Presuppositional Apologetics in Proverbs

Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

Let’s pray first. Father, we thank you for another day of glorious worship of you. We thank you for your word in Romans this morning that we heard. We thank you for your sovereignty. We thank you that you have made yourself known in general revelation by creating us. Help us to understand that. Help us to understand how to properly explain who you are to people that don’t know you. And yet, I hope that as we study these things tonight, that you’ll see that everyone knows there’s a God. And those that want to reject you just suppress that truth. But they know. So help us to be good students of your word today. And help me to be able to speak the right things.

OK. Proverbs is something that we elders this year going through, and it’s kind of unusual that I chose a subject to use. Not really though, and people have chosen money and that kind of thing. But I thought it would be interesting to try to show a certain branch of apologetics is taught in Proverbs. Proverbs, generally speaking explains man’s relationship to God, man’s relationship to himself, and man’s relationship to others. Those are the categories that almost every proverb fit under. The ones that we’re going to look at tonight in Proverbs are the ones that are relationship to God and His truth. First off, if some of you have never heard about apologetics or never heard the thing, we can read the verse in 1 Peter 3, 14 through 16 that says, but even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed.

Have no fear of them, nor be troubled. But in your hearts, regard Christ as Lord, as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks for a reason for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience so that when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.” The whole issue of apologetics comes out of that make a defense. It’s the Greek word apologia. It’s to reckon, to think it through, to make that defense in a reasoned way. And so that’s where apologetics comes from. There are three schools of apologetics that are used out there.

There’s the classical school of apologetics, and that’s this definition. These definitions, they’re a little bit long, but the eggheads that created these definitions up, you just got to live with them and try to boil it down to what they’re saying, OK? So classical apologetics is a method of apologetics that begins by first employing various theistic arguments to establish the existence of God. Classical apologists will often utilize various forms of the cosmological, teleological, that’s on design, ontological, and moral arguments to prove God’s existence. Once God’s existence has been established, the classical apologists will then move on to present evidence from the fulfilled prophecy, historical reliability of scripture, and then the bodily resurrection of Jesus to distinguish Christianity from all other creating forms of theism.

So they first start off with this approach really brought to you by the Renaissance of all these arguments built on Plato and that kind of thinking. And then you bring that all to think that, oh, well, of course there’s a God, and now let me tell you about him. But you notice that in the middle there, once God’s existence has been established, the classical apologists then will move on to present evidence from fulfilled prophecy and the historical reliability of Scripture. So then, after they get you to go, well, okay, there’s a God, then they have to go to scripture. And people will say, well, that’s just a dumb old book.

I don’t know about that. Then you have a school of evidentialists. And classical apologetics and evidential apologetics, most of the time, get shuffled together in a nice little pile. And evidential apologetics is a method of Christian apologetics that emphasizes positive evidences in favor of the truth of Christianity. The distinctive feature of evidential apologetics is its one-step approach to establishing Christian theism. Evidentialists will utilize evidence and arguments from several areas, including archaeology, fulfilled messianic prophecy, and especially from miracles. Again, what does that relate to? It relates to scripture.

In the distinction from classical apologetics, the evidential apologist believes that the occurrence of miracles act as evidence of God’s very existence. In this way, the evidential apologist does not believe that the philosophical and scientific arguments for God’s existence must logically precede arguments from miracles to establish biblical Christianity. However, the evidential apologist is not opposed to use the natural theology to confirm God’s existence. These arguments are important weapons and the arsenal of the evidentialists as they helped to undergird the case from Christianity by giving further confirmation that God exists and has created and designed our universe.

Evidentialists simply do not believe such arguments must be presented prior to moving on to evidence from miracles. In this way, the evidential apologists can argue for theism and Christian theism at the same time without having first to establish God’s existence. Such an approach can be beneficial in personal evangelism, where time is at a minimum. The Christian philosopher, Norman Geisler, summarized the difference between classical and evidential apologetics in this way. If people are into this subject, you’ve probably watched debates with Geisler and R.C. Sproul, other guys, the Indian guy that kind of fell off the wagon.

