Dennis Tuuri

Today’s sermon text is found in Zechariah chapter 1, verses 18-21. Zechariah 1:18-21. Please stand for the reading of God’s word. Zechariah 1, beginning at verse 18.

Then I raised my eyes and looked and there were four horns. And I said to the angel who talked with me, “What are these?” So he answered me, “These are the horns that have scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem.” Then the Lord showed me four craftsmen.

And I said, “What are these coming to do?” So he said, “These are the horns that scattered Judah, so that no one could lift up his head.” But the craftsmen are coming to terrify them, to cast out the horns of the nations, that lifted up their horn against the land of Judah, to scatter it.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for your scriptures and we pray now that your Holy Spirit would illumine our hearts with an understanding of this text. Help us, Father, to be transformed by the power of your word today. In Christ’s name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated.

Today is the third and last sermon in a very short series on work and vocation. Next week, James B. Jordan will be here preaching on Pentecost Sunday for us. He’ll also, by the way, be teaching the adult Sunday school class and my class, at least the 13 to 16 year olds, will be in that class as well.

And then in two weeks, another speaker will be preaching on Trinity Sunday for us and then we’ll return to the Gospel of John three weeks from today.

Now what we’ve said so far is first we established work in holiness by looking at the tribute offering in the book of Leviticus and the acceptability of our labor—even more than the acceptability of our labor, really the necessity of our labor to please God.

The tribute offering was a processed offering, whether it was primarily the grain put into cakes or loaves or whatever it was, roasted kernels or the oil that was processed from olives or the incense that was processed from trees. In any event, it was processed by man. His work was applied to the physical creation. So we talked about how it’s our very calling as men to go into the world and to beautify it, to take the things of the world that have been given to us by God, to improve upon them and bring back our labor to him. And he sees that as pleasing and good.

So faith without work, without vocation, is really not faith in God at all. He is the God who has created us and restored us to the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, to vocation. And so that vocation is exceedingly important.

Last week we looked at some of the wisdom literature, the Proverbs, and saw the importance of diligence, specifically diligence and vocation. We saw that the very center of the literary structure of the book of Proverbs are the 30 sayings of the wise and they start with 10 sayings relating to diligence, really focused on the fourth commandment, putting it in the proper context of the first three commandments. Our vertical relationship with God, who’s been gracious to us, so we’re to be gracious to others, the horizontal relationship we have with Christ, who is our only mediator. No idols trying to mediate, no use of icons or statues to mediate between us and God. Jesus is the mediator and restores us to a correct horizontal relationship. And there’s a warning against improper friendships with angry men.

And the second of the 30 sayings of the wise, the third saying, has to do with our covenants. The Holy Spirit bonds us together through covenantal relationships, the application of the covenant and specific covenant signs and seals. And we’re to be careful in our covenants. The warning against sorry relationships is a broad statement reminding us that our covenantal associations are to be those that are pleasing to the Holy Spirit.

And then the last seven of the first 10 sayings of the wise all had to do with diligence and vocation, proper motivation at the center—not to accumulate riches. And in the context of the third and fourth sayings, really you can understand the implication to be gracious to the poor. Now it doesn’t state that overtly, but remember proverbs are nuggets that stand for many words and they give us this structure and setting for diligence being graciousness to the poor, not oppressing them but rather having a positive obligation to be gracious.

So one reason we want to work is so that we can give to those that have nothing, have less than us. And that’s made quite clear in the New Testament. But an even better motivation is, as we pointed out from the tribute offering, glorifying God by taking his creation and the power of the spirit, being diligent in our vocation and bringing back a glorified world to present to him in the context of our Lord’s day worship.

We also said the wisdom literature contrasts the diligent vocational man with the sluggard. The sluggard doesn’t start things. He doesn’t finish things. He’s a frustrated sort of individual. He’s bad for society. In opposition to that, it’s the hand of the diligent, the one that is excellent in his work. He’ll stand before kings, not before common men. And those first 10 sayings of the wise—that is the only positive statement. All the rest are do-nots. But there in that statement, in the section on diligence and vocation, the one who is excellent, who is speedy, to observe and then attend to opportunities in the workplace. This is the man who will work diligently and attentively. He’s the one who will stand before kings and not common men. So God calls us to that kind of approach to our vocations.

I haven’t read this book yet. I got a copy from my son, which was actually from Steve Sykes, someone we worked for, called God at Work. The author—I know Gene Edward Vos is a very good author. So I trust this is an excellent book. Steve highly recommends this book. We’ve mentioned a couple of other books on Proverbs and business management. This is God at Work. Howard L. has a study one Sunday a month going through another book on the Proverbs and management of business. It’s exceedingly important once we see the centrality of our vocation to what we’re called to do as Christians. As we’ve tried to demonstrate in our last two talks, books like this should be on your bookshelf, particularly for the men who are engaged in vocation and working in the workplace. These are important books to focus upon what we’re doing.

Let me also say that while we do not want to give short shrift to the family, understand that Adam first had vocation and then he gets the wife. And in Proverbs, in the later sayings of the wise toward the end of chapter 24, we’re told to prepare a field and then build your house. So by implication, the idea is that young men point toward vocation and after a vocational track is established, then they begin the process of seeking out a mate.

Now there may be some other ideas. But a track should be established at least, you know, where you’re going. You’re beginning down this track to vocation before you go to marriage. And as we seek out suitors for our young daughters, we should look for men who have established some degree of vocation and calling. Vocation is so important.

