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“Questions and Answers, Part XIX” by Romans
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXDGE_lRI0E
Greetings, one and all! Thank you for coming, and for giving me the opportunity to share my Bible Study with you. Yes, we are continuing in this 19th Installment of the “Questions” aspect of our Series, “Questions and Answers.” So let us begin. Our last question last week was found in Proverbs 23. Tonight, we will proceed to review and examine the questions asked in the rest of the Book of Proverbs. Our first stop is Proverbs 24:11-12: “If thou forbear to
deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be slain;If thou sayest, Behold, we knew it not; doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it? and he that keepeth thy soul, doth not he know it? and shall not he render to every man according to his works?”
Matthew Henry writes, “Here is, 1. A great duty required of us, and that is to appear for the relief of oppressed innocency. If we see the lives or livelihoods of any in danger of being taken away unjustly, we ought to bestir ourselves all we can to save them, by disproving the false accusations on which they are condemned and seeking out proofs of their innocency. Though the persons be not such as we are under any particular obligation to, we must help them, out of a general zeal for justice. If any be set upon by force and violence, and it be in our power to rescue them, we ought to do it.
Nay, if we see any through ignorance exposing themselves to danger, or fallen in distress, as travellers upon the road, ships at sea, or any the like, it is our duty, though it be with peril to ourselves, to hasten with help to them and not forbear to deliver them, not to be slack, or remiss, or indifferent, in such a case. 2. An answer to the excuse that is commonly make for the omission of this duty. Thou wilt say, “Behold, we knew it not; we were not aware of the imminency of the danger the person was in; we could not be sure that he was innocent, nor did we know how to prove his innocence, nor which way to do any thing in favour of him, else we would have helped him.”
Now, (1.) It is easy to make such an excuse as this, sufficient to avoid the censures of men, for perhaps they cannot disprove us when we say, We knew it not, or, We forgot; and the temptation to tell a lie for the excusing of a fault is very strong when we know that it is impossible to be disproved, the truth lying wholly in our own breast, as when we say, We thought so and so, and really designed it, which no one is conscious of but ourselves.
(2.) It is not so easy with such excuses to evade the judgment of God; and to the discovery of that we lie open and by the determination of that we must abide. Now, [1.] God ponders the heart and keeps the soul; he keeps an eye upon it, observes all the motions of it; its most secret thoughts and intents are all naked and open before him. It is his prerogative to do so, and that in which he glories. I the Lord search the heart. He keeps the soul, holds it in life. This is a good reason why we should be tender of the lives of others, and do all we can to preserve them, because our lives have been precious in the sight of God and he has graciously kept them.
[2.] He knows and considers whether the excuse we make be true or no, whether it was because we did not know it or whether the true reason was not because we did not love our neighbour as we ought, but were selfish, and regardless both of God and man. Let this serve to silence all our frivolous pleas, by which we think to stop the mouth of conscience when it charges us with the omission of plain duty: Does not he that ponders the heart consider it?
[3.] He will judge us accordingly. As his knowledge cannot be imposed upon, so his justice cannot be biassed, but he will render to every man according to his works, not only the commission of evil works, but the omission of good works.”
The Sermon Bible tells us, “I. Groundless excuses can be of no avail as made to God, because, in the first place, He is a Being who considers everything. If God considers, if He be a God who searcheth the spirits, a God by whom actions are weighed, then I instantly learn, if there be vanity in an excuse, it must be detected, and if there be falsehood, it must be exposed. There is an overwhelming weight of condemnation in the question, "Doth not He that pondereth the heart consider it?"
