak for you?

I stutter.

I don't speak well, God.

I can't go be your mouthpiece to Pharaoh.

And God tells Moses, Who do you think made you stutter?

Where did your tongue come from, Moses?

Who gave it to you?

You didn't make it yourself.

Who makes the hearing?

Who makes the deaf?

Who makes the blind?

Who makes the seeing?

Who gives life and who takes it away?

God does.

He's sovereign over all of life.

He is our maker.

Even people that have so-called deformities or inadequacies, handicaps in whatever way, they all come from the Lord.

He's sovereign over them.

Better to be hearing or deaf.

Blind or have eyesight.

And Solomon says both are made by the Lord.

In that sense, they're on equal footing.

Proverbs 22, verse 2 says something very similar.

Proverbs 22:2

The rich and the poor meet together.

A rich guy and a poor guy run into each other in the street.

Guess what?

They both have the same God.

They're both made in the same department.

Yahweh is the maker of them all.

So God is the maker of all people.

Secondly, people are sinful.

God made them and that people are sinful.

Proverbs doesn't go into the origins of sin and the origins of the fall, although in the first ten chapters it hints at it, with depravity of the human heart, but it does remind you that people are sinful.

Look at Proverbs 16, verse 2, on the page in front of you.

Proverbs 16:2

All the ways of man are pure in his own eyes.

But Yahweh weighs the spirit.

It's a fascinating proverb.

Everybody thinks they're doing what's right.

And this is classic rich young ruler thinking right here.

Remember the rich young ruler says, What am I supposed to do for eternal life?

And Jesus says, Keep the law, and he says, I've done it.

What an amazing response.

What an amazing response.

Keep the Ten Commandments.

Hmm.

Yeah, I'm good to go, God.

What else?

Frankly, amazing.

That's Proverbs 16, verse 2.

Proverbs 16:2

All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes.

And you'll often hear people say, I think I'm going to go to heaven when I die because I'm a good person.

And you might ask, what makes you a good person?

And they say, because I always try to do what is right.

Well, that's everybody.

Everybody always tries to do what is right in their own eyes.

You know this in the book of Judges, when it describes everyone doing what is right in their own eyes, it doesn't mean that as a compliment.

Like when the Bible uses that phrase, it's meant negatively.

It's meant for how wickedly sinful people are.

They do what is right in their own eyes.

In our American culture, we have flipped that and we make it a virtue.

To do what is right in your own eyes is like the pinnacle of ethics in our society.

It is the pinnacle of depravity in the Bible's description.

Of course, you always do what is right in your own thinking because you're the one doing the thinking.

You know, Nietzsche even says that, speaking of the nihilistic worlds, that every man always does what is according to his greatest good at all times, without exception, including the one who commits suicide.

That's how Nietzsche starts beyond good and evil.

Everybody does what is right in their own eyes.

When Solomon says this, he doesn't mean it like Nietzsche.

Solomon says it to show how wickedly sinful our hearts are.

You know what?

Yes, you choose what is right in your own eyes.

It's not just right.

Notice the word in verse 2.

It's not just that you do what is right.

Pure.

Oh, so godly and sanctified every human being is.

But Yahweh knows the spirit behind the action.

Yahweh knows what's really going on in their heart.

Look at verse 5.

Everyone who is arrogant in heart is an abomination to Yahweh.

Be assured, he won't go unpunished.

God sees people's sin, he sees their arrogance, he sees their pride, and he will judge them.

Proverbs 20, verse 9.

Proverbs 20:9

Who can say, I've made my heart pure?

I'm clean from my sin?

Now, this is going to set you up for soteriology, which we'll look at next, salvation.

Because notice what this is saying here.

Nobody can save himself.

Nobody can save herself.

Who's able to say that they've sanctified their own heart?

Can the Ethiopian change his skin?

Can the leopard change his spots?

So you cannot change your heart.

You can't do it.

You can't try harder to do better next time.

It won't be successful.