Now, by the providence of God, we all know of cases, and maybe some of you people in this room, some of your parents, young people—your parents didn’t do this first. They got the wife first and then the job. So God’s arm is not shortened. All right. But still, he gives us these patterns where there’s diligence in vocation in the first 10 sayings of the wise. The next 10 are the establishment of a household and the last 10, which we’ll get to in a couple of minutes, is strength in terms of rule in the city as well. So there’s this progression to the 30 sayings of the wise.

And there’s a light progression throughout the Proverbs in several major ways where first our relationship to God and diligence and vocation given by him is established. Then we establish households. And finally, God gives us civil rule as well. So it’s an exceedingly important area, an understanding and an application to vocation and work.

But in terms of the family, one admonition: why some of you work, you can apply these things we’ve been saying directly to your labors and into your work in the workplace. But if you don’t work and if you’re providing a household base for your husband, understand that your calling is to improve his vocation. That’s the reason why Eve is created in the first place—to assist Adam in his vocation work. She’s created a helper fit for him. He needed a complement so that he could go about doing his work.

So a large part of what wives do is to support their husbands, to dress them in the armor, as an old illustration goes, so that they may go out and have fun storming the castle, have fun going about doing their vocational work every morning. They should be fit for that task by their wives through a stillness of a base provided in the home. And certainly they have obligations in the family, but the family has obligations to them to equip them for work.

I love that line from The Princess Bride: “Have fun storming the castle.” And I think for a while my wife would always tell me that as I went off to work. And as I think we’ll see in the text we look at today, that is a very apt phrase for wives to send their husbands off to work tomorrow morning, whether it’s just to a different room in the house if he’s working at home or off to the workplace. “Have fun storming the castle.”

Because the Bible, I think, tells us that the primary way dominion is exercised, the primary vehicle for a positive eschatology being realized in history is not through swords loudly clashing, as it goes, but rather it is through work and vocation that dominion is accomplished. It is storming the castle to go to your workplace tomorrow and to be an excellent worker, to be attentive to opportunities, to start tasks, to finish them through to the end, to be a diligent worker, providing a just balance so to speak, a proper evaluation in the workplace, proper handling of those who may be under you, proper relationship to those who are over you in the workplace.

All of these things when they work together for the Christian man who goes to work and engages in vocation, he is storming the castle of the opposition.

Now, this text today, I think, points us in that direction by way of symbol. The context for what this statement in Zechariah that we just looked at is the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the temple. So the idea is that God’s people have gone into captivity. They’re going to come back and rebuild the city and the temple. They’re going to rebuild the city walls. They’re going to lay the foundations for the temple. There’s opposition to building that’s going on as this prophecy comes to pass.

You know the story. Nehemiah and the men go and they start rebuilding the work and then there are opponents to them who are trying to keep them from building. So you know, in this first instance, Nehemiah is not some mighty warrior out there to go crush the enemy. He is a picture of building a house, the house of the Lord and the city of the Lord, and the opposition of those who attempt that building is to be stopped.

And that is the general context for Zechariah 1:18-21.

Now some commentators have tried to be specific in figuring out who the four horns were. Horns are a picture of power and conquest. Who are the four craftsmen? The word is an artisan of any type. Some translations say carpenter. Whether you work in wood or brass, the idea is you’re a worker. It’s vocation that’s being stressed in the word craftsman.

And so God has these four craftsmen that are going to lift up the head of God’s people again, give them confidence and hope. They’re going to frighten the enemy, and then they’re going to drive the enemy away. And some people have tried to attach these to historic personages like Nehemiah or Ezra or Joshua, the high priest described in chapter 1 of Zechariah. And that’s proper for men to make those investigations.

But I think that in most prophetic books, we can apply not just a historical investigation of what’s specifically being said, but in prophecy books, I think the idealist approach to prophecy always has a part. The idealist school of prophetic interpretation says that in its raw or purest form, or most magnified form, prophecy doesn’t really relate to specific personages or events. It gives us general pictures of what’s going to happen.

So the four horsemen, for instance, in Revelation are a general picture that when revival comes it begins at the purity of the preaching of God’s word. That purity in a land or a church or a community brings division. The division works itself out in warfare and finally the fourth horse of death. God’s enemies are destroyed. And that’s the general progression of revival no matter when God hopes to accomplish it.

But, you know, the idealist approach would say that really we don’t want to apply this to AD 70 and specific events. Now, we think that much of the prophecies of the book of Revelation should be applied to the events of the destruction of Jerusalem. Very important method for interpreting that book. But at the same time, when God does a work in the world, it’s usually according to a basic pattern that’s laid out in this prophetic word.

And so we don’t want to shun the idealist approach. We want to say yes, the prophetic passages describe specific historical events, but they also talk about the way God normally works. And normally that’s how evangelism and revival works, is the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

And what we have here described in Zechariah 1:18-21 is one of the big themes that resound throughout scripture. You know, it’s like I said last week, that the ten commandments ripple through the rest of the scriptures. The seven days of creation—this is the way God chooses to delight himself in bringing about creation. And it’s a pattern that is imitated or shadowed as it were by the seven festivals in Leviticus 23, the way the book of Revelation is outlined, et cetera. It’s a theme of how God works in the past when he started everything and how he works in a series of progressive actions in the future.

And the idealist school of prophetic interpretation understands this and says that there’s these patterns and we want to maintain that as well as looking at specific historical events.

And today what I want to do is say that Zechariah 1:18-21 has a general theme to it that we find throughout scripture. And the general theme is that there are men who are horn men, who like to exercise power and dominion through the raw assertion of force. And then there are craftsmen, people who are geared to vocation. There is on the one hand a culture of conquest pictured by the four horns. And on the other hand there’s a culture of work, pictured by the four craftsmen or four vocational men, four worker men on this side of the image.