II. But Solomon is not content with pointing out to the self-apologist that God considers everything: he goes on to remind him that God knows everything. It is the necessary property of the Divine Being that He should be acquainted with whatsoever was, or is, or is to come, so that to suppose Him ignorant or forgetful of the minutest thing is to charge Him with imperfection; and this, in other words, is to deny the Divinity. Throughout the circuits of immensity there cannot be the motion of a will nor the throb of an affection which escapes God’s observation. His is that omniscience to which there has never been an addition, from which there has never been an abstraction;
His is that prodigious mind to which prophecy is history, and to which history is observation, which embraces everything at once, so that it can be said to foreknow or to recollect only in accommodation to our limited faculties, foreknowledge having to do with our future, recollection with our past, but both equally with the interminable present of Him who can describe Himself as "I am that I am." The question, "Doth not He that pondereth the heart consider it?" is followed with the yet more startling and the yet more overcoming one, "He that keepeth thy soul, doth not He know it?"
III. "Shall He not render to every man according to his works?" Man may be unmoved by our declaration of God as a God who considers and knows; but we have exhausted our resources and are forced to regard him as morally invulnerable if we find him unmoved by the startling interrogation, "and shall not He render to every man according to his works?"
H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 2658. References: Pro_24:11, Pro_24:12.—W. Arnot, Laws from Heaven, 2nd series, p. 273. Pro_24:13-22.—R. Wardlaw, Lectures on Proverbs, vol. iii., p. 115. Pro_24:16.—F. Tholuck, Hours of Devotion, p. 281. Pro_24:17.—J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 8th series, pp. 266, 272, 279, 286. Pro_24:21.—W. Arnot, Laws from Heaven, 2nd series, p. 282. Pro_24:23-34.—R. Wardlaw, Lectures on Proverbs, vol. iii., p. 129.”
Let us proceed in Proverbs. We come next to Proverbs 24:21-22: “My son, fear thou the LORD and the king: and meddle not with them that are given to change: For their calamity shall rise suddenly; and who knoweth the ruin of them both?”
Of this, John Gill writes, “My son, fear thou the Lord, and the king,.... First the Lord, and then the king; and such as fear the Lord are generally loyal to their king; the fear of God includes love to him, reverence of him, faith in him, submission to him, and the whole worship of him, inward and outward, attended with holiness of life and conversation: and the king, who is under God, is to be feared also, with a fear suitable to him; he is to be loved and reverenced, to be trusted in and submitted to, in everything consistent with the fear of God and obedience to him; in whatever is not contrary to his laws, commands, and ordinances.
and meddle not with them that are given to change; in political things; that are for new laws, new forms of government, a new ministry, and a new king; never easy with the government under which they are, but are continually entering into plots, conspiracies, and rebellions, who, instead of fearing God and the king, change the laws and commandments of God and the king, and therefore to be shunned. Some render it, "with rebels"; the Targum and Syriac version, "with fools"; as all such persons are, and should be avoided as scandalous and dangerous: mix not with them, as the word signifies; keep no company, and have no conversation with them, lest you be brought into danger and mischief by them.
Or who are given to change in religious things; make innovations in doctrine and practice, always love to hear or say some now thing; turn with every wind, and shift as that does; are tossed about with every wind of doctrine, fickle and inconstant, carried about like meteors in the air, with "divers and strange doctrines"; such as disagree with the perfections of God, the doctrines of Christ and his apostles, the Scriptures of truth, the analogy of faith, anti form of sound words; and so the word here used signifies "divers", and is so rendered Est_3:8; and may design such who hold doctrines and give into practices divers and different from the faith once delivered to the saints, and from the institutions and appointments of Christ;
innovations in doctrine and worship ought not to be admitted of; and such who are for introducing them should not be meddled or mixed with; they should not be countenanced and encouraged; they should not be attended upon or given heed unto; have no fellowship, and join not in communion with them. This is interpreted by some of such who repeat their sins after repentance, or who return a second time to their wickedness after they have repented, as Ben Melech observes.
(s) אל תתערב "ne misceas te", Pagninus, Montanus; "ne commisceto te", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, so Michaelis, Schultens. (t) עם שונים "cum iterantibus", Pagninus, Montanus; "sub iniquitates suas"; so some in Vatablus, Baynus.