He was big in this kind of stuff. Yeah, Zacharone, right. So you watch these people and you realize, oh, these people, they’re arguing all these things and they need to know all this stuff. And oh my goodness, I gotta study all this stuff to be able to present it. But Geisler kind of sums it up, I think, in a good way. The difference between the classical apologists and the evidentialists on the use of historical evidence is that the classical see the need to first establish that this is a theistic universe. The basic argument of the classical apologists is that it makes no sense to speak about the resurrection as an act of God, unless, as a logical prerequisite, it is first established that there is a God who can act.

That’s the Baker Encyclopedia of the Christian Apologetics. Now, those are two schools that probably most of you, if you didn’t know the name for them, you watch people do it, or you’ve heard them talk about that. The school that I want to speak about is presuppositional apologetics. This was brought about by Cornelius Van Tyl, a theological instructor at Westminster back in the early part of the 20th century and on through the middle part. He wrote a lot of books that are not easy to understand. And Greg Bonsen wrote this book, Always Ready. He’s probably the best student of Van Til and certainly has done a lot of tapes and a lot of writing, I think, to make it much clearer than what Van Til did himself.

But this school of thought has come into a lot of acceptance by theologians, I think, that really want the Bible to be the source. And here’s their attempt at explaining how they see it. Pre-suppositional apologetics is that belief that takes precedence over another, therefore serves as a criterion for another. That belief takes precedence over another and therefore serves as the criterion for another. In other words, our belief judges all the rest. An ultimate presupposition is a belief over which no other takes precedence. For a Christian, the content of Scripture must serve as his ultimate presupposition. This doctrine is merely the outworking of the lordship of the Christian God in the area of human thought.

It merely applies the doctrine of scriptural infallibility to the realm of knowing. That’s why I like it. It’s nice and simple. And you’ll see that as we start constructing this, well, duh, if there is a God and he created it, you know, well, that’s the way it works. So the purpose of this talk is to exhibit the presuppositional apologetics as the only faithful and sound method of contending for the Christian hope and biblical mesti, resting on the authority of the living God rather than that of independent human reasoning. The apologists must presuppose the truth of the scripture and lay siege to all apostate presuppositions.

This must be his method because the word of God in the Bible has a unique epistemological status for the Christian. It requires no corroboration and carries its own evidence inherently or self-attesting, as God makes total demand on the lives of his covenant people that they recognize the words of scripture and are logically the most ultimate authority. So if our apologetic is to be Christian apologetic, it must be presuppositional in character and method. Now, I’m gonna start quoting the Bible, and as you listen to these verses, think of the big thing. The first thing is God created it, and we’ll see quickly, as we saw this morning in Romans 1, that all men know there’s a God, and what they do with that information is the critical effort to them.

They either accept it and worship him, or they suppress it. Van Til summarized this. If anybody’s tried to read a Van Til book, and this is the one thing that in a lot of the websites of presuppositional apologetic people, this is the one quote that they love. Van Til summarized the main drive of his apologetic by saying, the only proof for the existence of God is that without God, you couldn’t prove anything. So our classical Christian education is interesting. In the books that Doug Wilson has written about classical Christian schooling, he shows that you really can’t know that two and two is four until you understand the basics that God is the one that created these systems that we’re examining.

The unbeliever can get a right answer to the math problem, but he really doesn’t understand the structure in which the math problem was made. He denies that and creates his own structure out there. So the first verse that I wanna read, and it’s not in Proverbs, we’ll get to Proverbs, Genesis 1.1, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, okay? If that’s true, that’s a pretty big statement, right? Right off the bat, the Bible claims God made it all and there you go. So if he made it, he must know how he wants it to run and the rest of it. Then we move on into the New Testament with the Romans 1, 16 through 23 that we saw this morning.

And the great thing here is that Paul, remember that Paul was a great theologian, a Jewish theologian. He was a priest and all of that. and he persecuted those Christians, you know, that he thought they were enemies of God, but he understood the primary importance of what the Bible said. So he’s coming from an Old Testament expertise knowing that by reading that, he could write Romans 1, 16 through 23. So, for I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For it is in the righteousness of God as revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, the righteous shall live by faith.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them for his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world and the things that have been made so that they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.”