And the image comes along to the prophetic word of God to bring hope to a people who had been sorely oppressed, who had been under the chastening hand of God and had been taken away into captivity. Their heads were hanging down. That’s what the text tells us. And whenever God’s people are in a situation where men who like to exercise raw authority have dominion over them, we’re tempted to be discouraged and cast down in our best message, in our countenance. And our countenance is cast down.

God comes along with this prophetic word and says, “Wait a minute. Wait a minute. There are four horns at work now amongst you. But understand that God is the sovereign ruler of all things. And as you apply yourself to vocation, the tide will turn.”

The scriptures always require us to look at the setting around us in our environment through the eyes of faith and belief, not the eyes of sight. Not to simply see what physically is around us, but to see beyond that the providence of God working in the flow of history.

A nice illustration of this is found in 2 Kings chapter 6, verses 11-19. The king of Syria who was oppressing God’s people, what he was saying was being told to the king of the Jews and he was upset by this and thought he had a traitor in the midst. But one of his servants tells him well, the problem, king, is that Elisha the prophet—he is in Israel. He’s telling the king of Israel the words that you speak in your bedroom. So it’s not a traitor within your gate. It’s this Elisha the prophet guy who somehow seems to know what you say and tells the king your very words.

So the king says go and see where he is that I may send and get him. And it was told him saying surely he is in Dothan, the name of the particular city. Therefore he sent horses and chariots and a great army there. And they came by night and surrounded the city. And when the servant of the man of God arose early and went out, there was an army surrounding the city with horses and chariots. And his servant said to him—in other words, said to Elisha—”Alas, my master, what shall we do?”

See, he’s surrounded by horns. He’s surrounded by a fullness. Four is the number of fullness. There’s a fullness of power around Elisha’s dwelling place in Dothan, sent by the king of Syria. You know, he was losing hope. He was downcast.

So Elisha answers to him, “Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.”

Well, what do you mean? There’s just two of us here. Elijah prayed and said, “Lord, I pray open his eyes that he may see.” Then the Lord opened the eyes of the young man and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.

So when the Syrians came down to him, Elisha prayed to the Lord and said, “Strike this people, I pray, with blindness.” And he struck them with blindness according to the word of Elisha. And then he leads them away to captivity.

So Elisha brought the eyes of faith for a moment to eyes of sight for his servant. And all of a sudden the servant could see not just the horns of power of men who were involved in a culture of conquest, but he could see the angelic host surrounding Elisha and himself and these men as well. He could see that God’s providence was working in spite of these horns and power, and even through them in some way.

Well, that’s what God requires us to do when we find ourselves frightened or depressed because of men that oppress us with power and intrigue and you know deceitful words, men who exercise raw power and authority in the land—alter horn men, that is. We can be depressed but God says don’t be that way because the craftsman will win the day. At the end of the day, those that engage themselves in vocation, in a culture of work as opposed to a culture of conquest, they will win the day.

John 15 says the light shines in the darkness. The darkness cannot overpower it. The Christian understand that you know we are in a position of complete power and authority because the sovereign God rules behind all things, including the emergence of men involved in a culture of conquest. And as I said, I think that’s what Zechariah 1 pictures—the culture of conquest, the horns, versus the culture of work, of the men who see that their calling is to exercise vocation under God.

A culture of work amasses goods by means of work. The culture of conquest wants goods, but it doesn’t go about labor and work and vocation to achieve it. Rather, it takes it from others.

Culture of work cultivates, develops, and multiplies goods and services. But the culture of conquest amasses goods by means of conquest.

The culture of work produces and shares, right? That’s what we do. We give to him that doesn’t have through our diligence, in the first 10 sayings of the wise last week. What’s the context for sayings 1 and 10? Graciousness to the poor. We produce things and share with others.

The culture of conquest plunders and takes away from people.

Now, the culture of conquest frequently has an ideological understanding that is wrong. And that is this. The culture of conquest says there is a finite number of goods and services available in the world. It’s a fixed number. It’s a zero sum game, so to speak. There’s only a 100 shekels out there. And if I’m going to have 50 shekels, I got to get some of those hundred that are out there.

Now, the scriptures teach the reverse. The scriptures teach that 50 shekels becomes 100 and 200 and 500. That we take the raw materials that God has given to us, develop it, he blesses it, and there’s multiplication of goods and services in the land. We don’t believe in a zero sum game. We believe that in God’s providence, the creation increases and the goods and services that are produced increase.

So we can patiently work and labor for that increase to happen in our homes.

But the culture of conquest says no, if I’m going to have, I have to get it from somebody else that has and I’m going to grab it from them and bring it to myself.

So first of all, the culture of conquest has this false understanding of the way the world works. It’s a zero sum game to them.

Secondly, the culture of conquest is impatient. It wants it all and it wants it now. This is the picture so often these days in America. People don’t want to wait and quietly amass goods and services. They want it now. And as a result, debt is a common thing in our country. It just—it’s so saddening to me when young men growing up in the context of our church or other churches, they come to me or I hear about them getting ready to get married, but they still have debt.

How did they get debt as a young man? I don’t understand it. And typically it’s for consumer sorts of goods, cars or whatever. And I just, you know, it’s just such a poor way to begin a marriage. And it not always, but so often I think it’s undergirded by a failure of patience.

It’s the culture of conquest that says, “I want that stuff. I want it now. I don’t want to work slowly over time to get goods and services. I believe that raw power is what’s going to produce the future. So I’m going to exercise power,” and you don’t want to steal. You’ve been brought up in a church that teaches you not to steal, but what you do instead is, you know, you get into debt for goods and services before your marriage.

