Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript: Proverbs 30
## Pastor Dennis Tuuri

My prayer today is that the people of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the lion of Judah, who’s broken each chain, that we might see who we are in Christ, that we might see that we are indeed lions, who are to be stately in pace, who walk forth into the world, fearful of no beasts, who go forward in the strength of the Lord Jesus Christ, conquering in his name.

We’re in the next to last sermon on this series going through the book of Proverbs. And I’m afraid that for many intents and purposes of churches, we probably could have stopped this series about the middle of chapter 23. Because from chapter 23 on, the last ten sayings of the words of the wise, Hezekiah’s collection, and these last two sets of proverbs in chapter 30 and chapter 31—the sayings of Agur and Lemuel—these all have as their primary focus and application civil rule. And for too many churches, the church has no input into that particular arena.

Now, there are two ditches in this road. One ditch is to go forward and try to use the tools of those we see round about us and think that the world itself is changed through political action. It’s not. Political action is not salvation. But political action is part of human life dealing with the palace, the city, the community. That’s all it means, really, and that is a part of our salvation.

We are to mature as individuals and as a church from being children to becoming workers strong in our vocation, to establishing households, and then to move in terms of involvement in the civil arena. And if you don’t see that, then the last half of the book of Proverbs you might as well just cut it out of your Bible because that’s what it’s about. Now, this chapter today is exceedingly important as we move to the conclusion.

The two chapters 30 and 31 sort of serve as two sides of the same coin. We’re going to talk about Lemuel next Lord’s Day. And the king has finally been established. The prince has become the king as a result of the application of the truth and wisdom in Proverbs. And today we’re going to see the prerequisite for that occurring: humility. This relationship of humility to dominion is not a new subject, of course, in the book.

It’s been stressed, and it’s not a new subject in reference to the civil magistrate. What we have here is the picking up of major themes of the last two chapters of Hezekiah’s collection. We didn’t really get to spend any time in those last week—chapters 28 and 29. We looked at the emphasis on care for the poor in 28, which continues in 29. But if we were to take the time to read through those two chapters, we’d see that humility is absolutely key to establishing the king in his reign.

## Our Obligation to Civil Government

What’s our job in relationship to civil government? We can look at the Old Testament and see a couple of models there of who we’re to be. We can look at Israel. Israel was to have civil laws that were so wise and good that they would influence the nations around them to frame their civil laws in the same way. Deuteronomy makes that quite clear. There is a so-called political evangelism.

When we structure the laws of the culture in which we live in a particular way that’s godly, that enhances evangelism because people say, “Well, gee, how could you have such great laws?” And we say, “Well, Yahweh teaches them to us. They’re right in the Bible. How do you know how to govern so wisely? Well, we have half of the wisdom literature in Proverbs given to us to teach us how to do this. You see?

So that’s one model. Another model is Israel in captivity. Many people think this is a more proper model for us today—not because we’re in captivity, but because Israel in captivity is Israel dispersed in the nations. Now, there’s one perspective on this: that God’s people aren’t being punished by being sent off to Assyria or Babylon. Some of those people are being protected from the new Pharaoh that arises in the midst of Israel and creates Egypt there.

You see, God establishes these nations—the book of Daniel tells us—as houses for his people to help them. Now, they help them in varying degrees of loyalty to God, some more, some less, and there are problems, but there’s that perspective in there. And so we can look at Israel dispersed in the nations as a picture of what would happen when Jesus comes and disperses the church in a more heightened fashion throughout the world.

We don’t have a regionalized central sanctuary and temple anymore. No, now we’re scattered throughout the nations. And so that model also is an excellent one for us to look at.

And what happens there? Well, we read in Jeremiah, “Seek the peace of the city where I put you.” What’s peace? Peace is not the cessation of hostilities in the Bible. It’s the presence of God and the right ordering of our world that produces blessing. That’s what peace is. And God says we’re to actively seek the peace of the places we’ve been dispersed to. For in their peace, you shall have peace.

Paul picks that theme up in the New Testament and applies it to the church. You know, first, he says in his epistle to Timothy, in terms of instructions for the church, “You’re to pray for rulers and all kinds of men because God wants you to live a quiet and peaceable life.” You’re to affect the peace of whatever system you’re in, the context of which means their salvation—them as kings, you see. That’s what Paul tells Timothy. All kinds of men, but rulers as well. All kinds of application in vocation of marriage, but application in the civil arena as well. And we’re to try to seek the peace of the community where God has placed us.

So we have an obligation—a positive obligation—to speak forth the truth of God’s word in the culture in which God has placed us, dispersed us in the midst of. And whether we’re America 200 years ago, Israel in a sense a priestly nation in a reduced sense, but in some sort of sense to the world who becomes a beacon of light to the communities, or whether in the recent now of what has become Egypt, and now we’re in a nation whose God is no longer God, we’re still to work in the context of application of the political arena the claims of King Jesus, King of all kings, Lord of all lords.