That’s a really damning statement. Claiming to be wise, they became fools because they knew God and yet they did not honor him. I use that verse all the time with people that, you know, playing pool as I do with various no accounts. A lot of them are atheists and they tell me these things and I say, well who made all this? And oh, you’re going to use that trick on me. And I said, well you say there is no God, don’t you think something bigger than you made this? Most people will actually go, yeah, okay, I’ll give you that, maybe something bigger than me made it. Well at that point, all that’s happened is that guy just doesn’t know his name.

He’s admitted something way bigger than him made it, so now he needs to know his name. And then I go on the track that, well, maybe this guy wrote a book and told you about how he did this and how you’re supposed to act to him. Oh, now you’re going to tell me the Bible. And I said, exactly. I said, I’ve got you to that point. Do you want to, you know, look at that? It’s interesting. It usually stops the argument. But again, the argument, yes, I want to get them saved, but I also don’t want to give them some glowing message And they go, oh, all I got to do is believe. Well, I’ll believe. Those are the kind of guys that get planted in the shallow soil.

You want somebody that understands what the source is, and then he may not understand all those things, but he knows where to go to find the source. So other verses in the New Testament that show these kind of things, it’s 1 Corinthians 1, 20, where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?

Colossians 2, one through 10, for I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those in Laodicea, for all of those who have not seen me face to face, that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is in Christ, whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments for though I am absent in the body yet I am with you in spirit rejoicing to see your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ. Therefore as you receive Christ Jesus as Lord so walk in him rooted and built up in him established in faith just as as you are taught abounding in thanksgiving, see to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.

For in him, the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him who is the head of all rule and authority. There is a great article, and for those of you that are in the school, about Christian philosophy that Doug Wilson wrote, and it shows in that article, I think Doug does a good thing of balancing out. Yes, you can have these philosophical thoughts, but unless you’re basing it in a true Christian foundation, you are really just following the traditions of man, and it’s a dangerous subject. You can read a lot of Christian philosophers and scratch your head and wonder if they’re saved, okay?

First Timothy 6.20 through 21 says, “‘O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you. “‘Avoid the irreverent battle “‘and the contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge. “‘For by professing it, some have swerved from the faith. “‘Grace be with you.‘” So those are New Testament warnings. Now I want to just go back to the basic thing of what does the Bible say, how do I grammatically and historically read this and understand what it’s saying, and how that applies to what I believe how Proverbs teaches presuppositionally. You must accept God’s word, and then you go from there. So the first one that comes up is Proverbs 1.7, right in the front.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and instruction. Okay, the fear of the Lord. A lot of you have heard great Baptist sermons about how that is reverential awe. No, it isn’t. You fear the Lord. And Matthew 10, 28, and Jesus’ words tell you, and do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. rather fear him, and in the ESV, they didn’t capitalize the H, they should have, capital H, him, who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

You either believe or you get to go to hell. That’s, you should be afraid. That’s afraid. Fear the Lord. That’s the beginning of knowledge. Now, in case you didn’t get it, I have one page, two, it’s one and a half pages of Proverbs that say this over and over and over. I mean, it’s amazing if you read your chapter of Proverbs a day for a month and read it for a couple months, pretty soon you’re going to know, wow, this says it’s a lot, probably important. So then it moves from 1.7 to 1.22. How long, those simple ones, will you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight in their scoffers, scoffing, and fools hate knowledge?

Proverbs 1, 29, 31. Because they hated knowledge, they did not choose the fear of the Lord. Would have none of my counsel and despise all my reproof. Therefore they shall eat the fruit of their way and have their fill of their own devices. Not a good thing. You will not do well. Proverbs 3 5 trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding a positive statement in the right way Proverbs 4 23 keep your heart with all vigilance For from it flow the springs of life Proverbs 5 1 & 2 my son be attentive to my wisdom incline your ear to my understanding So that you may keep discretion and your lips may guard knowledge Proverbs 8 5, O simple ones, learn prudence, O fools, learn sense.