So the culture of conquest versus the culture of work—you know, a culture that believes in a zero-sum game, a culture that is impatient and wants goods and services.

Now, there’s an old song by a group called Faith No More, which is an interesting name for a group—faith no more. Faith and no more than that is what we need, or faith no more in the land. Who knows? And one of their songs, the chorus, went, “You want it all, but you can’t have it. It’s in your face, but you can’t grab it.”

We’re through the media today—which is not a bad thing—but we’re exposed to many lifestyles. The average lifestyle of a sitcom or a dramatic show on TV is, I think I saw figures a few years back, you know, it would have to be supported with an income like $140, $150,000. That’s the norm being portrayed to you. And as young people or as people of more normal means, you can be dissatisfied by that and tempted to become discouraged and your hope fails in your vocation.

But the scriptures say, “No, you know, understand that the four craftsmen will conquer over the four horns of conquest. The culture of conquest will be subdued by the culture of work.”

So God has put these two forces in motion. The antithesis, in other words, is what I’m saying is being played out here again. The seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman. And what we see in Zechariah is the contrast, the contrast in the antithesis, is between men who are committed to vocation and men who are committed to conquest. And these two cultures play themselves out.

There’s a recent history book—I don’t know the name of it now—but it tends to look at the history of Europe as the history of these two different cultures. Cultures that seek to take over other people or cultures that seek to build a culture up through its own devices.

Islam has for most of the last 1200 years been a culture of conquest. Islam doesn’t produce culture, the Islamic faith. Rather, it conquers other cultures and brings it into their own. Even the high point of Islamic culture was the result of conquering Turkey and a culture that had already been established by them there.

Rome was the same way. Rome didn’t build a culture, not so much as it took over the culture, the goods and services and ideas of Greece.

And so in the history of the world and in our particular history now, we can see a culture of conquest, Islam, out there, as opposed to the culture of work, Christianity, and men that apply Christian principles to their vocation.

We can even see it at play in political spheres, right? I mean, in the various political attempts of redistribution of wealth, we got men—maybe not for themselves, maybe for themselves, maybe for others—trying to make sure that others prosper not by their work, but by conquering your work, by taking your work, your labor, which you’ve dedicated to Christ, the tribute offering, and giving that to other people. So it’s a culture of conquest, not for themselves necessarily, but for those who are their vassals.

But it’s the same thing. A king comes to your land through ungodly appropriation of your money and time, makes you give money to those subjects who then support him at the ballot box. It’s the culture of conquest at work as opposed to the culture of work.

So this is played out for us in this Zechariah 1 text, I think, in by way of a symbol or imagery.

Now the basic point then is that what this tells us in Zechariah 1 is that the future dominion, true power in the world is exercised by those who are committed to vocation.

So with work and holiness, work and wisdom, now we’ve got work and dominion. Now, this same truth is played out in the law of God.

Turn to Deuteronomy 28, for instance. I’ve got Deuteronomy 8 and 28 on your outline. These are the portions of the law of God that talk about blessings and cursings. You know, if you obey the law, good things will happen. If you disobey the law, bad things will happen. And as we saw last week, the law can kind of summarize up in this diligence of work and keeping the Sabbath, the concluding of the first four commandments.

Deuteronomy 28, beginning at verse one:

Now it shall come to pass if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God to observe carefully all his commandments, which I command you today, that the Lord your God will set you high above all nations of the earth. So we’re going to be given power above the horns, the men who exercise a culture of conquest, above the horns. We’re going to be set above the high places of the earth.

And all these blessings shall fall upon you and overtake you because you obey the voice of the Lord your God. The culture of conquest tries to overtake people through conquest, through physical force and might. And enemies can overtake people. And that same phrase is what’s being used here in terms of the blessings that come after us. There’s so many that we cannot avoid them is what God is saying in verse two.

All these blessings shall conquer you, shall come upon you and overtake you because you obey the voice of the Lord your God.

Blessed shall you be in the city and blessed shall you be in the country. Blessed shall be the fruit of your body, the produce of your ground, the increase of your herds, the increase of your cattle, and the offspring of your flocks.

You see, the blessings are placed in the context of normal vocation. The great power and strength that God is going to give to his people happens in the context of his blessings upon your work, in your fields, and in your flocks, in your homes, and in your city.

Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. The very device of labor and vocation, the kneading bowl, is blessed by God.

Blessed shall you be when you come in and blessed shall you be when you go out. A little transition we remember going out and coming in is a description of a king who is active, going out and coming. He’s working, he’s doing things. So now God has said you’re going to be blessed in your vocation as you apply yourself to it. And that’s going to lead to a blessing in terms of strength and authority in the land.

The Lord will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before your face. They shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways. You see, we’re not a culture of conquest in the sense of physical force. The enemies are not those the ones we’re going to defeat—are not those we go out after. It’s the ones who come out after us. Our blessings are increasing in the context of obedience to God in vocation. And because they increase, that draws up, as it were, the culture of conquest to want to take what you’ve got. But God says, “Don’t worry, because you will defeat them through his sovereign blessings. They’ll flee before you seven ways.”

The Lord will command the blessing on you in your storehouses and in all to which you set your hand. The blessing is when you’re doing vocation and setting your hand to vocation, not when you sit idly by. The blessings are put in the context of labor and vocation and diligence.

He’ll bless you in the land which the Lord your God has given you.

The Lord will establish you as a holy people for himself, just as he has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in his ways. Then all peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the Lord and they shall be afraid of you.

The Lord will grant you plenty of goods in the fruit of your body and the increase of your livestock in the produce of your ground in the land of which the Lord swore to your fathers to give you.

