Dennis Tuuri

Our sermon text today is Proverbs chapter 9 verses 7-9. Please stand for the reading of God’s word.

Whoever corrects a scoffer gets himself abuse, and he who reproves a wicked man incurs injury. Do not reprove a scoffer or he will hate you. Reprove a wise man and he will love you. Give instruction to a wise man and he will be still wiser. Teach a righteous man and he will increase in learning.

Let’s pray. Father, it is our desire to be wise. We thank you that we serve a savior who is wise. All wisdom is his. We thank you for the power of our savior’s tongue and speech as recorded in your gospels. And now we pray, Father, that you would grant us glorified speech. Help us, Father, to learn to give and receive proper, edifying, instructional speech from one another. Help us, Lord God, to remember that it is the way the book of Revelation pictures our savior conquering by the sword that comes forth from his mouth.

Forgive us, Lord God, for idolatry of brute power and strength. And give us, Father, an understanding and an obedience to the power of words. In Jesus name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated. Well, as most of you are aware, I’m following up a sermon we gave two weeks ago on teachability. It seemed that as we moved into this new year, the most important thing we need to become is more teachable as we mature and advance.

And then last week, I talked about generational maturation in terms of our anti-abortion day of the Lord service, looking at the long haul, looking at our young people particularly. These sermons, and I’ll give more in the next couple of months from the book of Proverbs, certainly have application to all of us, but remember Proverbs is particularly written to post-puberty boys and girls, and particularly boys, but both. And so it is so important for the next generation arising at RCC—maybe you know, 25 down—to really hear well what these sermons have to say. You will generationally mature as you learn to mature in your speech, and that’s what we’re going to be talking about today: a particular element of speech—giving and receiving rebukes.

The outline I think I call it: “Frank Speaking”—speaking frankly about sin. Reasoning frankly is another modern translation of this word that’s translated reprove or rebuke. And I’ll talk a little bit about those words in a minute. But it’s so important for you to understand, for all of us to understand, the need for our speech to be effective.

I was talking to my daughter yesterday on the phone. She’s in New York and talking about amillennialism, premillennialism, postmillennialism. And of course, one of the big shifts—as most of us went from premillennialism to postmillennialism—is recognizing that really the pivotal event in history is the first coming of the savior. As I think B.B. Warfield said, there’s been nothing really at Christ’s final return that wouldn’t have already begun and been manifest in his first coming. So his second coming just wraps up the first coming.

You know, we’ve kind of always thought about Jesus’s coming as—an idolatrous way to think about it is that the physical might of Jesus when he returns is what conquers all his enemies ultimately. But the scriptures are quite clear that it is the speech of the Lord Jesus Christ, his word, and then his word spoken through his church that conquers disciples and brings the nations to him in Lord’s day worship and teaches them his law and word.

So you know, this shift in perspective in my life 20 years ago—from looking at brute force as the way Jesus conquers to looking at his word. And now that’s what the book of Proverbs is all about. It says that the way you break a bone is not ultimately to hit somebody. It’s to speak a particular kind of word.

Now, by way of illustration, those of you who saw that movie Dune or perhaps read the book: you know, there’s these weirding modules that they would use and these words would go forth and, you know, some words would have destructive power. Well, that’s the imagery that Proverbs uses to speak about our words. The way we conquer, the way we disciple, the way we change history is not ultimately through banging people over the head. And sometimes that’s needed. But what it really is primarily involved with is our speech. Our speech is what God says wisdom is all about. In the Proverbs, the wise man is the man who has learned how to speak correctly and maturely.

Now young people, again, you’re the primary recipients of this sermon. Understand that we want generational maturation from you in terms of your speech. Wasn’t it great to have Brian banging away on that alleluia? You know, it was like when Jim B. Jordan was here—praise God for the many great pianists we have. But to have a man bang out those chords at that part of the service, I really like. And praise God that we’re having this maturation.

See, we’re moving now toward having more men involved in the musical work of this church. That’s a good thing. Young people, you have to understand that we don’t speak well. You know, my generation—to us most of us we just talk talk, you know, words that don’t have significance and meaning. Most of us have no idea the composition of language, origins of words, the importance of how they’re spoken. The tongue, you know, the Proverbs are full of alliterations for instance, where Hebrew consonants sound throughout a particular passage or places where words sound like each other. That’s important. The Proverbs tell us in their very structure that the sound of our words is important.

Developing either written or spoken messages that have beginning and end and a chiastic structure to them, in a pivotal—I use the word “a pivotal structure”—at the middle that turns things. You see, this is the sort of speech that Proverbs wants us to think about and develop. The wise man, the sage in Proverbs, is the one who has learned by his speech to affect change in the world.

I might be writing a little article for our newsletter soon called “Priest, King, and Prophet.” That seems to be the progression of what we have in the Bible, right? We start with the priestly books and the sacrificial system. Then we go to the kings and the prophets. We’re learning the catechism that says prophets, priests, and kings. And I’ve received instruction this last week that’s probably because the prophets in Israel were the ones who anointed priests and kings. But we shouldn’t think that somehow prophets and the use of speech is the beginning of the process and mature up to a king.

No, the way it works in scripture is you begin as a priest obeying your parents. And you young people, this is what you do: your parents tell you what to do, you obey it. That’s what the priest did. God said, “Here’s how you kill an animal. This is what you do with the blood. Don’t think about it. Do what I tell you to do.” Blop plop. Then when you get a little older, you become kingly, and you know how to use that instruction you’ve received through obedience to your parents and going about doing your service kind of stuff in the world and you’re like a king. Jesus reigns from the cross where he serves us and dies for his people.

And then when you get older, the idea when you get past 50, you’re supposed to have been thinking about developing your speech well enough to speak a new reality into existence almost. Now, that’s a little exaggeration for effect, but that’s kind of what it is. The speech of the prophets changed the world in which they lived. The speech of John Calvin and the Reformers was used by God to be the power of Christ’s word to a culture that changed the world forever. And it won’t be the same. And there are men in our day and age, you know, whose words are being used to change reality around us.

So the tremendous importance of speech is what you’ve got to grab a hold of. We’re going to talk about a particular kind of speech. And if your parents are not particularly good at speech, and we aren’t the wisest ones—and we’re not because we weren’t trained this way—understand that we want you to be much better than we are with the way you speak your words and how they’re chosen, how they sound, how you go about doing it.