Proverbs 9 10, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. That sounds familiar. And the knowledge of the Holy One is insight. Where do you get that knowledge? You get it out of scripture. Proverbs 10 8, the wisest of the heart will receive the commandments, but a babbling fool will come to ruin. 1018. The one who conceals hatred has lying lips and whoever utters slander is a fool. Proverbs 12 23 a prudent man conceals knowledge but the heart of fools proclaims folly. In everything there Proverbs 13 16 in everything the prudent acts with knowledge but a fool flaunts his folly. It’s just over and over, Proverbs 13-19.

A desire fulfilled is sweet to the soul, but to turn away from evil is an abomination to fools. To turn away from evil is an abomination to fools. Do we have a bunch of people that are wallowing in evil today, marching for abortion, for death? Even the people that are for abortion, The same ones realize what they’re doing. They understand it, and yet they revel in it. Proverbs 14.7, leave the presence of a fool, for there you do not meet the words of knowledge. 14.16, one who is wise is cautious and turns away from evil, but a fool is reckless and careless. Proverbs 15.12, a scoffer does not like to be reproved.

He will not go to the wise. Proverbs 15, 14, the heart of him who has understanding seeks knowledge, but the mouth of fools feed on folly. Proverbs 15, 32, whoever ignores instruction despises himself, but he who listens to reproof gains intelligence. Proverbs 15, 33, the fear of the Lord is instruction and wisdom, and humility comes before honor. Proverbs 1710, a rebuker goes deeper into a man’s understanding than a hundred blows into a fool. Proverbs 1712, let a man meet a she-bear robbed of her cubs rather than a fool in his folly. Why should a fool have money in his hand to buy wisdom when he has no sense? Proverbs 1760. That one makes me think of all the money being spent to send your children to high level schools that can no longer decide what a man or a woman is. Let’s spend $80,000 a year to send my kid to Harvard so he can learn that. Well, I can’t tell that.

Proverbs 1724, the discerning sets its face towards wisdom, but the eyes of a fool are on the ends of the earth. Proverbs 1728, even a fool who keeps silent is considered wise when he closes his lips he is deemed intelligent. Proverbs 18 2, a fool takes no pleasure in understanding but only in expressing his opinion. Proverbs 18 7, a fool’s mouth is his ruin and his lips are a snare to his soul. Proverbs 19 1, better is a poor person who walks in his integrity than one who is crooked in speech and is a fool. Proverbs 24 9, the devising of folly is sin and the scoffer is an abomination to mankind. Proverbs 28 26, whoever trusts in his own mind as a fool but he who walks in wisdom will be delivered. Proverbs 29 11 a fool gives full vent to his spirit but a wise man quietly holds it back. All of those proverbs were taken in this part of the book the scriptural reference and back in the back the part on proverbs all of those are this first column and it all goes to a three-page chapter in this

book that, let me see, I’ve got to get to the right page. The foolishness of unbelief, three pages that are, I think, really skillfully done where Bonson shows through these references you’re just foolish. I mean God just flat calls people that think they’re hanging on on their own wisdom, fools. So what kind of basis do you have listening to them spouting off all their philosophies of oh, I really think this, and oh, well I understand, you know, cosmic forces and all of that, and we were, you know, made in the puddle and all of that kind of stuff. And it’s just, when you really back away and look at it, well obviously, we don’t know, but something bigger than us made this.

And then once you understand, okay, who is this force? General revelation shows it’s God. Then God himself writes a book to us. And as you study that book, you realize the supernatural nature of the book and you start going, oh my goodness, look at how that book relates to that book. And even though all these different authors wrote it, It all weaves together in one magnificent statement.

These are things that as you go on and on, all these things become even more, I think, apparent to you. The other one is God is sovereign. That’s a big hangup when you’re witnessing to people. Well, I can’t mean, you know, I’m not gonna worship this mean God that would send somebody to hell or do whatever. And the problem is, the first thing is, If this guy made all this and made me, and then people show me a verse that he knew me before the foundation of the world, before I was ever made, he knew that these kind of things should put you on your knees and thank God that he’s allowing you to have at least those recognitions of it.