So we have this positive obligation. We know we have the obligation because we’re given all this literature about it. Why would we have half of the book devoted to civil rule, how to achieve it, how to maintain it? Why would we have that if it wasn’t important to us to think about this and do something about it? God says it is. And the end result of what we see in chapter 30 today, as we move toward the end of the book—the end of that chapter rather—is this thing that is stately in pace, the lion, right?

The Lord Jesus Christ is the lion of Judah. We’re supposed to be bold. It came to me this last week that, for instance, this is an illustration of this. In this whole discussion of homosexual marriage, something very bad has already happened. What’s happened is the people of God are a little cowed. Instead of being bold, they’re a little cowed, they’re a little on the defensive about this. There was an article in the Oregon City News. Someone said, “I just want somebody to give me a rational, reasonable reason why gays shouldn’t be able to get married.” And I wrote a response. We’ll see if they publish it. I’m going to put a version of it in our newsletter next week.

But that’s the wrong starting point, folks. A prima facie, a first glance look at the issue of homosexual marriage means that it’s not us who should be coming up with reasons for this prohibition. Why? It’s been illegal in this country for 200 years. It’s been against the culture of nearly every civilized nation for the last 6,000 years. It is infertile. It cannot produce, by those two people, seed—future. So it’s cut off from the future. All they can do is take sperm, egg, children from other people, right? It’s infertile and has produced tremendous problems. The last plague in our country came from that activity.

But what are we so defensive about? We don’t have to come up with reasons why homosexuals shouldn’t get married. They need to tell us why the laws that have been in place for 200 years—every state in this country, including Oregon—it’s still illegal. Why do we need to come up with an argument to prohibit that activity from happening? We don’t have to. Now, we can and we should be prepared to do that. But I don’t think we enter into this or most discussions defensively.

We’re not cowed. We’re not cows. We’re lions. We should sally into these discussions, you know, in a bold, courageous, upfront manner. We should tell people, “Really, it’s not our job to come up with reasons why this has been this way. It’s been that way for 6,000 years in culture. It’s your job to convince us why it should be changed.” And then when those answers come forward, when the reasons are trotted out, you can respond to them and have your own reasons as well.

But it’s an example. Our mindset should be stately paced. We should be the ones venturing into these debates with courage, no fear, not being caught into a defensive position. The Lord God wants us on the offense.

## Offense Undergirded by Humility

Now, that offensive position is undergirded by a true humility before God. And that’s the theme of Proverbs chapter 30—humility and its relationship to dominion. And as I said, it really picks up the theme. Look at chapter 28, verses 28 and 29, which were the last two sections, last two chapters of Hezekiah’s collection.

And look at verse one of chapter 28: “The wicked flee when no one pursues, but the righteous are bold as a lion.” Yeah, there we go. See, kind of a nice little section here at the end of 30, linking back to 28. We’re not supposed to be cowed or be nervous or be apprehensive or be shy. No, the righteous are supposed to be bold as a lion.

And then we have throughout chapter 28 emphasis on the law. Law and justice is a major theme in the context of 28. But look down at how it closes—verse 25. I’ll read the last three or four verses of chapter 28. It’s kind of a summation. And it’s interesting because I can’t take the time to do this, but 28 and 29 kind of parallel one another. The same themes that are sounded off in 28 and then rounded up at the end of 28 are the same themes that predominate in 29: care for the poor, justice defined by God’s law, and a humility before God.

Verse 25: “He whose heart is proud stirs up strife, but he who trusts in the Lord will be prospered.” We’re going to see at the very end of chapter 30 a man who stirs up strife, the twisting of the nose, the turning up of dissension. The opposite of that kind of person is one who trusts in the Lord. He’ll be prospered.

So it’s very important that you understand that as you move to becoming a king or a ruler, you must have a humility before the Lord. “He who trusts in his own heart is a fool. Whoever walks wisely will be delivered.” King, don’t trust in your own heart. Don’t trust in your knowledge. Don’t trust in what seems best to you. Trust in the Lord and in his word. “He who gives to the poor will not lack, but he who hides his eyes will have many curses.”

Major emphasis of 28 and 29, as I talked about at the communion table last week, is concern for the poor. The king has to remember that he’s been shown grace by God. Blessed are the merciful. And he then demonstrates that acknowledgment that he’s been graced by God by being gracious, particularly to the poor. “Where the wicked arise, men hide themselves. But when they perish, the righteous increase.” That’s the job of the king.

He’s supposed to punish the wicked. He’s supposed to remove them through punishments, through corporal punishments, through whatever he’s going to do—converting them, letting them know that public foolishness will not be allowed. You know, it’s interesting that in Puritan New England, if a man got drunk, they’d put him in publicly. They’d put him in the stocks and they would beat him because they understood that corporal punishment is important for men who have twisted the image of God. What they’ve done is they’ve no longer portrayed the image of God. They portrayed the image of a beast, and beasts are treated like beasts. So 28 and 29 have this big emphasis on this.

Look at 29:14, the very next chapter: “The king who judges the poor with truth, his throne will be established forever.” And it’s all kind of wrapped up there. The king is to be compassionate. He’s judging the poor with truth. Truth and justice in 28 and 29 are always related back to Torah, God’s law, and its proper application in this culture.