So we want you in general to mature from us in terms of your speech. And very specifically in what we’re going to talk about today: delivering and receiving a rebuke. This is something your parents are really bad at, particularly bad at. It is one of the most difficult things in our culture to give a word to someone that is corrective to them, that has any kind of sting to it at all. And yet, that’s what the scriptures tell us to do over and over again.

We have a hard time doing it. We built a culture here, unfortunately, that doesn’t allow for those sorts of things. We get easily offended. We don’t know how to take them. We don’t know how to give them. And it’s like it’s reserved for the very worst kind of situations that we almost never find ourselves in. We are, to use the words that I originally heard from Dennis Peacock years ago, we’re primarily a group of Christians that try to be nicer than Jesus.

We think that all we’re supposed to do is speak soft words to one another and kind words and complimenting words as opposed to understanding that there’s a proper time to speak frankly to other people about sin. And there’s a proper time for people to speak frankly to us about our particular sin. Many of us are nicer than Jesus with our tongues. We don’t want you to be that way, young people.

On the other hand, we also veer over to the other ditch where we’re meaner than Jesus. By the time we finally do talk to somebody, now the stuff that’s built up on our hearts about the thing becomes a torrent of improper mean speech to people, or we’re mean and talking about their difficulties, their shortcomings to other people as opposed to directly to them. So, you know, we’re both meaner and nicer than Jesus.

And what we want to try to do with the young people and with us too—you know, you can teach an old dog new tricks according to the scriptures. We want to improve our speech. Jesus gives us the gift of discipleship. The proper response is to be teachable. And teachable means hearing, being able to receive rebuke. It means actively pursuing wisdom as we talked about a couple of weeks ago.

Let me just say that in terms of this generational maturation and how it should change our speech, you know, we’ve talked about a Christian school, whatever that might mean at RCC. We’ve had some discussions about it. The next five Sundays—all you know this happens once every 28 years—we have five Sundays in February. Right, the 29th is a leap year, it’s on Sunday, so we have five Sundays in February. And we’re going to use those five Sundays here in the sanctuary. Dave H.’s class has just finished up. We’re going to use those five Sundays to have discussion and some teaching from John S., primarily I’ll do one of the classes on the 8th, to get continue discussion, continue talking about what it means, what we might want to try to accomplish with a school, classes or whatever it is here at RCC.

Now, the purpose of all of this is that we want to improve generationally how well we educate our children and specifically we want to improve in their ability to apply their tongue to words of wisdom. So this is part of that generational maturation that we’re looking at: how can we supplement, increase the ability of our young people to become educated in a way that we’re not, to transcend us as we move generationally in a mature fashion into the future.

Okay, so that’s what we’re going to be talking about today: speech. And just very quickly, about 20% of the formal Proverbs of Solomon, chapters 10 to 29, about one out of every five is directly related to speech. So you see the importance of speech. And as I said, the wisdom ideal in the book of Proverbs is to be able to say a thing well—not just know what to say, not just impart data intellectually, but to say a thing well.

Brad was saying this morning that kind of implying that you know, when we sing it’s a physical exercise, right? It’s not an intellectual event only. We tend to want to, you know, the gnostic word—we tend to be somewhat gnostic where Christianity is seen as some kind of spiritual exercise that doesn’t relate to our bodies and what we do. Well, to be able to say a thing well—not just to understand an abstract concept or to communicate a concept, but to actually literally say a thing properly and correctly. You see, this is very important.

This is the ideal of wisdom literature. And you know, it’s so wonderful that God takes it out of that gnostic realm then, right? It becomes, you know, how does Jesus talk to you? We’ve talked about this before. Well, is it just you listening to your inner voice, which is what it all too often is in our prayer closets, right? Or is it somebody else? And God uses these waves beating on our eardrum here to hear what Jesus is instructing us in through somebody else.

Jesus doesn’t say to read my word primarily. He says hear my word—use the audible capacity to hear someone else speaking to you, okay? And authority outside of ourselves. So to say a thing well is the wisdom ideal. So the wise man, you know, understands words, syllables, consonants. He understands assonance or alliteration—things sounding like one another. He understands alliteration where you begin a series of things with the same letters. You know, I have a little alliteration at the end in the outline—three Ps to help us to remember how to deliver and receive a rebuke.

So alliteration—this kind of thing and all of this is based on an understanding of what I’ve said: that speech has power to it. You know, according to the Proverbs, it’s speech that, as I said, breaks the bones. So speech in Proverbs is not some kind of abstract thing that doesn’t have much effect on the world and the real power is in the guys with guns and gold. No, in the world of the Proverbs, from the perspective of wisdom, it’s the men who speak things that exercise power.

Now that power can be good or bad. And so it’s the seductive speech of folly that also has a power over us. I mean, you know, if you think about magical formulas, right? You say a particular chant and you can summon the devil, or you can say a particular curse and somebody be afflicted. That’s a perversion of something that is real. And this real is that our words have power and might and strength. They break bones. They change reality.

And if that’s true, then that means that you must be very careful about what sort of speech you listen to. In the Proverbs, you know, you’re going to have these smooth talkers who are deceptive in their speech, and they’re going to be able to exercise power over you. Indeed, they can cast a curse upon you. Not magically, but through the power of words. God has built us to respond to words and to have them exercise an influence and authority in our lives.

And so, Proverbs tells us that it’s very important both to use powerful speech, but to recognize that other people are going to be using powerful speech on you and to be able to then attend to certain kinds of speech and not put yourself in the path of evil people and their seductive speech.

This is, you know, the danger of higher education today. You know, you’re going—it’s why parents have to think very hard about where they’re going to send their kids. Not the community college level, you know, these guys aren’t so good. But you get to the upper levels of education in this country, you get to graduate schools, etc. These men are some of the real power men with speech and they can spin heads quickly.

So speech has power. Our speech should have power and it will do that if we attend to what the scriptures say. You know, in the Proverbs, bodily organs are talked about over and over and over and over again. There’s tongues, there’s lips, there’s teeth, and they all have reference in the book of Proverbs to our speech. We just recited responsibly the reading about how God will make us teeth to be a threshing sledge against his enemy.