That's why Nicodemus asked Jesus, what does it take to get see the kingdom of God?

And Jesus said, You have to be born again.

Nicodemus never grid for it.

He thought, Do I, how can I start over?

How can I climb back inside my mother now when I'm old?

That's not what Jesus is talking about.

You could start, you could have a thousand fresh starts and you have a thousand sad endings.

You don't need a new start.

The reason that's true is Proverbs 20, verse 9.

Proverbs 20:9

You cannot purify your own heart.

The same thing is said in Proverbs 21, verse 2.

Proverbs 21:2

Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but Yahweh weighs the heart.

So notice that 21, verse 2, and 16 verse 2 are the same.

It kind of brackets a section of theology that people are active agents in their own depravity and they excuse their own sin and they're unable to change their heart.

That's anthropology.

Third, soteriology.

So we looked at theology, which is study of God, anthropology, the study of people as they relate to God, and now soteriology, how God saves.

Sateriology is just a fancy theological way of saying, asking the question, how does God save people?

How does God save people?

The first way God saves people is by revealing himself.

God couldn't be a savior unless he revealed himself.

And so Proverbs speaks to you about the revelation of God.

And you see this in Proverbs 16, which I think you're still up into it.

Lucas 16, verse 20.

Whoever gives thought to the word will discover good.

And blessed is he who trusts in Yahweh.

Whoever gives thought to the word.

Whose word?

God's word.

God reveals his way to be saved.

This is a wonderful act of accommodation by God.

God's under no moral obligation to reveal himself, he makes the universe to display his glory in it.

He is described as a fountain.

In Proverbs, he's described as a fountain.

We'll look at the verse in a few minutes.

We saw in the Institutes, Calvin describing as a fountain, Jeremiah describes him as a fountain, David describes him as a fountain, Psalm 32.

The scripture often refers to God as a fountain.

All good things come from him.

So God is a fountain.

He makes the universe to give us good things.

One of the good things he gives us is revelation of himself.

Because God is outside of the universe.

Nobody in the universe could know about him unless he revealed himself to us.

And so it is remarkable, a remarkable display of God's grace that he reveals himself.

It's just such a kindness of God.

The Israelites longed to hear from God in the wilderness.

The Torah, the Mount Sinai and everything, was a blessing to them because it showed them what God required.

They couldn't keep the law, but now they knew at least what God demanded of them.

All salvation begins with revelation that God reveals himself.

Proverbs 19, verse 16.

Proverbs 19:16

Whoever keeps the commandment keeps his life.

He who despises his ways will die.

So here God has revealed himself, and you are then put in the choice.

Do you keep God's word?

This is the covenant of works language.

If you keep God's word, you can have life.

If you reject God's word, you despise your own life.

He's told you, O man, to use Micah's language, what's required.

Will you keep his law or reject his law?

Will you keep your life or lose your life?

Proverbs 22, verse 19.

Proverbs 22:19

That your trust may be in Yahweh.

I've made them known to you today, even to you.

The requirements of God, the wisdom of God, the word of God.

He's revealed them to us so that nobody can say, This is how Deuteronomy ends, when Moses repeats all of God's commands to them and then tells the Israelites in the wilderness, so you are without excuse.

Nobody will ever be able to say, why didn't God tell me what he wanted from me?

His word isn't far away from you.

It's not buried at the bottom of the ocean.

It's not hidden up in the heavens.

You're not going to have to swim down to go find it.

You're not going to have to climb to heaven to go get it.

You're not going to have to wrestle it from an angel.

You're not going to have to learn a foreign language to get it.

It is near to you.

It is in your hands right now.

It is in your hands.

It's in your mind.

It's on your lips.

It's in your heart.

God has revealed himself to you.

Even to you.

That's Proverbs 22, 19.

Well, because of revelation, that allows God to also be the judge.

God reveals himself, and then God judges us in light of the revelation he gives us.