For their calamity shall rise suddenly,.... And come upon those that fear not God, and rebel against the king and the state, and innovate in matters of religion; and especially that bring in damnable heresies, and, while they cry Peace, peace, and are pleasing themselves with their new schemes and prosperous success, swift and sudden destruction comes upon them;
and who knoweth the ruin of them both? of those that fear not the Lord, nor the king; or of those who are given to change, and innovate in things civil and religious; and of those who meddle with them and join themselves to them: the ruin of themselves and families, in a civil sense, is great and inexpressible, who rebel against their prince, and endeavour to change and subvert the present government; and the ruin of the souls of men, both of the deceivers and the deceived, is beyond all conception and expression.”
In the next chapter, we find a somewhat unusual question in Proverbs 25:16: “Hast thou found honey? eat so much as is sufficient for thee, lest thou be filled therewith, and vomit it.”
We read in The Preacher's Homiletical: “I. The good gifts of God are to be enjoyed by men. “Every creature of God is good,” says the apostle, “and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving” (1Ti_4:4). God has filled the world with gifts to minister pleasure to the bodily senses as well as to the spiritual aspirations, and the first are given to us “richly to enjoy,” as much as the last. Our Great and Beneficent Father, has not omitted to provide even for the gratification of our palate, but has furnished us with an almost infinite variety of natural productions, pleasant to the taste. His kindness in this matter is not to be overlooked, and these good gifts are not to be treated as though they were beneath our grateful appreciation. The asceticism which refuses to partake of them is not in accordance with the spirit of either the Old or New Testament.
II. There is no material and temporal good which cannot be misused by man. Honey may here stand for any or all the lower sweets of life—for every blessing which is not of a purely spiritual nature—and the greatest temptation to misuse of these lies in the direction of over-use—of indulging in them to the neglect of other and more precious good, and so to the injury of the higher nature. Honey is a delicious article of food, and wholesome and nutritious to a certain extent, but if a man attempted to live upon it to the exclusion of plainer fare he would find that his bodily health would suffer. In like manner is there danger to spiritual health from an undue indulgence of even the gifts of God, which minister only or chiefly to the senses, or which belong to this life alone.
III. The misuse of what is good in itself puts an end to all real enjoyment of it. If a man eats immoderately of honey it soon ceases to be pleasant to his taste, and the very sweetness that at first attracted him produces loathing. The same nausea of spirit follows immoderate indulgence in any merely temporal or material good—that which, used lawfully, would always afford true and real enjoyment, cloys upon the man who abuses it by over-use.
In a former sentence we are commanded to eat honey because it is good (in Proverbs 24:13), and that was very carefully explained. It meant that piety was itself good, and we were to taste and that before we could be Christians. But now the figure varies. There is a sweetness of eternal hope, even when we have not got down to the sweetness of a saving piety. We are to put on the helmet of hope. So the Apostle tells us (in 1 Thessalonians 5:8).
But Solomon cautions us that we are to put on no more than is “sufficient.”
We are eating more than enough honey when we have no right to eat any, and so we may be eating too much when we ought to be getting more. There is such a thing as having more hope than evidence. And if a man has too much confident hope of heaven for the amount he has of piety, there certainly is a case of eating more than is sufficient.… Blessed is the man that has “found honey.” Let him eat so much as is sufficient for him in this dismal pilgrimage. But, when he is once refreshed like Jonathan, let him sound for an advance.—Miller.”
As we move forward, we'll skip Chapter 25, and review the next question in Proverbs 26:18-19: “ As a mad man who casteth firebrands, arrows, and death, So is the man that deceiveth his neighbour, and saith, Am not I in sport?”
(This question is clarified in many modern translations to read: “Am I not joking?”)
Of this, Matthew Henry shares his insights with us: “See here, 1. How mischievous those are that make no scruple of deceiving their neighbours; they are as madmen that cast firebrands, arrows, and death, so much hurt may they do by their deceits. They value themselves upon it as polite cunning men, but really they are as madmen. There is not a greater madness in the world than a wilful sin. It is not only the passionate furious man, but the malicious deceitful man, that is a madman; he does in effect cast fire-brands, arrows, and death; he does more mischief than he can imagine. Fraud and falsehood burn like fire-brands, kill, even at a distance, like arrows.