Well, how do we think of that? If we think about it as power mongers who think that physical might is the way that Jesus is going to conquer, then it means we’re going to go to Iraq and blow people away. But if we remember that teeth connects all of this to our mouths, then we remember that the Proverbs say that our lips, our tongues, our teeth are essential to be used in the context of speech. And so it’s our speech again, properly understood, that creates those sharp teeth that we then devour people with in a positive sense for Christ.

You know, we confess sin earlier from Isaiah 6: “I live in the land, I have unclean lips. I live in the land of people of unclean lips.” Well, it’s lip singular—it means profession. It means our profession. What we believe is wrong. But it can talk about what our belief is in terms of having unclean lips. Speech. See, our speeches reflect our worldview. And so all these physical organism references in Proverbs remind us of the great importance of speech and its power as well.

So our job is to try to mature and to urge our children to mature in their use of speech. You know, finally in this little introduction about the importance of speech: speech is the greatest indicator of who we are. A wise man will be able to listen to your speech and know about you. He’ll be able to listen to you and see well, is he smart, foolish, whatever it is.

And one example of this is loquaciousness—lots of talk. People that talk a lot in the Proverbs are not a good thing. You’re supposed to be able to hold your speech. They don’t always hold it. The idiot refuses to go into the public arena with his worldview. That’s what the word idiot meant in the Greek—a man who didn’t go into the public arena, just stayed in his house. So we have to engage other people in the public with our speech or we’re idiots.

But on the other hand, if we talk too much with our speech, then we’re fools. The fool just speaks to hear himself speak. So people, you know, evaluate yourselves. Try to put a restraint on your speech so that what you do say has power and authority to the people you say it to in a positive sense for the purposes of God’s kingdom.

You know, we’ve been talking about this also in my Leviticus class. I mentioned the whole first offering in Leviticus 1—it’s the most important. It’s the ascension offering. The cow is killed. I mean, he is killed, but pictorially what’s going on is he’s ascending to heaven. He’s being transformed from the old cow to the new cow who has relationship with God in heaven. Well, that’s what we do every Lord’s day at RCC: we ascend. We’re transformed. We’re the new man. We’re the new creation. We’re new cow. Okay, that’s us.

And Ephesians 4 says, “Put off the old man. Don’t act like the old cow. Put on the new man. Act like the new cow.” How do we put on the new man? Well, it tells us right away in verse 24 of Ephesians 4 that you put on the new man, which after God has created in righteousness and true holiness. Wherefore, putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor. Be angry but don’t sin. Be angry with his sin probably is the reference there. So it’s rebuke sort of speech, or at least speech in general, that is the very characteristic of what it is to be the new man in Christ.

A Christian is one who has moved away from smooth deceptive bad speech and has put on the new man by putting on new speech. You see how important speech is? That’s what Ephesians 4 is all about. If you’re a new creation in Christ—and you are. You were baptized. God made a new creation out of you. You’re not to doubt that. Well, you have been remade and given this tremendous gift of powerful speech. That’s what it is to be a creature, a new creation in Jesus Christ.

All right, let’s look now. That was introduction. Let’s look at the outline. Point number one: we have some observations on the value and efficacy of speaking frankly about sin.

So, the Proverbs, you know, they’re not a book of law primarily. It’s not a set of commands. What it is a lot of times is observations on reality. So what is real? What really changes things? Well, Proverbs is going to tell us that. It’s observations. See, and it’s observations that tell us this is the way God has made the world. It’s an inspired book of observations on what happens in the world. And it gives us values. And it also tells us efficacy—that’s a big word for usefulness. The usefulness of speaking frankly about sin.

Now, I said speaking frankly, reasoning frankly. The two words used most commonly in our translations for these Hebrew words in Proverbs are reprove or rebuke, and then correct or instruct. There’s basically two kinds of words used in the Proverbs. We’ll talk about that in a little bit. But English words: reprove and rebuke. Some people don’t like those words. They sound a little too tough. Well, they’re not really. This is a good translation of most of our Bibles have.

And another way to say to reprove somebody or to rebuke them is to speak to them frankly about their sin. Reprove means to prove again, right? So you’re trying to make the case to the person that what they’re doing is wrong. Rebuke—the original origins of that is to hit something. So it means to hit them again to put them in memory of something. Remember, you’re not hitting them physically. It’s your words that break bones.

So your words have power to hit at them as you bring a rebuke, as you speak frankly to them of what they did wrong and how they should mend their ways. So that’s what we’re talking about here. And what does the scripture say this is? Well, these things—and I mentioned this a couple of weeks ago—this kind of growth in the knowledge of God and speaking well is pragmatically good for us.

Now I got biblical pragmatism. You know, the world today works on the operation of pragmatism. Whatever works, that’s what you want to do. And the problem with that is they say whatever works—meaning they can evaluate whether it worked or not, which you really can’t do. The scriptures are going to tell us how things work. And secondly, worldly pragmatism is short term. It doesn’t see the long-term effects of things. But there is a biblical pragmatism. It is good for you. The Bible says, Proverbs tells us to be wise and to learn to give and receive rebukes.

Proverbs 9 goes on after the reading we said today: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. The knowledge of the Holy One is insight. For by me your days will be multiplied.” You want to have long life, be wise in your speech. Years will be added to your life if you are wise. You are wise to yourself. There is a practical benefit. The Proverbs tell us to wisdom and to be able to give and receive rebukes correctly.

Proverbs 13:13 says, “Whoever despises the word brings destruction on himself. He who reveres the commandment will be rewarded.” There’s value to it. “Poverty and disgrace come to the one who ignores instruction.” Proverbs 13:18. “Whoever heeds reproof—if you listen, not just listen, but listen and do on the basis of someone bringing a reproof to you and a rebuke to you, speaking frankly to you about sin—whoever heeds that reproof is honored.”

See, we don’t want to hear things that are negative about us because we’re afraid it makes us dishonored, right? But the Proverbs tell us that counterintuitively, do this thing and what you will discover is that it will work for you. You will actually get one of the most powerful things you want in life: honor or glory. And you get that by heeding a rebuke.