The Lord will open to you his good treasure, the heavens, to give you rain—give the rain in your land in its season—and to bless all the work of your hand.

You shall lend to many nations but you shall not borrow. Power and authority is exercised through the lending of money, with the gracious lending of money, and bringing people into the dominion of those who are still craftsmen. The craftsmen, the carpenters, the people at work are the ones exercising control and authority in the land. As history moves ahead, the Lord will make you the head and not the tail. You shall be above only and not be beneath if you heed the commands of the Lord your God, which I command you today.

Why were the people in captivity? Because they didn’t keep the commandments of God. God says, “Keep the commandments and I’ll bless your vocation and in blessing of that vocation you will become the head and they will become the tail.”

You know, we have that very scenario played out in the history of our nation. As our country has applied itself diligently to vocation for 200 years or more, God has blessed this nation as a result of that. Goods and services have increased and we’re able to exercise dominion and control over other nations that are different. It is the physical prosperity of a land that allows it then, when need be, to engage itself in military engagements. The United States currently outspends the next—I don’t know how many—number of nations in the world every year. We outspend all of them combined. There has never been an empire that has had worldwide sway and such worldwide dominion in terms of physical force as our nation.

Why? Because of money. Why do we have money? Because God has blessed his Christian people in this land. I mean, most people would still consider themselves Christians. God has given them diligence and vocation. They’ve amassed tremendous wealth in relationship to Deuteronomy 28. And that wealth, some of it can be siphoned off to engage in military conflict when necessary.

So there is this pragmatic relationship between the blessings of vocation and the ability to fend off nations that want to conquer you. But beyond that, the scriptures in Deuteronomy 28 are telling us that it’s the supernatural blessing of God. Yeah, we can see some of the reasons why it happens. But ours is to know only that it does happen. To not get too much into the details of how it happens, but to believe it and to apply ourselves to our vocations diligently as a way of bringing about dominion in the context of the world.

Be careful and observe these laws, God says. So you shall not turn aside from any of the words which I command you this day to the right or to the left to go after other gods to serve them. But it shall come to pass if you do not obey the voice of the Lord, then you’re the tail and not the head.

So in the law structure of God’s word, we have the same truth as in Zechariah 1. Those that are diligent in obeying God’s commands, who are diligent in vocation over and over again, God says you’ll bless the work of your hands, you’ll prosper, and in that prosperity, you’ll fight off the culture of conquest by establishing and maintaining the culture of work, work, and dominion.

Next section is work and dominion in the wisdom literature. We looked at some of these things last week, but it’s worth pointing out again. And the summary statement is found in Proverbs 12:24.

The hand of the diligent will rule, but the lazy man will be put to forced labor. There it tells it very clearly. Diligence, excellence, craftsmanlike work—if diligence, that is the hand that will bear rule in the context of any given people. But the fool, the lazy man will be put to forced labor. So God tells us again that the key to dominion, the key to seeing the nation discipled for the Lord Jesus Christ, the key to dominion is excellence and diligence in vocation.

Proverbs 10:4: He who has a slack hand becomes poor, but the hand of the diligent makes rich. The hand of the diligent makes rich. 10:4. And then in 12:24, the hand of the diligent bears rule. Same relationship in Deuteronomy 28. Same basic truth. The culture of work conquering over the culture of conquest found in Zechariah 1.

Proverbs 17:2: “A wise servant will rule over a son who causes shame and will share an inheritance among the brothers.”

And we have many cases of wise sons ruling over foolish sons, right? Jacob takes care of his father’s household. Esau’s off hunting most of the time. Dad likes him better. Dad is goofed up. Dad’s a tyrant at this point in time. But Jacob is doing what’s right. He’s a home person. He’s taking care of dad’s business. And what God does supernaturally, again, even apart from the work of his father, is to grant Jacob rule over the foolish son Esau. And then it says he will share an inheritance among the brothers. Jacob blesses Esau at the end of that whole trial and evaluation when he comes back to the land. He gives blessings to Esau. Esau will be blessed through Jacob. The foolish son will be blessed eventually as he learns the lessons of the wise son who is diligent in his father’s business.

Same thing with Joseph. Why did the brothers not like Joseph? Because Joseph was admired by his father for the way he took care of father’s business. He was a man of vocation and the other brothers weren’t men of vocation. They tended toward the culture of conquest and so they hated the culture of work and in the short term the altars prevailed—not the horns, rather, prevailed over Joseph. But in the long run, what’s said here is that he will rule over the son who causes shame. Joseph did, and he’ll share an inheritance among the brothers. Eventually, Joseph blesses the brothers as well.

See, the culture of work. It changes the future.

But this proverb actually says it’s a wise servant that will rule over a son who causes shame, will share an inheritance among the brothers. Not only is it the best of the sons who is diligent in vocation who will be blessed by preeminence amongst his brothers, but here it says that one who is not even a son, but is diligent as a servant in his father’s business—he’ll have rule over the son. And there’s a picture in this, of course, of Jesus, you know. Israel, Adam, is the first son. He’s displaced by Christ, the servant of God, who comes and is diligent in his vocation and calling and labor and as a result displaces the first son, Adam.

So the Proverbs say over and over again that the diligent one, the wise one, will be the one who rules over the ones who are unwise.

Proverbs 22:29: We talked about this last week. “Do you see a man who excels in his work? He’ll stand before kings. He’ll not stand before common men.” He’s giving advice to kings. He’s working in the context of rule and dominion in the land.

We have an excellent example of this in two ways with Jeroboam. Most of us know the story of Jeroboam as one who brought idolatry to the northern tribes. And that’s right. But do you remember, do you know why Jeroboam was king over the north?

