A quarterly magazine for truth, faith, and logic.
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A quarterly magazine for truth, faith, and logic. |
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Vol. 3, Issue 2 | Spring 2009 |
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The Gospel According to the Proverbs, Chapter 2A Selectionby Paul Lytle Over the last several months, Primum Mobile editor Paul Lytle has been blogging through the book of Proverbs, one verse at a time. Please feel free to stop by to say hello. He is currently in chapter 3, but he has made all the blogs from chapter 2 available in a handy PDF file, which you can download here. Chapter 1 can be downloaded here. Below we have picked out four of the twenty-five entries to republish here. We hope you will enjoy them. Proverbs 2:15: The great Ruler in the sky (pun intended)[God will deliver your from] “men whose paths are crooked, and who are devious in their ways.” How do we know if a line is crooked? It’s obvious, you may say! If it’s curved one way or another, then it’s crooked. And what if the curve is very subtle? Then you may need a ruler to judge. Let us turn the question to one that is often asked in these times. “What is normal?” What is right, for what is right for you may not be right for me? When we judge ourselves by the people around us, it is like measuring a crooked line by a crooked ruler. What is straight? We cannot say for sure. And if we cannot say what is straight, then how can we know if something is crooked? That is the problem in today’s moral climate. How can we know if we are doing right when we judge ourselves by our neighbor who is acting the same way as we are? If the blind lead the blind, as Jesus said, both will fall into the pit. I’ve heard it a thousand times in moral debates. One person may say, “This behavior is wrong,” and the other person will counter, “And you’re any better?” And the second guy has a point. If I’m going to try to help my brother with the speck in his eye, I need to first take care of the log in my own. But all of this leaves us in a bad place. If everyone is walking a crooked path, then how can we even know what a straight path looks like? Jesus. When God tells us He will save us from men whose paths are crooked, He is telling us that He will place us on a path that is straight. You see, while we are looking at a bunch of crooked lines and trying to figure out what a straight on looks like, God has the ruler to help. He sent Jesus Christ to earth to walk the straight path for us, and He is our example to follow. But that’s not enough, because my path is already crooked. Because I have so totally failed morally, I am not worthy of life. But that is why Jesus died. Though He was perfect, He still died for me, taking the punishment I deserve. If I repent of my crooked ways and confess Him as Savior, He will place me on His own straight path. I once walked a crooked path. I was once devious in my ways. Jesus took those sins away from me and gave me His righteousness. Now I am saved from that path, and I will not find the road’s end there, for that crooked road only leads to death. God has saved me from that fate, and He can save you too if you will repent and follow Him. Proverbs 2:17: Warning! Discussion of mature themes within“who forsakes the companion of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God;” Last time, we started to look at the second major section of chapter 2: the adulteress. In that verse, we were mainly looking at the fact that she did not follow the God of the Bible, and what that means for us today. In this verse, let’s look a little bit at sexual sin in general, since this woman has forsaken the companion of her youth. There seems to be a lot of confusion about sexual sin, so let’s define a few terms. Adultery is when you cheat on a spouse. Fornication is when you have any sexual contact with anyone who is not your spouse. A lot of translations will use the phrase “sexual immorality” here, which has confused people. Some have even gone so far as to say that this is only adultery, and fornication is not wrong. Well, that term in the Greek is porneia, and it means any sort of sex outside of marriage, including sleeping with your boyfriend, heavy petting, stripping for someone, posting pictures online, sending suggestive photos over text messages, or anything else you can think of. And if you don’t agree that these are sins, Jesus tells us “that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28). So pretty much anything that will get you excited is also adultery, just in case you deny that it is poreia. Homosexuality of any kind is also forbidden for both men and women (for example, Romans 1:27-28). So is sex bad? Heavens, no! May it never be! The Bible speaks very highly of sexual relations, but that it was meant for marriage. Whether we want to admit it or not, there is a spiritual connection that happens when two people make love, and that connection was meant for one person. God does not want to steal our joy, but to free us into real joy. He wants us to be sexually open and free within a relationship, without dragging around a past that probably lead to jealousy, shame, regret, comparisons, or what ifs. He wants us to experience one another unselfishly and lovingly, without restraint, for all our lives. We bring honor to our wives like this. We show them love by waiting for them, by treasuring them, by making them the only one. We bring honor to husbands this way, by respecting them enough to make love to them only. We bring honor to those who are not our spouses by not taking what belongs to a future spouse. We bring honor also to God, by following His plan rather than our own momentary desires. We make the statement that He is more important than getting laid tonight. “You were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:20). This connection is mirrored in the way Jesus loves His Church. He would do anything for His Church, and even died for her. His Church is not something He will leave for another church, or cheat on. He chose that Church from the foundation of the world, and there will never be another. Even while we were sinners, Jesus died for us. Even when we were committing all sorts of sins against Him, including sexual ones, He came to earth and died upon the Cross to take our sins upon Himself. It is a wonderful feeling to know that someone has stayed true to you even before that person knew you. That was Jesus, even when turned to other things that seemed more important. He will forgive you if you repent and follow Him. It may be that He chose you from the beginning of time and is calling for you now to join His Church. The Church is His bride, and even though we do not come pure, He has cleaned us with His Blood, and He welcomes us and will always stay true. A wayward man will repent of his past when he falls so completely in love that his own desires are not as important. Repent also to God, for He is worthy of that love. Proverbs 2:20: So!