Proverbs 16:32: “Whoever ignores instruction despises himself, but he who listens to reprove gains intelligence.” So there’s a pragmatic value. You’re despising yourself. You’re hurting yourself not to listen to reprove. But if you listen to reprove, you gain intelligence. You gain knowledge. You grow in wisdom. You see, Proverbs 12:1, “Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge. He who hates reproof is stupid.” So if you want to be wise—wise for yourself, practical benefits for yourself—this is what all these things are saying: be wise, give and receive rebukes correctly.

Proverbs 28:23 says this: “Whoever rebukes a man will afterward find more favor than he who flatters with his tongue.” See, this is so typical of the Proverbs on this. Two guys come up to you and I’m watching two men speak. One guy comes up to the other guy and flatters him, and the other guy comes up and rebukes him. Who is going to, which man will find more favor in the eyes of the person they’re talking to?

Well, human pragmatism, secular pragmatism, ungodly pragmatism as well—the guy that flatters him, he’s going to find favor with the guy because we like to be flattered. We like our ego stroked. But this proverb tells us no, have a longer term perspective. It’s good to figure out who’s going to be favored. That’s what you want is to be favored. That’s not wrong. But understand that this is the way to get favor: to deliver a rebuke, to rebuke a man properly, of course.

Well, afterward that man will find more favor than the one that flatters with his tongue. The one that flatters with his tongue finds some favor for a season, but you—after a while you realize what’s going on. And after a while, it’s the one who has brought you the rebuke and who has helped you to mature. This is the man you’re going to face. This is the man you’re going to want to be around.

But understand the critical word there is “afterward,” right? Not at the moment, but afterward. It’ll be to your benefit to speak frankly to people about sin. So this is what the Proverbs tell us.

Now, very briefly, there are two words that are translated reproof and rebuke here. And in our particular text, look at the scripture text itself again: Proverbs 9:7-9. Look at that in your Bibles. Verse 7: “He who corrects a scoffer gets shame for himself. He who rebukes a wicked man only harms himself. Now my translation says, ‘Then do not correct a scoffer.’ Bad translation because it’s the same Hebrew word. Therefore, rebuke at the end of seven, lest he hate you. Rebuke a wise man and he will love you.”

Okay, so we’re looking at seven and eight. And I know this is kind of—you know, maybe a bit tedious for you—but understand that there’s four words here used in seven and 8. Correct. Rebuke. My version goes back to correct and then goes to rebuke. In the Hebrew, the first word is one word and the next three are all the same. The first “correct” should be translated correct as opposed to reprove. It’s a different Hebrew word. But the next three—rebuking a wise man, rebuking a scoffer, and rebuking a wise man or a wicked man, scoffer, wise men—those are all the same Hebrew word.

Now, there’s two words then here. And these two words kind of go throughout everything I’m going to be telling you today. These are the two Hebrew terms. Neither one of them means instruct—just give pure intellectual raw data. The word for correct has the nuance to it of the covenantal relationship that God has to us as our father. So to correct somebody in a paternal way, okay, in a fatherly way. Still, it’s bringing, you know, harsh words to bear potentially. It’s not backing off. You know, God chastises his sons, right? If he doesn’t love you, you don’t get chastised. So God’s fatherliness to us leads to sharp action against us. But the context of that first Hebrew word is that kind of thing. It’s a fatherly thing.

The context for the next Hebrew word translated three times here—rebuke, or it should be in your translation. This one that talks about rebuking the wise men. This is more of a judge word. Here again, it’s all pictured on God’s relationship to his people, but now it’s God as a judge to his people. So it’s bringing judgments to bear, okay? So it’s a little different nuance. Fatherly correction—still speaking frankly about sin, but as a father—and then speaking frankly about sin as your judge, bringing God’s judgments to bear on what you’re doing wrong.

Those are the two nuances of these two terms. And really, it’s proper to translate them both: reprove or rebuke, correct. Okay. But correct with a little oomph to it. A little sting is the idea in the Hebrew text. So that’s the basic concept of these specific words that are used in terms of admonition, bringing reproof or rebuke.

So first, there’s a biblical pragmatism to it. There’s some observations on that. And now—so it works. And secondly, there’s these texts that I’ve given you in your outline, plainer B, the value of reproof. So it’s good to you. It has effect. And now we’re going to look at a few Proverbs that put it in relational value to something else. How is it compared to other things?

Well, in Proverbs 9, what we just read—well, I guess I just talked about that—but let’s look instead at Proverbs 25:11-14. “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver. Like a gold ring or an ornament of gold is a wise reprover to a listening ear.”

So reproof is valued as some kind of wonderful gift. It’s like a gold ring, an ornament of gold. It’s like apples of gold. Notice here what I said at the beginning: the importance of how we say things. A word fitly spoken is literally a word on wheels, or a word in wheels, probably a time reference, right? Timing to the word fitly spoken. Somehow it’s on wheels. It has motion and ability and power. And that kind of word—that kind of reproving a person, reproving a person who has a listening ear—is valued as a gold ring or a beautiful ornament.

Proverbs 27:5: “Better is open rebuke than hidden love. Okay. So what’s best? If somebody loves us but doesn’t really say much about it, or if somebody openly rebukes us. We think the hidden love is better. But in terms of the value system of wisdom, no, it’s the open rebuke that is more valuable to us. Goes on to say, “Faithful are the wounds of a friend.” So we’re to have a value placed upon them. We’re to think of them as useful to us, but we’re also to think of them as being great things. They have value in and of themselves, more value than we commonly give them.

Ecclesiastes 7:5 says, “It’s better for a man to hear the rebuke of the wise than to hear the song of fools.” What would you rather do? Ecclesiastes says, “Go to McMinnaman’s and tip a few and have great song and merriment or go to a funeral.” That’s the context for Ecclesiastes 7. But Ecclesiastes 7 says it’s better—comparative value—better to hear reproof and a proper rebuke. Better to hear the rebuke of the wise than to hear the song of fools.