Well, we read in First Kings 11:28: “The man Jeroboam was a mighty man of valor. Solomon, seeing that the young man was industrious, that he was diligent in vocation—in other words, that he was an industrious, diligent man—made him the officer over all the labor force of the house of Joseph.”

So the first thing he gets is promotion in terms of labor and vocation because he’s an industrious man. And then later in verse 37, God tells Jeroboam, “I will take you and you shall reign over all your heart’s desire and you shall be king over Israel.”

God makes Jeroboam king as a promotion to Jeroboam’s work in industriousness, in ruling over the labor force of the vocational force of the house of Joseph. So Jeroboam is a picture of this: that the hand of the diligent bears rule. The hand of the diligent first stands before kings and is promoted over the labor pool of the house of Joseph and then he becomes king over the land itself.

There is this progression. This is a progression that was understood very well at the beginning of our country’s history, the founding of the country. You know, the idea that a man had to show faithfulness in small things meant that people wouldn’t vote for a civil ruler who hadn’t first been good at his vocation. He wanted to show diligence in running a household and in being diligent in his vocation and then he would become promoted at an older age to rule in the context of civil affairs. This was the normal progression, biblical progression.

Culture of work rules also in the context of the state to defend the culture of work against the culture of conquest. Not true anymore. Now we have, you know, politicians who have never held, you know, an honest job—well, that’s not quite right. You know, it is an honest job to be a politician, I suppose—but people have not held normal vocation all of their lives. All they’ve done is sit in very varied political offices and they have no connection to the workplace. They’ve not been faithful in vocation and as a result they tend to then write laws that promote a culture of conquest as opposed to a culture of work.

I talked about the 30 sayings of the wise. I’ve got them here for you: Sayings 21 through 30 of the sayings of the wise. And I mentioned last week that you know these three sets of 10. First is diligence and vocation. Second is the establishment of the household in sayings 11 through 20, and 20 ends by saying, you know, this is how to establish a household in wisdom. And then the last 10, 21 through 30, are about civil reign. Okay. So that’s the way it works: vocation, household, and then reign in the context of the political structure.

And the very first one of these last 10, sayings 21 through 30, has an overt statement about this.

A wise man is strong. Yes, a man of knowledge increases strength. For by wise counsel you will wage your own war. And in a multitude of counselors there is safety.

What these 10 sayings are about is what is strength? How can you exercise dominion in the context of a culture? And these statements are in opposition to those who think that power comes out of the barrel of a gun, Chairman Mao, the conquest of cultures—I mean the culture of conquest rather, and actually it produces a conquest of cultures but it’s a culture of conquest.

But this says no, a wise man is strong. Well, what is a wise man by now in this flow? It’s a man who’s been diligent in vocation and has established his house in wisdom. He’s got strength and power, is what these proverbs say.

A man of knowledge increases strength. He goes from strength to strength.

By diligence and vocation and the establishment of his home by wise counsel you wage your own war.

So now this whole section has to do with waging war. A few proverbs down it talks about rescuing those that are being led off to the slaughter. And you have a responsibility and civic responsibility in community. You know, this is one of those verses, this rescuing those being led off to the slaughter, that probably we ought to make up a sign for as we get on to Sweethearts. And that’s kind of a picture of what’s going on in these last 10 sayings of the 30 sayings of the wise: is that having established vocation in a home, you have civic obligations to use your rule and authority that you’ve gotten from engaging in a culture of work to accomplish civic good. And you’re supposed to rescue those who are being led off to the slaughter. That’s what you’re doing when you have a picket sign down at Sweethearts.

Because in the book of Proverbs, that’s not talking about the unborn, which is what how that verse is normally applied today. The ones being led up to the slaughterhouse is the young man who’s enticed by the harlot, by the, you know, promiscuous woman. He’s the one that’s going off to a chamber that he thinks is a pleasure, but really is a chamber of death. He’s being led off to the slaughter like a fool. Men that go to Sweethearts are being led to the slaughter. And we have some degree of obligation to rescue those. And that’s in the context of these 10 sayings of the wise that have to do with strength.

And I’ve given you a little outline there. The summary statement is: the source of true strength is wisdom. And that’s been defined already as diligence and vocation and the establishment of a household.

And the fool will not rule in the gate. Wisdom is too lofty for a fool. He does not open his mouth in the gate. The gate is a place of rule and authority. There’s this progression. And the progression happens from diligence of vocation to them ruling in the context of the civil sphere.

There’s no strength in evil schemes. So don’t get all worked up about evil schemes. He who plots evil will be called the schemer. The devising of foolishness is sin and the scoffer is an abomination.

So that’s not the way of strength. The contrast is here. Wisdom is strength. The foolish man, conquest of a culture of conquest, will not accomplish what he wants.

If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is as well. Another reference to strength. See, there are points of evaluation. Do we follow through or are we sluggish? You see, do we faint in the day of adversity?

You know, for some of you at various points in your life, fainting in adversity is fainting from even getting vocation. You know, if you’re unemployed, one of the things that can happen is you kind of enter into a depression. You faint in the day of adversity. The day of adversity is a time to redouble your commitment to vocation.

Whenever people go unemployed for a period of time, that’s a time to redouble commitment to vocation. It’s a testing point for you. God says that you have vocation when you’re unemployed. Your vocation when you’re unemployed as a man, your vocation is seeking vocation. You should work 40 hours a week or more looking for work. And if you don’t, you fainted in the day of adversity. Your strength is small. You need to repent. You need to be strengthened by wisdom to seek out vocation.