If you're still open to Proverbs, you can look at chapter 15, verse 26, the very end of chapter 15.

The thoughts of the wicked are an abomination to Yahweh.

But gracious words are pure.

God begins his section on judgment here with a dichotomy.

Purity versus abomination.

Something that's contra his character and something that's in keeping with his character.

Something is described as pure in as much as it corresponds to God, who himself is pure.

Something is abomination as it deviates from him.

Sin is missing the mark, sin is lack of conformity to God and his will.

And so, impure words.

In Proverbs 15, 26, impure words, the thoughts of the wicked even.

Notice it's the thoughts inside their mind.

They don't even say them here.

We're not even talking about words.

It's the thoughts in the wicked person's head that God will judge them for.

This is why we're all condemned.

Because God knows our thoughts.

We'd all be condemned by our works, by the way.

We'd all be condemned by our words.

That's James's point.

James is like, if God just judged you by your words, you'd all be condemned.

If God just judged you by your works, you'd be condemned.

Here, Proverbs 15, 26 says, God can judge you by your thoughts and you'd be condemned.

Look at Proverbs 16, verse 2.

Proverbs 16:2

We looked at the first half of it a second ago.

All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but Yahweh weighs the Spirit.

It's God who is the judge.

If people were the judge, would anybody be condemned?

If people were the judge, would anybody be in hell?

We have a hard enough time disciplining our own kids.

God is the judge.

He is the one who weighs the thoughts.

There's so many Proverbs.

I'm not going to put them on the screen, we're just going to read through them.

So I've got them in numerical order in my notes here, so follow along with me.

Proverbs 17, verse 3.

Proverbs 17:3

The crucible is for silver, the furnace is for gold.

And Yahweh tests the hearts.

Everything has a purpose.

The furnace will melt gold and get out of its infirmities.

God will melt the heart.

He knows what's going on in your heart and he will judge you for it.

Proverbs 20, verse 27.

Proverbs 20:27

Let me skip forward a few chapters.

Proverbs 20, verse 27.

Proverbs 20:27

The spirit of man is the lamp of Yahweh, searching all his innermost parts.

It's a very tricky verse to understand in the ESV there, but the idea is that your spirit, while it might be enclosed to you, God knows all of its secrets.

It's like God turns the light on in your heart.

He knows all things in your heart.

He can see right through to the innermost parts.

Proverbs 21, verse 12.

Proverbs 21:12

I love the ESV capitalizes, the righteous one there.

God is the judge.

He'll bring them to ruin.

Proverbs 21, 27.

The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination.

How much more when he brings it with evil intent?

Notice again that God makes it impossible for people to earn their own salvation.

A wicked person is the kind who needs salvation.

If you're not wicked, you don't need salvation, okay?

A wicked person cannot earn salvation by works because his prayers, God doesn't hear them, and his sacrifices, God rejects them.

That means salvation by works is cut off.

You can't earn salvation.

You can't do something good for salvation.

You can't make a sacrifice to God if you're a wicked person.

If you need salvation, you cannot get it, in other words.

It's one of those catch-22s.

The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination.

Because God brings it.

God sees it brought with its evil intent.

God knows what's in the person's heart.

Proverbs 22, verse 12.

Proverbs 22:12

The eyes of Yahweh keep watch over knowledge, but he overthrows the words of the traitor.

He knows.

On the outside, you don't know who's telling the truth, but God knows.

And he will bring all things to light.

Proverbs 22, two verses together, 22 and 23.

Don't rob the poor.

Proverbs 22, verse 22, don't rob the poor because he's poor.

Proverbs 22:22

Or crush the afflicted at the gate.

For Yahweh will plead their cause and rob the life of those who rob them.

So he's saying, don't exploit the poor.

You're the judge sitting at the gate, you're in a position of power and influence.

Don't side with the rich over the poor, because God will revenge the person.

Now, this isn't even talking about this life, although it could be providential in this life.

A crooked cop could get exposed, or a crooked judge could get exposed, or his house could burn down providentially.