So the scriptures say we should value highly this thing known as reproofs or rebukes. And then finally this observation on the efficacy of reproofs, right? Proverbs 19:25 says, “Strike a scoffer and the simple will learn prudence. Reprove a man of understanding and he will gain knowledge.” So this is not a command to the wise man to gain knowledge when reproved. This is an observation of reality. You’re afraid to reprove somebody. Well, is he a godly guy? Is he a wise man? Don’t be afraid because Proverbs says by way of inspired observation of reality that in reality what will happen when you reprove a wise man is he will gain understanding. So don’t hold back.

So we have these: the value of reproofs both to yourself, practically, and seeing it in connection to other things. We tend to value more highly money and love. Higher than that, Proverbs says, is reproof and rebuke. And then we have the inspired observation that inspires us and tells us, encourages: don’t pull back. It will happen. The wise men will receive instruction and grow still wiser when reproved.

Okay? Don’t be afraid when people are going to rebuke you. Understand that the Lord God has baptized you. He’s made a new creation out of you. You will grow wiser as a result of what seems at the moment like a horrible thing to be happening to you—somebody to call you to account, call you to account, speak harsh words to you, strong words about your sin. Don’t pull back from that. Believe what God’s word says by way of inspired observation. You will grow as a result of that work.

Now, there are commands as well, not just observations, but there’s commands to speak frankly about sin. And I’ve got on your outline, I’ve listed some of those.

Proverbs 9 says, “Reprove a wise man, he’ll love you. That by way of command to us, right? Give instruction to a wise man.” But as I said a couple of weeks ago, one of the most significant places of command to us to rebuke one another is found in Leviticus 19. Remember that Leviticus has a structure at the very heart of Leviticus is the law of God, right in the middle. And the law of God is laid out by way of 70 commandments. It’s like a commentary on the ten commandments.

And right at the heart, at the middle of the two sections of Leviticus 17—or 19 rather—and the commandments found there is verse 17: “You shall not hate your brother in your heart but you shall reason frankly.” English Standard Version, King James probably says reprove, rebuke, reason frankly with your neighbor lest you incur sin because of him. If you don’t rebuke one another, if we don’t engage in that kind of speech, we incur sin.

And the text goes on to say some of the ways that happens. You can hate your brother in your heart. You know he’s sinned. You know he has to change. You don’t have the guts to tell him it. You’re not a man enough or a woman enough to do that—a strong woman of Christ. And as a result, you think less of them. You begin to hate him in your heart.

Or it goes on to say, “You shall take not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people.” The other thing you’re going to be tempted to do is to talk to other people about his faults instead of going directly to him.

So right at the heart of the law—and the commentary on the law we have in Leviticus and the ten commandments—the heart of the ten commandments is positively a love of your neighbor. But it is such a love that you’re willing to risk reputation with him, harm to yourself, to the end that you would actually go to him and reason frankly to him about his sin. That’s the importance of rebuke. It’s central. We must obey this law. Right? This clearly is the heart of the law to speak, to use that wise speech because it’s so important in being able to mature one another in God’s providence.

Jesus says the same thing. Luke 17:3: “Pay attention to yourselves. If your brother sins, rebuke him. If he repents, forgive him.” Plain spoken language by our savior. And yet it’s so difficult here.

Obviously, the correct context for the rebuke is given: “If he sins. That’s what Leviticus 19 is saying as well. It’s what all these assume. We’re not reproving somebody because we don’t like the way they look. We’re reproving and rebuking them, coming as God the Father covenantally bringing them to mind of God’s covenant word. That’s the judicial aspect of this: looking at the law of God in terms of that sin.

So Jesus says very clearly: if he sins rather, rebuke him. It’s a command for disciples. This is what we must do.

I’ve got 1 Timothy 5:14. It really should be 1 Timothy 5:1 in your outline. It says, “Rebuke not an older man.” So there’s a way to go about doing that—rebuking. We’re commanded on one hand not to rebuke an older man. There’s a different way to approach him. But we have these positive commands in general to give rebukes to one another in the body of Christ.

Second Timothy 4:1 and 2. Paul speaking to Timothy: “I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus who is to judge the living and the dead and by his appearing and his kingdom.” So now Paul is saying what I’m going to tell you now is hard to do. Because it’s hard to do, I am adjuring you by the living God. I am charging you to do it. Better get it done. “Preach the word. Be ready in season and out of season. Reprove, rebuke, and exhort with complete patience and instruction.”

So you know, our rebukes are in the context of patience with people, but it’s not patience with sin. You see, now there’s several different words used there. To reprove somebody has the same kind of idea as the English word has—to reprove, to correct them, to bring them to an understanding, to prove to them their difficulty. Rebuke is a funny word. The word that our savior used, the Greek word, and this word used here. It means to honor them. So to rebuke somebody is to honor them.

Remember when Achan sinned in regard to the holy things and when they approached him about his sin? “Give glory, give honor to God. Confess your sin.” And to bring honor to God is to bring honor to ourselves. To rebuke someone is to bring honor upon them. That’s what the New Testament word means because it gets them to move in terms of their sin to repent of it. And that adds to their honor. So it is positively the imposition of honor through speaking frankly to people, rebuking them, hitting them with words, breaking their bones of sin in that sense.

So we have these positive encouragements, commands to speak frankly to one another. We also have commands to hear those speaking frankly to us. We’re commanded to speak rebukes to one another. And we’re also commanded to hear rebukes.

Proverbs 3:11: “My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline or be weary of his reproof.” And you say, “Well, if it’s Jesus, yeah, I won’t hear that reproof, but you know, this neighbor here of mine.” Well, how does Jesus talk to you? And we’ve said over and over again that he speaks by way of people. Almost everywhere in the scriptures, the Spirit speaks. It’s through an audible human voice. So when your brother comes to you or sister comes to you about sin in your life, you know, do not despise the Lord’s discipline. This is Jesus talking to you. Do not be weary of Jesus’s reproof to you. The Lord reproves those whom he loves.

The text goes on to say. Paul did this very thing in Galatians chapter 2. He was rebuking the Galatians because of their sin and they’re moving away from a proper understanding of salvation and sanctification. And he says, “Have I then become your enemy by telling you the truth? They make much of you, but for no good purpose. They want to shut you out that you may make much of them.”