I think he will honor that, that, OK, I get it.

your God help me out help me understand this and he will help you I do believe that God is sovereign Proverbs 16 for the Lord has made everything for his purpose even the wicked for the day of trouble that’s not the day of trouble day of evil okay the Lord has made everything for its purpose even the wicked for the day of evil Proverbs 16 33 the lot is cast into the lap but it’s every decision is from the Lord. We played some crazy game last night with the Hovlands and we had to throw dice so we could, I don’t know, we got cards or something that we could get boundaries and built little towns and stuff, but every stupid toss of the dice he knows, you know, much less your next breath or you know, then I was gonna pound the pulpit here or whatever. So those Proverbs are brought up and if he’s sovereign like that and he declares himself like this this all comes together that Obviously you have to presuppositionally He’s God this is his revelation This is the foundation of truth and if you don’t want to talk about that really got nothing else to tell you

Now going to somebody that’s never heard that before I do think you have to be patient and you do have to keep explaining it and if God is touching that person Lots of them will go. Oh, wow You can get them to admitting there’s something bigger than them that made all this in a hurry Now you’ve told them you’re lying to me when you said you were an atheist at least now you’re an agnostic You don’t know his name, but you know something bigger than you did all this so now I can teach you his name So anyway, then we move another sovereign proverb is Proverbs 22, the rich and the poor meet together. The Lord is the maker of them all.

Everybody, whether it’s Bill Gates or the bum on the street, he made them all. Then the other thing that happens and is declared by by Proverbs is the absolute truth of what’s being displayed in the Bible.

Proverbs 22, 17 through 21, incline your ear and hear the words of the wise and apply your heart to my knowledge, for it will be pleasant if you keep them within you, if all of them are ready on your lips, that you trust, that your trust may be in the Lord. I have made them known to you today even to you have I not written for you 30 sayings of counsel and knowledge to make you know what is right and true that you may give the true answer to those who sent you.” Solomon is you know setting it up this is why these things were written to you and they’re coming from God you know because you can read the whole thing. The last part of this is it’s the whole chapter of Proverbs 26. Now some of you might have gone, okay how did he prove that presuppositional apologetics is taught through Proverbs? Right? So the basic thing is, is that we’re saying the source of information is God’s Word, period. And without filtering everything you do through this, you’re not getting any kind of truth whatsoever. And that’s why some

of you that are being introduced to classical Christian schooling, notice that we have the classical model, but then the label of Christian gets laid in there that we need to view this with our biblical spectacles. We need to put it through that grid. Now, learning Latin is not necessarily a Bible thing, but learning grammar and understanding language so that I can read something and I can diagram a sentence and understand the meanings of words and the structure of language God gave us language. We are unique creatures and that we can sit around and listen to each other talk like this and actually convey things that I’m thinking in my head.

I can convey that to you and you can have this idea. That’s crazy when you think about it, that that can be just conveyed by talking. What a gift. And to be able to think about those abstract thoughts and be able to relay that to somebody else and to discuss that in the abstract and yet be absolutely concrete. We don’t suck our next breath of air, we fall over and die. So all of that, though, puts us back to the thing that God’s in charge. He’s the one that controls it all. He’s the one that does that. So that’s what this all does. It boils down the sovereignty of God.

That’s why I believe that this has been brought to the forefront in this day and age through Calvinistic-type theologians, because Calvin was the kind of main dude who put out God is sovereign. I mean all the five points of Calvinism are just nothing more than points of God’s sovereignty. He’s in charge of this, he’s in charge of that, he’s in charge of you, and you know as soon as you really buy into that you realize well of course he is, he made it all, he made the system. I’m part of this system because I am a creature in the system so I need to act correctly toward the person who made the system, God himself, and God reveals himself through his word, so we need to just farm everything through that.

That’s why it takes years and why every Sunday, we come and we listen. And the great thing to the Christian life is, you’ll get to a certain point and you’ll go, man, I’m glad I understand that. And then a week comes later and you read another verse Or another slant, and you go, oh, I never realized that facet of the diamond. Oh, wow. Now I see a whole different thing. Then you go along and, you know, bam, never saw that before. These are the same words I’ve been reading for years, and now I see that. Well, that’s God peeling the blinders off like Saul. You know, you fall off the horse and get rid of the blindness, and hey, look what you can find out.