Young men who are growing up in our households, as you go out and establish your own homes, do so with times that you will rise up. You’ll have hope because you know that even though you’ve been subject to men who are horns, as a craftsman and as a man of will, you will conquer them in the long run.

Do not rejoice when your enemy falls. Do not let your heart be glad when he stumbles, lest the Lord see it and it displease him and he turn away his wrath from him. As God grants you dominion, do so in a gracious way.

Nine: Do not fret because of evildoers, nor be envious of the wicked, for there will be no prospect for the evil man. The lamp of the wicked will be put out. The culture of conquest will be itself conquered by the culture of work.

My son, fear the Lord and the king. Do not associate with those given to change. Their calamity will rise suddenly, and who knows the ruin those two can bring.

So, finally, in number 10, we have Yahweh and the king linked together. Your calling as servants of Yahweh means that he will grant you dominion as you apply yourself to diligence in terms of vocation.

Whether it’s the law of God or the wisdom literature of God, what we have repeated over and over again is that diligence, wisdom, strength, and commitment to vocation is what rules in the long run in the history of the world. The culture of work will conquer the culture of conquest.

Now, there are other snapshots in the scriptures of this same truth.

In Judges 4:21, Jael and Sisera. Most of us are familiar with this account in the book of Judges. Sisera is a foreign conqueror. How does God conquer Sisera? Well, it is through physical destruction. But what does Jael use? Does she use a sword? No. She uses a tent peg and a hammer, a hammer used for putting together things, a tool of vocation, a craftsman tool. And the picture is that Jael is a picture of the bride of Jesus Christ. We will conquer not by ultimately taking up the sword. That’s necessary for some times. But the great picture being shown here is that tools and implements of work conquer those who are committed to the culture of conquest like Sisera.

Same thing happens in Judges 9:50-55. The bad guy here is Abimelech. Abimelech goes to the city. He encamps against it. He takes it. But there was a strong tower in the city, and all the men and women, all the people of the city fled there and shut themselves in. Then they went up to the top of the tower. So Abimelech came as far as the tower and fought against it. And he drew near the door of the tower to burn it with fire. But a certain woman, unnamed, dropped an upper millstone on Abimelech’s head and crushed his skull.

And then he says, “Oh, please.” He’s not dead yet, but he’s going to be killed by one of his own men because he doesn’t want to be known as somebody who dies at the hand of a woman—which is kind of funny because you know for thousands of years people have known that Abimelech was really killed by a woman. So he doesn’t get away with it. Wicked never do.

But again here the idea is that it’s not an implement of war that she uses. It’s an implement of vocation. The upper millstone is part of a device that grinds out wheat. It’s that grinding that the Bible says is as great as the joy of the bride and the bridegroom is the joy of the millstone doing its work. You see vocation. Weddings produce more vocation in the land and the implement of vocation, the millstone, is what’s used to crush the head of the enemy, enemies of God.

So another picture: the craftsman, the four craftsmen defeat the four horns. The culture of work defeats the culture of conquest.

And then third, you’ve got Shamgar. One verse is all we get about Shamgar. Well, he’s mentioned in Deborah’s song, but he’s mentioned because of what we read in one verse.

Judges 3:31: “After him was Shamgar, the son of Anath, who killed 600 men of the Philistines with an oxgoad and he also delivered Israel.”

Okay, so he killed 600 Philistines. Numbers are significant. Six is the number of fallen men. So it’s like a total victory over God’s enemies, the fallen men, the seed of the serpent demonstrated by the Philistines. Now the Philistines were a conquering people. They didn’t want to build their own culture. They wanted to take over Israel’s culture and they did for a time. They came and conquered and then they took away all the iron-making ability of Israel. Israel couldn’t smelt iron anymore. They couldn’t have metal implements. They couldn’t make themselves swords. But that doesn’t bother Shamgar. He is going to go ahead and be the deliverer of Israel, the savior, a little picture of Jesus ultimately. All saviors of Israel were.

But what does he kill these 600 Philistines with? An oxgoad. What’s an oxgoad? Well, probably most of you kids have had an oxgoad at one time or another. You didn’t know that they use it to goad oxes. But most of you—my daughter did it a month or so ago—takes a long wooden stick, goes over to the grinding tool, and makes a point on one end. And now she’s got a nice spear, walking stick with it. You know, boys do this, girls do this.

What you do—an oxgoad is an implement of vocation. It’s used to poke the oxes, to get them to move on down the road where you want them to be or to poke them away from where they shouldn’t be. Sarah Pierpoint had kind of an oxgoad at the wedding. She had that candle-lighting thing and she told me during rehearsal that if I got too close to the flame, she was going to poke me and get me away from them with that oxgoad. Or if I went too long, which I did, she was going to hook me with the thing.

So but so this guy has an oxgoad. It’s an implement of vocation. And with that oxgoad, he kills 600 Philistines—probably not all at one time. You know what? Probably they didn’t know who was killing them, but he would, you know, be doing his work and all of a sudden, boom, he’d kill somebody and go back to his work.

The picture what he does: so the picture is that the culture of work, whether it’s the millstone, the oxgoad, the tent peg, and the hammer that Jael uses, all of these are tools for the craftsman to do their craft, their vocation. And all of them are conquerors over those who would conquer the people of God through a culture of conquest.

1 Thessalonians 4:11 says, “We’re supposed to pray to the end that we would lead a quiet life and attend to our own business and work with our hands.” That’s the goal. Because we know that as we do that, blessings will flow to us from God. And not only will our own house be enriched, but the whole world will become enriched because God will make us the head and not the tail.

We do it faithfully knowing that our vocation is what produces the full manifestation of the kingdom of God.