Paul is in the midst of one of these situations. The Judaizers are speaking smooth speech to the Galatians. Paul is speaking rough speech and he’s saying, “Well, who are you going to do? Are you going to be fools? You’re going to be wise? You going to apply Proverbs or not? Am I thought of as less because I brought the rebuke of God? You are commanded by God’s word to hear the rebuke of your sin.” You see, I’m the one honoring you, not them. They’re trying to get you to do bad things.

I’ve seen this 20 years of pastoring in the church of Jesus Christ. I’ve seen this over and over when people move away from the body of Christ. And I’ve known a couple people in my life who, that’s all they’ve done as long as I’ve known them, is hang out with people for a while then move away, move away, move away. Can’t ever submit to other people. See, they can’t submit to Jesus Christ. I don’t really—the longer that’s a pattern in somebody’s life, I don’t care what they tell me with their lips. I don’t expect to see him in the hereafter because if they’re not going to submit to Jesus Christ speaking through his church or with lots of opportunities at different churches now here on earth, they’re not going to hear him in heaven either.

And what these people do is when they move away from the church, they then, you know, you kind of get the advanced scouts out there, usually female, to go talk to people, give them smooth words: “We’re the ones that really care for you, not the pastoral session of the church.” I’ve seen this happen in our church. I’ve seen it happen in other churches. I’ve heard lots of pastors talk about it. That’s the way it works. You’re going to get people flattering you to pull you off into sin.

Now, I can say this now at this church. I cannot always say it because when you’re in the midst of one of these situations, it can be taken completely incorrectly. We’re in the midst of nothing here—no controversy that I know of at this church. So I can tell you now: this is the way it works. Be prepared. It’ll happen again here at some point in time. We’ll find ourselves just like Paul. And what we want to do then is remember to be careful whose speech we listen to and to seek out proper biblically based frankness about our sin and to hear those things.

We have a positive command to listen to those kind of rebukes.

Listen to how the Psalmist puts it. Psalm 141:5: “Let a righteous man strike me. Not only will he put up with the rebuke of the righteous, he seeks it. He invites it here. Please hit me.” See, that’s what he’s saying. Let the righteous man smite me. This is to be our attitude. This is the heart, you know, of the psalmist. This is to be our heart. We should invite people’s reproof of us for our sin.

“Let a righteous man strike me. It’s a kindness. I understand what it is. I become wise. I know it’s good for me. It is a kindness. It’s not hatred for me. It’s love for me from him according to Leviticus, according to the law, according to our savior. He’s demonstrating his neighborliness, his brotherliness to us. It’s a kindness. Let him rebuke me. It’s oil on my head. He understands that rebuke is what causes him to grow in the grace of Christ. It’s oil on my head. It’s maturation for my soul. It’s making a powerful, you know, dominion man or woman out of me. It’s oil on my head. He said, ‘It’s a blessing from God. Let my head not refuse it. Yet my prayer is continually against their evil deeds.’”

Even if people who are bad motivations come upon him, he still says, “I’ll try to figure out what the righteous are saying to me in the midst of that.” And then he prays for them. That’s the proper way to receive rebuke: to invite it, to see its value, to then look for it and look for its beneficial effects in our life and to pray to God for the one who’s bringing these things to our attention.

“Do not despise the chastening of the Lord nor detest his correction whom the Lord loves. He chastens.” Okay.

Three: eschatology. So we have these observations about rebuking that help us to understand the importance. So we have positive commands both to rebuke and to hear a rebuke. And then we have in the Proverbs and the rest of scripture, eschatology—end points. Eschatology means the end points. It doesn’t just mean the end point of time. There’s an eschatology to our lives. At our death, we’ve reached our end point in terms of this earthly existence. Well, there’s an end point both to listening and not listening.

Proverbs 15:31 says that the ear that listens to lifegiving reproof will dwell among the wise. The end result of hearing rebukes is life. People give us life when they give us godly speaking and reasoning frankly about our sin. It is a lifegiving reproof and the end result of that is life. And life is described here as dwelling among the wise. So the end result of hearing rebuke is life, and the end result of not hearing rebuke is death.

“He who is often rebuked yet stiffens his neck.” Proverbs 29:1-5 says, “Boy, this is so important. He who is often rebuked yet stiffens his neck will suddenly be broken beyond healing.” The end result of training yourself not to respond correctly to rebukes is there’ll come a day at which God will say enough, and you’ll be broken beyond healing. No restoration, right? Hebrews says the same thing: if you trot underfoot the blood of Christ, the only thing that awaits you is a fearful expectation of judgment.

So the end result of hearing reproofs and rebukes is life. The end result of not hearing them and to stiffen our necks is to be cut off suddenly without ability to heal.

It’s interesting because Proverbs 29 goes on to talk about the kings and the rulers. And it seems like one of the ways they’re cut off is by again the decrees and actions of men in the world who represent God. So they’re cut off and that without healing, and the same thing is told us in Hebrews 6.

Okay. Now I want to conclude by talking a little bit about how to do this. Then hopefully you see it’s great importance and it’s commanded and it’s a good thing, and all this stuff. How to do it? I’m going to let you read by yourself the second page of the outline in the order of worship. You should have a page there that’s entitled “How to Speak Frankly about Sin.” I actually came across this last week. We get this publication called Business Reform, and the latest issue is on the ten commandments. And in this they had one of the pages was this handout that’s here. We actually found this on the internet. It’s available in other resources besides just in Business Reform. But this is a good publication. I’d urge you to read and particularly this issue about the implications of the ten commandments for businessmen.

But in any event, I thought this was pretty good. This is a pretty good handout. Again, it acknowledges that one of the most difficult things for managers in business is to be able to bring, you know, constructive criticism to bear—how to rebuke, reprove, speak frankly about people’s deficiencies. And so that’s a good useful tool. And I’ll be referring to it in a minute as I talk about the rest of this.

So what I’ve got here is preparation, presentation, and then pursuit. Three Ps. Preparation. You know, because our culture has not developed this—because it is one of the most unusual things in the world to have somebody reprove you for your sin—I’m trying to remember the last time. Well, somebody other than my wife. That happens quite a bit. It’s in the family, but brother to brother, sister to sister. I really am not sure I remember the last time it happened. The few times it has happened in memory, I remember really well and it was really useful for me.