Those things happen.

That could be what Solomon's talking about, but it seems like he has more in view, God's ultimate judgment.

The poor person is exploited, the person who exploits them will be judged by God.

Proverbs 24, verses 21 through 22.

Proverbs 24:21–22

My son, fear Yahweh and the King.

Proverbs 24, verse 21, my son, fear Yahweh and the King.

Proverbs 24:21

Don't join with those who do otherwise, for disaster will arise suddenly from them, and who knows the ruin that will come from them both.

In other words, don't be friends with wicked people.

Because bad things will happen to them.

Don't be friends with the person who plays with a bear trap.

Because you'll get stuck in a bear trap.

Don't be friends with a wicked person, because who knows what will happen to them.

Well, Solomon obviously knows what's going to happen to them.

Bad things.

Bad things, judgment will come to them both.

So God judges.

God judges.

Nevertheless, God reveals himself, God judges.

Nevertheless, still God saves.

God chooses to save people.

And the main question when it comes to salvation is who is the first mover in salvation?

Who initiates salvation?

Do people initiate salvation or does God initiate salvation?

The answer is obviously God.

You know that from all over the Bible.

Back in Proverbs 16, the plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from Yahweh.

Yahweh works first.

Yahweh works first.

You plan your ways in verse 2.

Back in Proverbs 16, you plan your ways.

You commit your work to the Lord in verse 3.

You do all these things, but it is God who is being established.

It's God in verse 4 who made everything for its purpose.

So don't miss, we've taken these Proverbs one at a time, but don't miss the main thrust of Proverbs 16, 1 through 7, that God is the first mover.

He initiates salvation.

Wisdom gets to work.

I've heard people say, if God is sovereign over salvation, why evangelize?

If God's sovereign over salvation, why send missionaries out?

Why evangelize?

Why pray for people to be converted if God is ultimately sovereign?

Which should be just like the farmer saying, if God is sovereign over rain, why plant the seed?

Because God is sovereign over rain, that's why you plant the seed.

Because God gives the rain.

The hydrological cycle is a thing.

And because it's a thing, you plant crops.

God does save people, and because he saves people, you share the gospel with them.

Because he will save.

Of course, God's sovereign over salvation.

That's why you evangelize.

This used to vex me so much before I came to a point where I accepted the sovereignty of God over salvation.

I used to work for missions organization.

I would start every day with quiet time.

It was like a whole ministry-wide thing.

Rule every day start with an hour of quiet time, 30 minutes reading the Bible, 30 minutes praying.

And I spent those 30 minutes praying, always praying for God to save people through our ministries today, that day.

And I started asking myself, like, what am I actually praying for?

When I pray that God would save this person, what am I asking God to do?

Am I asking God to nudge them towards salvation?

Am I asking God to save them against their will?

Am I asking God to what am I asking him to do?

And I could not answer that question.

Because at the time I believed that people were responsible for initiating their salvation.

And that if God were to push one person and not another, that wouldn't be fair.

If God were to show his grace to one person and not another, that wouldn't be fair, just of God.

And yet I'm still praying for people to get saved.

It ultimately ended up making no sense to me at all.

Which led me to discover the writings of Jonathan Edwards.

In the same way Columbus discovered America, I discovered Jonathan Edwards.

This is all over Proverbs.

Look at Proverbs.

If you're open again, look at Proverbs 14, verse 26.

Proverbs 14:26

It's the fear of Yahweh, one has strong confidence.

His children will have a refuge.

The fear of Yahweh is a fountain of life.

So you can turn away from the snares of death.

Salvation comes from God.

He's the fountain.

So take strong confidence in Him getting to work.

Take strong confidence that when you seek refuge in Yahweh, your children will have shade.

Salvation works, in other words.

God rescues even children.

He'll let your children escape the fear of death and the consequence of death through faith in the fountain of life.

Teach your children the word of God.

That's how Proverbs is functioning here.