So the last chapter here where this is working out perfect. I was only going to try to speak for like 30 minutes, 35 minutes, and by the time I read this, that would be it. But here’s the main thing. I think this is so obvious that it’s not really even worth debating. And when I listen to people debate it, it’s interesting. And it’s good mental gymnastics. It’s kind of like our speech meets or our rhetoric classes that you learn how to rebut the horns, grasp the horns like Sean was saying. And to learn how to argue the other side is good mental gymnastics. But when it all gets said and done, do I really need to get over here and argue that I can’t tell a man from a woman?

I mean, is that clever if I can make that argument? Or what good is that kind of thing, you know? So it’s bottom line, we should want to know God. And when you know God, he opens your eyes and makes all of this a whole different look. For those of us that are believers, I mean, that’s why I think getting together every week in our liturgy, we come to know him together and privately each time we meet because we’re all interacting in our own heads, but all together we’re interacting and then we come to communion, which I believe has a supernatural aspect to it. We are celebrating, you know, these elements that represent these things, but anybody that listens to us sing knows there’s something much bigger going on than just having some little bread and some wine or grape juice and thinking, oh, now I’ve done my duty and done this symbolism.

And I think that churches that don’t do that really miss a huge point in their Christian worship. And I think in the Reformed tradition, most of our Presbyterian brothers do have communion every week and that sort of thing, and that’s why we have adopted it. And I think it really does change us. And a couple times here, watching us sing and hearing that, that’s a lot of hearts welded together, thanking the Lord for what he has done for us, which is the proper place of worship. So the interesting thing, too, is that when you listen to the debates of other apologists or clever arguments about, you know, the Grand Canyon is old and that kind of stuff.

Those things are good, but I think John MacArthur had one of the best quotes I’ve ever heard about apologetics is he was asked in one of his question and answers and after he wrote the MacArthur Study Bible, he’d get up there and he said, I’m not sure how I answered that first and he’d open his Study Bible and look and say, okay, that’s how I think about that. But some people asked him about, what about apologetics and evidences, like the Grand Canyon and that kind of stuff? And he said, you know what? He said, I’ve come to realize in my life that all of those answers in Genesis and all those things, they’re great.

They’re good studies and very interesting. But he says, what they really do is they just strengthen your Christian faith. You just see, oh, there is an answer for that. But that particular answer is not really the whole grasping of what God is and what he lives in you. They’re interesting arguments. But when you try to argue with unbelievers about those things, you’ll find that the argument goes, okay, you proved that to me, but what about this? And what about that? And what about this? And you just go on and on and on. It’s a big universe. And they just keep asking those kinds of questions. So, you know, if you wanna do that for the rest of your life, good luck.

I mean, it can be interesting for your faith to prove that out, but you usually are not convincing somebody else by making those kind of arguments. You have to get right down to the heart issue. You’re rejecting the very thing that made you. That’s the thing, and that’s why I think that the presupposition that God is God, you’re not, and you need to pay attention to him is critical in apologetics. And this book, I think, is really good at it. And it’s interesting how God had this guy die at like 47. He had a heart condition. And he made Van Til’s writing, I think, understandable. He gets a little out there, too.

I mean, he can give you a headache reading some of his paragraphs. But he’s much more on ground than a lot of these guys are. But they’re all, the presuppositions are trying to say, the bottom line is God is God, you’re not, and you know, get in line. So, Proverbs is just one thing after another. All the little discussions are don’t be stupid, do this. Look at the ant, God created the ant. He did this, he did that, duh. Learn from that, watch this, don’t do that. You know, if you do this, you’re gonna get hurt. So then in Proverbs 26, it goes on and on.

It’s kind of like reading all those things about the fool, but it’s interesting when you start thinking about the way that it greets creation and realizing, okay, if God created creation, look at the kind of things that it’s saying. Like in verse one, this is Proverbs 26. Like snow in summer or rain in harvest, So honor is not fitting for a fool. Like a sparrow in its flitting, like a swallow in its flying, a curse that is causeless does not alight.” Interesting, right? If you don’t have anything to land it on, doesn’t do it. A whip for the horse, a bridle for the donkey, and a rod for the back of fools. Answer not a fool, according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself.