I remember once somebody said, “Why do you want to argue about that to me?” Yeah, that’s what I’m doing. I’m just picking a fight here. Why do I want to do that? Yeah, you know, I’ve remembered that for whatever it’s been four or five years since I heard it. But we don’t like that. We don’t have a culture that readily looks for these things. We don’t say, as the psalmist says, “Let him hit me.” No.

So what should you do? Well, first of all, you should in your preparation, be prepared for anger. You know, be prepared for a bad reaction from them, right? They’re probably not going to hear it well because we’re not very practiced at it. That’s okay. Don’t let that freak you out. Be prepared for that before you go to the person. Be prepared for an improper response. Be patient, right? That’s what Paul told Timothy: rebuke and reprove with patience. So be patient.

Be prepared to be labeled a bad person because you know we don’t do that much. You probably, other people have seen the same thing you’ve seen. Perhaps they’re not going to go and tell the person. So you got to be prepared to be the bad guy. You got to have courage and guts to step up and do it even though you may have to prepare yourself to be the bad guy.

Keep short accounts by way of preparation. You know, one of the things that the article, the handout there says is, you know, be specific, be on point about this, right? Well, if you let a whole bunch of things pile up and then go to a person about a particular thing and now you bring in all this other stuff, well, that is not an effective rebuke. You’re not proving to him his sin in this particular matter. You’re saying he’s a jerk in the balance of his life. What can a guy do about that? Shoot me. You know, put me through some kind of device where I’ll come out different.

So keep short accounts. In order to do that, you got to keep short accounts. Bring things up as they come along. We’re involved in a situation right now in another church where things built up for a year and a half. A critical incident happened and now there’s been a total breakdown between this man and his family and this church. And a big part of the problem is that rather than deal with the specific issue, apparently no, the whole life is called into question. All the things we don’t like about you for the last two years, they’re all coming up now and you know it just makes it really difficult.

So try to be specific. Prepare yourself by keeping short accounts. Stay on target. Pray for the right time, the right place. Now this can be a temptation to sin—this prayer thing. I mean you got to do it. You want to prepare your heart with prayer. But don’t pray so much looking for the right time and place that you never do it, right? That’s what we do. “Well, God never provided a proper place.” No, you weren’t bold enough to take advantage of the place that God provided for you. So pray about the time and the place.

It may be useful to script out what you’re going to say, to write it out for yourself. What am I going to say? Write down what, particularly what I’m talking about. Maybe come prepared with a couple of scriptures in your hand. But please, in your preparation, make this a personal one-on-one meeting. Don’t send an email. Don’t write a letter. Almost unless you can avoid it, don’t do it on the phone. Face to face. You’re the image of Christ. Christ to one another. As people hear your voice, not as they read your emails. You see?

So prepare for a personal meeting, looking for the time and the place. Script it out. Be prepared, as I said, for rejection and be prepared for deflection. I’m going to talk about this next week, but you know, the Adamic sin is to deflect. Adam doesn’t take responsibility. His wife doesn’t take responsibility. Poor snake has to finally get all the responsibility. So that’s where we are in our fallen nature: to deflect things.

Be prepared that the person you’re going to be rebuking will deflect by pointing to something else. Be prepared to calmly, nicely, patiently bring him back to point. Now, this is what we’re talking about. Yeah, I know you didn’t have any sleep that night, but still, it’s not right to punch your wife in the nose, you know. I don’t care how much sleep. That’s an exaggeration. You see what I’m saying? Be prepared for deflection and to bring them back to the point.

Know yourself. Be prepared with the proper motivation. Understand what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to minister life. You’re trying to use your speech to minister grace to your fellow man, not to minister death. So have a proper motivation.

Now, what I’ve got here is glory, knowledge, and life both in preparation, presentation, and pursuit. What you’re trying to do—remember what the word in the New Testament is—you’re trying to give honor or glory to the other person. This is why you want to take note of what the handout from the businessman is all about: making sure you don’t remove glory from the person you’re going to. Don’t rebuke him in public. Don’t bring in all his life story about it. You know, be calm and kind in your presentation of words. Your intent is to restore honor and glory to him. You’re seeking his glory.

As you pray, pray, “Lord God, may I be an effective rebuker so that Mr. So and so could have more glory, more weight, and help me in my presentation of this to him, not to, you know, shame him, but rather to point him to what he’s doing wrong in the context of his life, which is basically one of great faithfulness to Christ. You’re all tremendously faithful disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ.” And that’s got to be part of how we rebuke one another: that honor and glory given to each other.

Knowledge. What you’re trying to do is take a self-deceived person who hasn’t come to repentance for his sin and bring to him knowledge of what the word of God says about his actions. You’re trying to minister knowledge to him, right? That’s what he wants. He wants to be more glorious. He’s perhaps then tempted to seek glory through sin. And you want to restore to him proper glory, which comes through confession of sin. He’s and what you need to do to bring that to him is a knowledge of what he’s done. So you’ve got to be specific in terms of the scriptures where knowledge resides.

And life—these are the three things we all want. And so as you prepare to meet with someone, be prepared to try to affirm your relationship to them. Life is at the table. It’s rejoicing time together with the family. And even in the midst of rebuke, you want to remind him you’re his friend. You’re on his side. You’re rejoicing with him. Maybe do it in the context of a meal. That rejoicing time together we have in Christ. So glory, knowledge, life. Respect the person in your preparation and presentation. Bring God’s word to bear. Knowledge in your rebuke or reproof. And then finally, the goal of it all is that you might rejoice together in this lifegiving rebuke and the community of wisdom that it produces, that you might have relationship with him at the end of it.

Sin breaks life. Sin breaks relationship and repentance brings life. Okay.

So preparation, and then in presentation, some things to remember. To do this, present it in such a way as to minister glory, knowledge and life. This sometimes—not always, but sometimes—it’s good to begin the conversation with confession of some of your sin. I know pastors that I’ve received training from. When they go to a person they’re about ready to publicly discipline, in their final attempt to recover them, they’ll confess that they weren’t as diligent in seeking them out as they might have been. They didn’t pray for them as much as they should have prayed for them. And they’ll ask forgiveness from the person they’re rebuking.