And God will rescue even some of them.

Proverbs 18, verse 10.

Proverbs 18:10

Skipping a little bit.

Proverbs 18, verse 10.

Proverbs 18:10

The name of Yahweh is a strong tower.

The righteous man runs into it and is safe.

What an encouraging verse.

How do you run into a name?

The name of Yahweh is a strong tower.

The name means somebody's will, their volition, their plans, their decrees.

That's their name.

You sign your name on a document saying, I vouch for this document.

The name of Yahweh protects people that claim it.

You don't just claim it by saying, praise Jesus, there, that keeps the burglars at bay.

You claim Yahweh's name by seeking refuge in it, by submitting yourself to his will, by saying, This is the will of God, I'm submitting myself to it.

And it is a strong tower.

Proverbs 19, verse 23.

Proverbs 19:23

The fear of Yahweh leads to life.

Whoever has it is satisfied.

He will not be visited by harm.

Whoever has it rests satisfied.

This is one of those indicators of salvation is by grace, not by works.

When you have eternal life that comes through faith in God, you rest.

You don't work, you rest.

There remains yet a Sabbath rest for the people of God.

The wise person has found it.

He rests in the work of Yahweh.

Proverbs 23, verse 17.

Proverbs 23:17

Proverbs 23, verse 17.

Proverbs 23:17

Don't let your heart be envious of sinners.

Continue in the fear of Yahweh all the day.

Surely there's a future, and your hope won't be cut off.

It's so easy to be jealous of sinners.

They seem to get away with things.

They lack wisdom and yet they have wealth.

It's a wise man who says, I'm not going to envy those people.

I'm going to continue in the fear of Yahweh.

There's a future.

I'm talking about the future for my kids right now.

There's a future for my kids.

They're not going to be cut off if their hope is in Yahweh.

That verse reminds me that God is both the author, the first mover of faith, and the finisher of faith.

God is the author, in Proverbs, God is the author and finisher of faith.

He designs salvation, he's the fountain of salvation.

He's the first one to move towards you in salvation.

He changes your heart in salvation, and then he carries your salvation to completion on the day of Christ Jesus.

There's a future for you.

God will don't grow weary in doing good.

Don't grow weary in doing good because God has a plan for you.

He's at work in your life, he's faithful to bring it to completion on the day of Christ Jesus.

If you turn away from God, there's no hope for you.

Proverbs 28, verse 9, towards the end of this section.

Proverbs 28:9

If one turns his ear away from hearing the law, even his prayer is an abomination.

Even his prayer is an abomination.

If you don't receive God's word, God doesn't receive your prayers.

They bounce back.

Another question I'm commonly asked is does God hear the prayers of non-believers?

Well, there's a sense in which he's omniscient, he knows what non-believers pray.

But then there's the Proverbs 28-9 sense that God doesn't act on their prayers.

Their prayers are an abomination.

He hears them and he's offended by them.

He hears them and he's offended by them.

But speaking of prayers for believers, soteriology, God reveals himself, God judges, God saves.

And fourthly, God hears prayers.

It's a big theme in Proverbs.

Proverbs 15, verse 8.

Proverbs 15:8

The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to Yahweh, but with the prayer of the upright is acceptable to him.

God would rather have a godly person's prayer than a sacrifice offered to him by an ungodly person.

You know, Samuel rebukes Saul, saying, God doesn't want your sacrifice.

He'd rather you humble your heart and pray to him.

That's Hosea 6, 6.

If God had to choose between receiving a sacrifice from somebody whose heart wasn't humbled, or receiving the prayer from a poor, humbled believer, he would always choose the prayer from the poor, humbled believer.

It's their prayer that is acceptable to him.

God rejects the sacrifices.

They don't come from a godly heart.

He receives sacrifices from godly hearts, namely prayers.

Proverbs 15, verse 29.

Proverbs 15:29

Yahweh is far from the wicked, but he hears the prayer of the righteous.