There are times with don’t be stupid with a question like that. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes. Whoever sends a message by the hand of a fool cuts off his own feet and drinks violence. Like a lame man’s legs which hang useless is a proverb in the mouth of fools. That’s brutal. Like one who binds the stone in a sling, not a good idea, writes so the rock in the sling and then slinging around fling it and whack. Not good, don’t do that. Is one who gives honor to a fool. Like a thorn that goes up in the hand of a drunkard is a proverb in the mouth of fools. Like an archer who wounds everyone is one who hires a passing fool or a drunkard. Like a dog that returns to his vomit is a fool who repeats his following. Do you see a man who is wise in his own eyes?

There is more hope for a fool than him.” That’s the danger, too, in really getting good at your studies. That can be a danger. You get to thinking, I am pretty clever. I can make all these arguments. I can solve these logic problems. I can show you this and show you that. At that time, you need to kind of back it up, sit down, and realize you’re just a creature made by God who has blessed you by allowing you to see certain truths, but don’t let that fill you up or you’re going to get whacked. He’s got a way of bringing you right back down. Let’s see. Do you see a man who is wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than him. The sluggard says, there is a lion in the road. There is a lion in the streets. As the door turns on its hinges, so does the sluggard on his bed.

The sluggard buries his hand in the dish, it wears him out to bring it back to his mouth. The sluggard is wiser in his own eyes than seven men who can answer sensibly. Whoever meddles in a quarrel, not his own, is like one who takes a passing dog by the ears. One of the great portraits of Lyndon Johnson was him holding his beagle dog by the ears and David Levine a great cartoonist had his shirt pick up as he’s holding the dog up it his shirt pops out of his pants and shows his scar of his gallbladder apro operation in the shape of Vietnam and he’s holding the dog by the ears exposing that scar I think That was a great idea of that.

Let’s see. Whoever meddles in a coral not as own as like one who takes a dog by the ears. Like a madman who throws firebrands, arrows, and death is the man who deceives his neighbor and says, I’m only joking. For lack of wood, the fire goes out and there’s no whisperer quarreling ceases. As charcoal to hot embers wood to fire, so is the quarrelsome man for kindling strike. The words of a whisperer are the delicious morsels. They go down like the inner parts of the body, like the glaze covering an earthen vessel, our fervent lips with an evil heart. Whoo, that’s harsh. Especially when we get to the pot and the potter, right?

That we’re the pottery, not the potter who made it. Whoever hates and disguises himself with his lips and harbors deceit in his heart, when he speaks graciously, believe him not, For there are seven abominations to the heart. Though his hatred be covered with deception, his wickedness will be exposed in the assembly. Whoever digs a pit will fall into it, and a stone will come back on him who starts it rolling. A lying tongue hates its victims, and a flattering mouth works ruined.” All right, bottom line, if you don’t take anything else, God created all of this. We who believe in him have chosen the correct path in Romans 1.

We don’t deny there’s a God. We are worshiping that God. And God is a jealous and all-consuming God. He wants that worship. His whole thing is to bring himself glory. Westminster Confession, bottom line. It’s all here for his glory. We are those instruments that he uses to bring him that glory. And each one of us, I think if we think it through and understand he’s the creator, we’re the creature, your life will go well. And just simply, that’s the best way to do it. So let’s pray and we’re done for tonight, huh? Father, I thank you for your word. I thank you for men that have studied it. I thank you for the people that have read it when they only had the Old Testament to read back before Jesus and all these wisdom sayings and all these things are there over and over and over in the Old Testament.

And then we get the blessing of having your son come to give us that special path. But those people had the path too. They believed in you and looked forward to that blessing that you would bring Christ. So help us understand that, help us to see the wisdom from all these writings, help us to honor them, and help us to be good servants of yours in this crazy world we live in. And we thank you for all these things, and of course we thank you most of all for your son Jesus, and it’s in his name we pray, amen.