You know, what you’re doing with that is you’re mentoring them, right? You’re discipling them. This is the way it works. And you’re not lying. And if you don’t have anything you ought to confess, don’t make it up. But sometimes it can be a real ministry of grace to somebody who’s hardened against you to confess sin and to ask for forgiveness as a way to show them, “Hey, we know we’re all sinners here.” It’s a way to minister glory as you’re preparing to try to help them correct in a particular area.

Pray with them at the beginning of the meeting. Pray along the lines of glory, knowledge, and life. “Lord God, grant us increased glory and honor for one another and a better knowledge of your word that we might rejoice together.” Pray with the person you’re going to rebuke or reprove.

Affirm relationship. Sounds 20th century, sounds politically correct, but it’s biblical. Jesus goes to those seven churches. He’s going to rebuke, I think, nearly every one of them. But he begins by telling them the great things they’re doing. Paul writes to the Corinthians, says, “What a great church they are.” For a page. Then he gets to the problems. They had all kinds of problems. Why would he do that? Because Jesus deals with reality and reality is that we are all members of Christ. We’re all kings and queens. And when we sin, we forget that and we need to be reminded by those around us that’s who we are in Christ.

So affirm relationship, affirm that steadfastness to Christ on their part. Honor them and bring them glory even as you seek to add more honor and glory to them. And as I said, make it personal.

You know, one of the worst things you can do is put stuff in writing because you know what? I know people that have—look, I’m not kidding. This is literally true in a situation. I know people that are still reading correspondence from what is it now, 13 years ago in a particular church conflict that I know of and was involved with. I know people are still reading those letters that were sent. When you write letters or email, it has this impact that people—they talk to you face to face and can get it worked out, right? Right? Then they go back to the letter. Well, now wait a minute. I can see here he was really a turkey. You see, they can misinterpret the letters.

I tried writing out longhand once a letter to some guy who refused to meet with me. And I said, “You know, look, I can’t—I don’t have good penmanship. And I get a lot of things wrong, not because I want to, because I mess up. Please understand that all I’m trying to do is communicate with you here about a particular sin. Don’t think that I’m, you know, as squared away as a as a piece of typed correspondence. Be my shaky hand.” You see? Well, even better is people to see you face to face. The image of God in you. Jesus talking to them, you see, through your words. Make it personal, this meeting.

So in your presentation, you give glory. Also, you give them more weight by taking the time and effort to meet with them personally. You minister knowledge of them. Your words based on the scriptures come through and the end result is life. Be direct about the sin itself. Don’t hedge around. Don’t think people are going to pick up on nuances. They won’t. All my life, I’ve seen people miss nuances, particularly in sinful situations. It blinds people. So you’ve got to be fairly direct. It has to have that little sting to it where you’re proving again to them. You’re hitting them with a word that breaks a bone. Be direct about the sin that you observe.

Ask for a response. I just love that part of Gothard’s presentations. A lot gets a lot of things wrong, but you know, he always at those talks, the handouts, “Can we pray? Okay. And can you commit to me, you know, while we pray that you will do one thing to show your wife love today? And everybody’s praying. Raise your hand. Yeah, I see it. I see it.” He calls for commitment. See, that’s wonderful. That’s what we’re supposed to do.

So when you reprove or rebuke somebody, get them to commit to do something, to at least think about it. You anticipate what that proverb says: “Afterward, you’ll find favor with this person that you’ve rebuked.” Give them time to think about it, but get a commitment from them to consider it, to pray about it, and maybe to follow up with another meeting. Ask for commitment.

And one other thing I’d say in terms of presentation is, when you can, when appropriate, open it up. Now, this man says, “Don’t twist the knife.” And that’s well taken, but sometimes Jesus does. We saw that with Peter and Jesus, right? Jesus didn’t let it slide—the three denials. He brought it up again. He twisted the knife a little bit. Why? Because sometimes you need to kind of open up a person’s sin. You know, we don’t want to go talk to somebody about sin, or we last thing we want to do is do that. They say, “Yeah, I guess that was kind of stupid of me, wasn’t it?” Oh, I’m glad you see it now. Thanks very much. Let’s have a good—let’s go shoot some pool or something.

But see, you really want to get it to the place of biblical repentance. If there’s sin involved, no deflection, no diversion. Get to the place of repentance. Parents, we need to do this with our children. Not enough just to get them to sort of see what’s going on and maybe make some statement about apology. No, drive it home. Cleanse the wound, right? Or infection will set back in—often.

And then, as I said before, if it’s glory, knowledge, and life, you give them glory by these things. You bring the knowledge of God’s word. And the end result of it should be renewed fellowship, right? And reconciliation with one another. Good to have food at these meetings, to partake together, to remind yourselves. That’s what you do at the Lord’s table. That’s what you do in your private relationships: to affirm that community of love and fellowship.

And then finally, pursuit. Follow through. Don’t just say, “I’ve done my duty.” Follow the matter through. Matthew 18 requires that in certain situations, right? You try to do it, you come back, you follow through the matter. You don’t just say, “I’ve done my duty.” No, you follow through in terms of that idea. You pray for the matter afterwards if possible. You pursue another meeting with the person, and you reflect upon your own understanding of what’s happened. And as I said, affirm the relationship in terms of your rejoicing and life together.

Okay.

So preparation, presentation, and pursuit. I pray that God might use this particularly with our young people, you know, that you might see the great importance. You want to be that samurai warrior guy? Well, Jesus says you have great power and influence—to the breaking of bones and changing of reality by your speech.

Anticipate when another brother comes to you to speak to you about your life, you’re going to learn and grow wiser. He’s going to change your life. He’s going to make you better. He’s not coming to make you ashamed. He’s coming to bring you glory and honor. And do that to your brothers and sisters in Christ.

May God grant us generational maturation in employing the Lord Jesus Christ in his method of discipleship, which has a frequent use of rebukes as a system and way to achieve glory, knowledge, and rejoicing life, joy, and community.

Let’s pray.

Father, I do pray that as we come forward with our tithes and offerings, we would commit ourselves, Lord God. I pray that every person here would come forward committing themselves, Father, to once more apply themselves to a more diligent pursuit of wisdom and speech. Help us specifically, Father, to mature in our talking to one another in a frank way about sins that we might mature each other, that we all might increase—not just individually but corporately—in glory, knowledge, and life.

In Christ’s name we ask it. Amen.