We’re told in Deborah’s song that during the time of Shamgar, the highways were deserted and people had to scurry around back roads. They needed a deliverer and the deliverer is raised up. But the picture is that the way we are restored to roadwork and vocation is through the very act of vocation itself. At least the implement of vocation that becomes a picture of what God tells us prevails in history.

All right. So the gospel call for today is a renewed focus on vocation and its protection.

If we knew that it was through missile launchers that the future of the world would be determined, and if we knew that missile launchers were what was going to determine whether Christ ruled in the world or not, we would want to have a lot of them and we want to keep them safe, right?

Well, if we know that vocation is the way that God has ordained for his people to rule over the face of our earth and to make it manifest the kingdom of Christ, then not only should we commit ourselves to vocation as men particularly, but we must also commit ourselves to its protection because it’s under attack.

The culture of conquest today does so through ungodly taxation. I don’t remember how much it is, but nearly 50 cents, half of your productive labor goes to pay for various taxes, state, local, government, and hidden taxes. That is a usurpation. It is a conquest of your labor and it attempts to produce discouragement in your face cast because you can never get out of debt. You can never save enough money because the government’s taking half of what you got.

Now the government is a legitimate function of God’s order and it legitimately should take some degree of money. But that much is too much. That much represents the fact that our politicians are primarily those who follow a culture of conquest and you’re the ones being conquered.

Now there are other ways that vocation is under attack as well. I think that one of the ways is unemployment compensation. I mean it’s an okay program. I’m not trying to make anybody feel bad that receives unemployment compensation. But I have seen time and time again in my 52 years of life that people don’t end up with work until it’s all over. Unemployment tends to keep people unemployed.

Now, you know, the idea is not that, you know, again, our motivation is not the money. Our motivation is the labor we’re doing for God. And if we have a system in place that in its benevolence, supposed toward people, actually causes them to become somewhat listless in terms of vocation, that doesn’t seem good. The system has to be justified somehow, some way, to take out the rewards for a failure of diligence in terms of vocation.

Child labor laws. You know, you can’t pay a, you know, a 14-year-old kid to go down and take tickets to the theater anymore. At least I don’t think you can. You know, children, understand this. If your parents yelled at you last week about doing something at home, being diligent in some task involving some household implement, understand that what they are doing is truly preparing you to be a king. It’s as if they said, “Go shine up the crown that you’re going to wear when you get anointed and become king.” They’re putting you on the path to rule. That’s what the text tells us. And that’s what the scriptures tell us from beginning to end. And that labor should be able to be manifested in the public workplace as well at earlier ages. At least I think that we should.

Land use laws. People cannot exercise diligence and vocation because the land they own cannot be put to productive use. You see, land use laws, good idea in its germ form, but in its implementation has taken large tracts of land away from development. It’s this culture of conquest that says there’s a zero sum game, that what’s really best is the pristine state of nature. We’re going to lock it all up as opposed to the culture of work that says no, we can improve upon this and we must improve and draw more produce out of the land instead of letting it lie fallow.

I know the issue is far more complicated than that. But land use laws can become a tool in the hands of those committed to the culture of conquest to reduce vocation in the context of our world. And we must diligently strive against it.

Now there are groups—Oregon Taxpayers United, Citizens for a Sound Economy, Oregonians in Action. You know, most of you are pretty diligently, you know, attuned to PAC and what we do in the civil arena, but these other groups are geared at moral issues because they’re geared at protecting vocation and its establishment by holding back taxes, by holding back bureaucratic regulations over the workplace, and by freeing up land for vocation.

Citizens for a Sound Economy, Oregon Taxpayers United, Oregonians in Action. These are groups that you should support and know about to some degree. And you don’t want to get so distracted by political action you forget vocation. That’s improper. But there are men out there who are working for you and to protect vocation.

What we need is a renewed commitment to vocation on the part of the church of Jesus Christ and a commitment to protect it from those who would engage in a culture of conquest.

Sloth, of course, is one of the great things that gets in the way of our vocational dreams and work and so it also has to be avoided. So the scriptures tell us over and over again not to worry about these things but they say over and over again to be diligent in terms of what we do as well.

Gary North—I have remembered this quote for probably nearly 20 years. He wrote this in his book, Backward Christian Soldiers, question mark. And it was in a chapter called “The Little Things.” And I just want to conclude by reading this quote from Gary North.

He says, “When we look at the results of a thousand years of Christian instruction from 500 AD to 1500 AD, we begin to perceive the effect of these millions and millions of seemingly infinitesimal additions of moral capital. From the disintegration of Rome and the Reformation, Christian parents built a civilization. However ignorant of theology they may have been, however erroneous in their perception of things spiritual, not to mention things scientific, they nevertheless succeeded in reshaping the history of mankind. Their ignorance did not keep them from outdistancing India, China, and the other ancient civilizations. By the end of the medieval period, there was a cumulative effect of the vast number of successive additions of family capital, agricultural, technological, and moral. Line upon line, precept upon precept, a body of moral capital was built up and it produced a new civilization.

“What you do tomorrow when you go to your workplace, line upon line, little act upon little act, small little details, over time and across the face of our city, state, and nation. These are the things that produce and expand a Christian culture. God says the future belongs to the craftsman.”

Let’s pray.

Father, as we present our tribute offering to you now, Lord God, receive it. Help us to understand the great blessing you give us in vocation and empower the men, particularly and those whose labors are not seen in the workplace but whose labors are nonetheless in the homes. Empower us Lord God to come forward reconsecrating ourselves to you to engage in and protect vocation knowing indeed that it controls the future. In Christ’s name we ask this. Amen.