2. See how frivolous the excuse is which men commonly make for the mischief they do, that they did it in a jest; with this they think to turn it off when they are reproved for it, Am not I in sport? But it will prove dangerous playing with fire and jesting with edge-tools. Not that those are to be commended who are captious, and can take no jest (those that themselves are wise must suffer fools, 2Co_11:19, 2Co_11:20), but those are certainly to be condemned who are any way abusive to their neighbours, impose upon their credulity, cheat them in their bargains with them, tell lies to them or tell lies of them, give them ill language, or sully their reputation, and then think to excuse it by saying that they did but jest.
Am not I in sport? He that sins in just must repent in earnest, or his sin will be his ruin. Truth is too valuable a thing to be sold for a jest, and so is the reputation of our neighbour. By lying and slandering in jest men learn themselves, and teach others, to lie and slander in earnest; and a false report, raised in mirth, may be spread in malice; besides, if a man may tell a lie to make himself merry, why not to make himself rich, and so truth quite perishes, and men teach their tongues to tell lies. If men would consider that a lie comes from the devil, and brings to hell-fire, surely that would spoil the sport of it; it is casting arrows and death to themselves.”
Adam Clarke adds, “Am not I in sport? - How many hearts have been made sad, and how many reputations have been slain, by this kind of sport! “I designed no harm by what I said;” “It was only in jest,” etc. Sportive as such persons may think their conduct to be, it is as ruinous as that of the mad man who shoots arrows, throws firebrands, and projects in all directions instruments of death, so that some are wounded, some burnt, and some slain.”
Into chapter 27 we forge, where we encounter the question in verse 4: “Wrath is cruel, and anger is outrageous; but who is able to stand before envy?”
The Preacher's Homiletical comments, “Wrath and Envy: I. A most unhappy combination. A fool and wrath. Wrath or displeasure is possible to every being capable of emotion. The power to love implies the power to hate, and he who can be pleased can also be displeased. The most tender mother can be angry, and righteously angry, with her child, and we read in Scripture of the “wrath of the Lamb” (as we read in Revelation 6:16). But there is an infinite distance between the wrath of the Holy God, and even between that of a good man or woman, and that of a moral fool. Divine displeasure is an emotion, and never a passion. God is never passive in the hands of His anger.
And in proportion as men are like God they always have their displeasure under the control of their will. It is as amenable to their conscience and their reason as an obedient horse to his rider. But a fool is a man who is without power of self-government—who is himself governed first by one passion or desire and then by another—like a ship without a rudder, at the mercy of the winds and waves. When such an one is in the hands of his wrath, a most mischievous and destructive force is at work. For whether we consider its effects on the man himself, or upon the objects of his anger, we may truthfully brand it as burdensome, and cruel and outrageous.
1. It is a cruel burden to the subject of it. A more wretched creature can hardly be found in the universe than a man passive in the hands of his own anger; it is like a heavy weight crushing out of him all power to stand morally erect and self-possessed, and like a knotted scourge inflicting wounds not on the body but on the spirit.
2. The objects of it also find it a painful yoke. In proportion as the fool is in a position to exert his influence over others, in the same proportion is the amount of misery which he can create by his unbridled wrath. Perhaps its effects are nowhere so painfully felt as in the domestic circle. As a master the wrathful fool may make his servants miserable, but they may be able to quit his service and so get beyond his influence. But there is no escape for wife and children from the wrath of a morally foolish husband and father; for such there is a millstone ever about the neck, and tormenting goads always pricking the feet.
II. The most pitiless foe. Terrible as is the unbridled wrath of a fool, there is a passion more to be dreaded. The open battle-field in broad daylight is a place to be shunned, but an ambush at midnight is more certain death. Men fear to meet the lion upon the highroad, but the scorpion concealed among the grass is more dangerous. For some resistance can be offered to an open and avowed enemy, but no defence can be prepared against an unseen foe.
And if wrath is like the angry lion, envy is like the deadly scorpion. The first gives some warning of his design, but the latter none.