He's far from the wicked, but he hears the prayer of the righteous.

I'll put this one on the screen because I'm jumping around again.

Proverbs 29, verse 26.

Proverbs 29:26

Many seek the face of a ruler, but it's from Yahweh that a man gets justice.

That's right.

You can write your congressman all you want.

You think he's going to respond?

You write your congressman an angry letter and you're on his Christmas card list for the rest of your life.

Nobody read that.

They just pillaged your address.

Many seek the face of a ruler, but Yahweh is the one who will give you justice.

So pray to him.

How do we respond to this kind of theology?

How do we respond?

Well, first way we can respond is to live with integrity.

To live with integrity.

The mind that is unsettled about God is a disaster.

It leads to a disastrous life.

This is Proverbs 16, verse 3.

Proverbs 16:3

I hope you're made your way back there.

Commit your work to Yahweh and your plans will be established.

Settle your mind.

Decide if you're going to serve Him or not.

God rejects the lukewarm person, spits them out.

Settle your mind.

The unsettled mind is a disaster.

Instead, Proverbs 16, 3, commit your work to Yahweh.

Commit your life to him.

Be sold out to him.

And live with integrity.

Proverbs 21, verse 3, do righteousness and justice.

Proverbs 21:3

It's more acceptable to Yahweh than sacrifice.

Jesus even said that this morning in Matthew 12.

Proverbs 29, 18.

Where there is no prophetic vision, the people cast off restraint, but blessed is the one who keeps the law.

Ungodly people need others to corral them, but the one who keeps the law is blessed.

And the final way you can act on this.

The final way you can live this out is through evangelism.

Through evangelism.

Proverbs 11, verse 30.

Proverbs 11:30

The fruit of righteous is the true the fruit of righteousness is the tree of life.

And whoever captures souls is wise.

The fruit of righteousness of the righteous is a tree of life, and whoever captures souls is wise.

If there is a true hell, which there is in Proverbs described, if there's a true heaven, which there is in Proverbs described, the name of the Lord of the Lords is a strong tower.

He rescues those who run to him.

Then the most honoring thing you can do with your life as you're living with integrity is to rescue people from hell.

Proverbs 11, verse 30.

Proverbs 11:30

Whoever captures souls is wise.

This all exists for the glory of God.

Even evangelism exists for the glory of God.

2 Corinthians 4, verse 5 says, all this is going on.

2 Corinthians 4:5

We're sharing the gospel.

It's going on, so the grace will extend to more and more people, so it increases Thanksgiving.

This is done to the glory of God.

You're honoring God with your life.

You're one person glorifying God with your one life.

You share the gospel with somebody else, and it's exponentially magnified.

You want your life to count for eternity?

Share the gospel with people.

You look at those around you, this is so critical in Proverbs.

You look at those around you that are leading foolish lives in your neighborhood and in your work, and you're rolling your eyes at them and you're thinking, that guy is such a terrible parent, and he's yelling at his kids, and he's yelling at his wife, and these people are stealing, and they're just they're terrible people, really.

And it's so easy to just look down on them, and you have to remind yourself they they're like that because they don't have wisdom.

They don't know what they're doing in life.

How can they know unless somebody tells them?

Whoever captures souls is wise.

Lord, we're thankful that you have called us to the work of fishing from men.

You've made us, in that sense, evangelists.

We know it is wise to win souls.

It's wise to go into the world and tell others what wisdom is.

We do pray for your wisdom.

We pray that you'd work in our lives to glorify your wisdom, to glorify you.

Lord, use the things we talked about tonight to seal our hearts.

Use the things we talked about tonight to make us wise, to help us think about you in a more right way.

We pray that you'd be magnified through our life.

We ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

And now for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.

Thanks for joining us.

If you're in the Washington, D.C.

area, I would love to see you at Emmanuel Bible Church.

For more information on our church or our current service times, go to iBC.church.

For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to TMS.edu.

I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel with boldness.