“So you will walk in the way of the good and keep to the paths of the righteous.” So. It’s hard to begin a sentence with “so.” My high school English teacher very specifically told me not to do. I do it a lot. It’s not necessarily wrong to start a sentence with “so.” But you usually don’t want to start your thought with it. “So” suggests that you are continuing a thought. So that is why this verse begins with “so.” Because there was something that came before. So what is it? What came before? Specifically, the first sentence of the chapter, which encompasses verses 1 through 5. Everything after that point just expands on that. That is why the other four sentences of the chapter begin with “for” (v. 6), “then” (v. 9), and “so” (v. 16 and 20). So I bring this up because this verse is not a proclamation of what will be if you just avoid one adulteress woman described in verses 16-19. No, we’re going all the way back now to the beginning. This verse is what will be if you follow God and obey His commands. So what? I mean, the paths of righteousness don’t sound like much fun. Yeah, they do, considering that verse 18 tells us that the alternative is death. The way of the good is not some tightrope of rules you have to walk, where one slip and you’ll fall into the fiery pit. It’s about being with the Creator of everything. So it works out like this. We’ve all done wrong. The Bible calls this sin. We may not think much of it, but that is only because we judge ourselves based on other people. God judges with righteousness, and when you realize that even unwarranted anger, when measured against the standard of righteousness, is like murder, we can see how far we’ve missed the mark. We’re not worthy of the life God offers. Furthermore, any just judge, as God is, cannot just sweep our sin under the rug. So He sent Jesus, His Son, who lived perfectly and without sin. He is the only one who does not deserve death, and yet He died anyway. He died to pay our price. So if we repent, we can place our sins on Him, and He will pay for them with His blood. And in turn, He gives us His righteousness and Spirit. The Holy Spirit guides us in the way of the good. It is here we find life rather than death. It is here we walk with Jesus. So we will walk in the paths of the righteous. I don’t know what you will encounter on this road. It can be very difficult sometimes. But I do know that I am with God every day here, and He watches out for me. And I know where it ends, and I will live with Him forever. So whatever comes, it’s well worth it. I wouldn’t trade a moment of it for the ways of the world. Sorry for all the sentences that begin with “so.” I couldn’t help it. Proverbs 2:21-22: This land is your land!“For the upright will inhabit the land, and those with integrity will remain in it, but the wicked will be cut off from the land, and the treacherous will be rooted out of it.” Wow. We’re going to do two verses today. That is a first. I’m very excited. I’m doing it because I want to give a good example of what Solomon is talking about. We learned last time that, in the Old Testament, God would sometimes bring a foreign army to take the land of Canaan away from the Jews when they had been disobedient. One of my favorite books in the Bible is Nehemiah, which takes place at the end of one of these periods of exile. Jerusalem has been completely destroyed, and has been in ruins for decades. Nehemiah is a faithful man who works as the cupbearer the king. He basically drinks a sip of everything the king has to make sure it’s not poisoned. One day, Nehemiah hears from some other Jews, and he is suddenly struck with a profound need to see the city rebuilt. God softens the heart of the king to allow him to go, and so he goes to rebuild it. This takes guts, my friends. There are enemies all over the place, and none of them want to see the Jewish people regain a little power by regaining their walled city. There is danger all over the place, and several people are trying to kill or discredit Nehemiah. But he, along with faithful people from all over, do the work. They rebuild the walls. The town begins to flourish again, and one of the religious leaders, Ezra, holds a mass revival in the town where thousands come to God. The Jews have returned to their home. After many years, Nehemiah returns to his post as the cupbearer for the king. But he learns some unrighteous people have come to Jerusalem and are messing everything up. So he goes back and runs them all out of town, beating up some as he goes. Pretty cool. This is exactly what Solomon is talking about. But this story also speaks of Jesus, and the “land” that is promised for us. You see, like Nehemiah, Jesus came to a broken land, a place ravished by sin and death, to rebuild. The walls He erected were not physical ones, but walls of a different kind. Was he not described as the cornerstone, after all? He came in order to bring the faithful home, to protect them with the Spirit. To bring them together in Him. And like Nehemiah left government and religious leaders in place when he left, Jesus sent to us His Spirit when He returned to heaven. However, our cities, our homes, and even our churches have become infested with unrighteous men. There are pulpits all over filled by greedy men and blasphemers, leading people astray. But like Nehemiah, Jesus will come again, and He will drive out the unrighteous. This “land,” which is ultimately our adoption by God Himself, is for the faithful alone. Eternal life with Him is for the faithful. The others will be driven out. So what makes a righteous person? Jesus. Only Jesus can make you righteous. See, we have all fallen into unrighteousness with greed, ambition, lust, and selfishness. We have all fallen short of God’s Glory. But like Nehemiah came to bring people into the city while they did not have the power to do it without him, so too did Jesus come to bring us into the kingdom, into the land, while we could not on our own. Repent of the ways you have fallen short. Admit that you cannot make it on your own and believe that Jesus has done the work to make you righteous. Believe, and come inside. |