The man of unbridled passion often misses his aim by reason of his unsteady hand—the very excess of his wrath sometimes takes away his power to execute his intention. And he generally deals his blows at his enemy’s face—speaks out his hatred in his hearing, and publicly and openly tries to do him a mischief. But the envious man acts in a different manner. The natures that are most prone to envy have generally some power of self-control—they are more cold-blooded than passionate men. Though they are moral fools, they have generally enough intellectual wisdom to see the best method of bringing to pass their malicious purposes;
and they consequently prefer an ambush to an open fight, and choose rather to stab a man in the back than to meet him face to face. In other words, they do not upbraid him openly and give him an opportunity to defend himself, but blacken his character by insinuations when he is absent. And as it is the nature of envy to brood over its grievances in secret, and that of unbridled wrath to manifest its displeasure immediately and openly, the first gathers strength by repression and the other loses it by the very force of its expression.
Anger in the best sense is the gift of God, and it is no small art to express anger with premeditated terms, and on seasonable occasions. God placed anger among the affections engrafted in nature, gave it a seat, fitted it with instruments, ministered it matter whence it might proceed, provided humours whereby it is nourished. It is to the soul as a nerve to the body. The philosopher calls it the whetstone to fortitude, a spur intended to set forward virtue. But there is a vicious, impetuous, frantic anger, earnest for private and personal grudges; not like a medicine to clear the eye, but to put it out.…
To cure this bedlam passion … let him take some herb of grace, an ounce of patience, as much of consideration how often he gives God cause to be angry with him... —mix all these together with a faithful confidence that God will dispose all wrongs to thy good; Anger is a frantic fit, but envy is a consumption.… Among all mischiefs it is furnished with one profitable quality—the owner of it takes most hurt.… It were well for him that he should dwell alone. It is a pity that he should come into heaven, for to see “one star excel another in glory” would put him again out of his wits.… His cure is hard.… Two simples may do him good if he could be won to take them—a scruple of content and a dram of charity.—T. Adams.”
It be asked: Who is able to stand before envy? Even the perfect innocence of paradise fell before it. Satan lost his own happiness. Then he envied man, and ceased not to work his destruction. (See Wis_2:23-24). It shed the first human blood that ever stained the ground. It quenched the yearnings of natural affection, and brought bitter sorrow to the patriarch’s bosom. Even the premier of the greatest empire in the world was its temporary victim. Nay more—the Saviour in His most benevolent acts was sorely harassed, and ultimately sunk under its power. “His servants therefore must not expect to be above their Master.”—Bridges.”
We will next consider Matthew Henry's thoughts on these verses: “Proverbs 27:3-4: These two verses show the intolerable mischief, 1. Of ungoverned passion. The wrath of a fool, who when he is provoked cares not what he says and does, is more grievous than a great stone or a load of sand. It lies heavily upon himself. Those who have no command of their passions do themselves even sink under the load of them. The wrath of a fool lies heavily upon those he is enraged at, to whom, in his fury, he will be in danger of doing some mischief. It is therefore our wisdom not to give provocation to a fool, but, if he be in a passion, to get out of his way.
2. Of rooted malice, which is as much worse than the former as coals of juniper are worse than a fire of thorns. Wrath (it is true) is cruel, and does many a barbarous thing, and anger is outrageous; but a secret enmity at the person of another, an envy at his prosperity, and a desire of revenge for some injury or affront, are much more mischievous. One may avoid a sudden heat, as David escaped Saul's javelin, but when it grows, as Saul's did, to a settled envy, there is no standing before it; it will pursue; it will overtake. He that grieves at the good of another will be still contriving to do him hurt, and will keep his anger for ever.”
As we close, tonight, we come to another parade of questions, this time in Proverbs 30:4: “Who hath ascended up into heaven, or descended? who hath gathered the wind in his fists? who hath bound the waters in a garment? who hath established all the ends of the earth? what is his name, and what is his son's name, if thou canst tell?”
John Gill writes, “Who hath ascended up into heaven, or descended?.... That has been thither to fetch knowledge of God and divine things, and has returned to communicate it. Enoch was taken up to heaven before this time: and Elijah, as is very probable, after; but neither of them returned again, to inform mortals what was to be seen, known, and enjoyed there: since, the Apostle Paul was caught up into the third heaven, and came back again; but then the things he heard were such as it was not lawful for a man to utter: and indeed, since the coming of Christ there is no need of any further revelation to be made nor of any such expedition, in order to obtain it, (as we read in Romans 10:6).
who hath gathered the wind in his fists? not any mere creature; not any man or set of men; it is not in the power of any, either men or angels, to restrain or let loose the winds at pleasure; nor has Satan, though called the prince of the power of the air, that is, of the devils in the air, any such command of them; none but he that made them can command them to blow, or be still; even he who brings them out of his treasures, and his own son, whom the wind and seas obeyed; The Heathens, themselves, are so sensible of this, that the power of the winds only belongs to God, that they have framed a deity they call Aeolus; whom the supreme Being has made a kind of steward or store keeper of the winds, and given him a power to still or raise them as he pleases;
who hath bound the waters in a garment? either the waters above, which are bound in the thick clouds as in a garment which hold them from pouring out; or the waters of the sea, which are as easily managed by the Lord as an infant by its parent, and is wrapped about with a swaddling band. But can any creature do this? none but the mighty God; and his almighty Son the Ithiel and Ucal, who clothes the heavens with blackness, and makes sackcloth their covering: even he who is the Redeemer of this people, and has the tongue of the learned, to speak a word in season to them;
who hath established all the ends of the earth? fixed the boundaries of the several parts of the world, Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, and the several countries in them? settled the foundations of the earth, and secured the banks and borders of it from the raging of the sea? None but these next mentioned;
what is his name, and what is his son's name, if thou canst tell? if thou surest it is a mere man that does all these things tell his name; or, if he be dead, say what is the name of his son or of any of his family; so Jarchi and others interpret it: or rather, since it is the Lord alone and his own proper Son, to whom these things can he ascribed say what is his name; that is, his nature and perfections which are incomprehensible and ineffable; otherwise he is known by his name Jehovah and especially as his name is proclaimed in Christ and manifested by him and in his Gospel:
and seeing he has a son of the same nature with him, and possessed of the same perfections, co-essential, and co-existent, and every way equal to him, and a distinct person from him, say what is his nature and perfections also; declare his generation and the manner of it; his divine filiation, and in what class it is; things which are out of the reach of human capacity, and not to be expressed by the tongue of men and angels. Otherwise, though his name for a while was a secret, and he was only called the seed of the woman and of Abraham; yet he had many names given him under the Old Testament;
as Shiloh, Immanuel, the Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, and Prince of peace; the Lord our righteousness, and the Man, the Branch: and under the New Testament, Jesus the Saviour, Christ the Anointed; the Head of the church, the Judge of the world; the Word of God, and King of kings, and Lord of lords. This Scripture is a proof of Christ's being the eternal Son of God; of his equality with his divine Father as such, their name and nature being alike inexpressible;
of his co-existence with his Father as such; and of his omnipresence and omnipotence, expressed by the phrases here used of ascending, &c. and of his distinct personality from the Father; the same question being distinctly put of him as of the Father. Some render the last clause, "dost thou know?" (y) thou dost not know God and his Son, their being and perfections are not to be known by the light of nature, only by revelation, and but imperfectly.”
(w) κεινον γαρ ταμιην ανεμων, &c. Homer. Odyss. 10. v. 21, 22. "Aeole, namque tibi divum pater atque hominum rex, et mulcere dedit fluctus, et tollere vento", Virgil Aeneid. l. v. 69, 70. (x) See a Sermon of mine, called "Christ the Saviour from the Tempest", p. 17, 18. (y) כי תדע "ad nosti?" Noldius, p. 393. No. 1337.”
This concludes this evening's Discussion, “Questions and Answers, Part 19.”
This Discussion was originally presented “live” on February 20th, 2019