And if we’re looking at God’s law, it’s because we recognize that our own thoughts are not ultimately of any value against the word of God. So it represents the humility of the king that he treats the poor graciously in relationship to God’s truth. And then the end result of that is that king’s throne will be established forever. He’s blessed by God.

And then look down at verse 23, as the chapter moves to a conclusion: “A man’s pride will bring him low, but the humble in spirit will retain honor.” How do you become a king? Humility. How do you get to dominion? Humility. Over and over again. Summary teaching here.

Verse 25: “The fear of man brings a snare. Whoever trusts in the Lord shall be saved.” So the king has to be able to have stately pace as he goes forth as the lion representing the King of Kings, the Lion of Judah. And he does that without fear of men, without fear of any other beast. And he accomplishes that through a humility before God—not through braggadocio, not through the macho man image. No, but the man who trusts humbly in God is the one that God exalts and gives power and strength to exercise civil influence in the context of a culture.

Okay, so that kind of sets us up for Proverbs 30. There are these linkages back. And what I want to do now—this is a little confusing, I’m sorry about this—but when we prepared the orders of worship originally, I was working off a structure or an outline of this chapter that James B. Jordan developed several years ago. I can’t find it. The responsive reading that we did from the order of worship, that responsive reading reflects an outline that Jim came up with. And I’m not going to use that one.

As I thought about it this week and worked on it more, I came up with a different outline. And that’s reflected on the other page, the next page of the responsive reading pages. If you want to take that home this week and meditate over that structure for this chapter or sometime in your life, feel free to do that. That’s a good exercise. But I kind of thought that what we have in this chapter is a series of numbered sayings—three things, four things here, a generation, four times. There are two questions asked. There are numbered sayings. There’s an introduction to the chapter, a conclusion to the chapter, and then a whole series of numbered sayings, and there are seven of those numbered sayings.

So it seemed to me that maybe a more proper way to treat the text—or at least the one I’m putting forward to you—is to look at these numbered sayings again as mirroring one another and taking us to a center in the middle of this chapter. And that’s the way I’m going to treat it. So we’ll work our way through the outline trying to draw these connections between the top and bottom as we move to the center of what I perceive as the center of the text.

## The Introduction: Verses 1-6

So first we’re going to look at verses 1 through 6, the introduction to these seven numbered lists. It doesn’t start with numbering. It starts first with an introduction to this particular chapter.

Remember, this is the sixth part of Proverbs. It correlates to the sixth day of creation. Fallen man is always connected to the sixth day, and the sixth feast in Leviticus 23 is the day of atonement—atonement for sins. So six things in a sequence of seven typically have this idea of sin, confession of sin, repentance from sin, and humility before God. And this chapter does that very well. This sixth section is very much a day of atonement, fallen mankind section.

And as we’ll see next week, the seventh section is that Sabbath enthronement that happens at the end of the seven days of creation, the feast of Tabernacles, and all that joy and wedding and all that stuff. So this is a sixth section, and first there’s this introduction.

Now, I’ve mentioned this before in this series, but some of the Hebrew words, particularly in this particular chapter, are arcane and have been translated incorrectly, and some we still don’t know how to translate. If that bothers you, I’m sorry, but this is the word of God. No problem with that. But we’re still an immature young church, and God will continue to show us how a few little words here and there should be translated better. Nothing—99% of the scriptures, no question what it is—but there are a few words here and there, and this is one of them.

We read responsibly from, I think it was the King James, New King James Version. So I wouldn’t, you know, put a translation in there. But on your outline, the one that was not stapled into the set but the freestanding outline, I have James B. Jordan’s translation of the first three verses: “The words of the Sojourner, the son of Yahweh. Blessed is he. Well, how does he get that instead of the words of Agur, son of Jakeh?”

Well, Agur—see, Old Testament names are kind of like engine names, you know. They kind of mean things. Running water, running bear, still meadow, whatever it is. And so you always have to figure: Well, do I translate the name, just transliterate it and say it as a name, or do I translate the name as a word? And it’s important, I think, to know that these names—whether you translate it as Agur or not—the word Agur means Sojourner, one who sojourns, not in a fixed place yet. And it’s important to know that.

So his translation says “the words of the Sojourner.” Now, Jakeh can be another name, and most translations treat it that way, but it also is a contraction between two Hebrew words: Yahweh and Kadash—Yahweh most blessed. And so here, this is the way Jordan’s decided to translate it. You’ll notice as we read through this first section, he’s going to ask some questions. He’s going to pose a riddle as to who God is and can you give his name and the name of his son.

Okay, so it seems like with that in mind, it’s proper to translate this “Sojourner” as the one who says in the middle, in the beginning, “He’s the son of Yahweh, blessed is he.” You see, what is his name? We’re going to see when we get there, it’s Yahweh. What is the name of his son? So he’s identifying who he is—ultimately who Jesus is, of course—but by way of showing that in this book, who this man who’s identifying himself is. The author is telling us who he is.

So he’s the Sojourner, the son of Yahweh. Blessed is he, Yahweh. That is. And then the burden, the man declares: “I have wearied myself, oh God. I have wearied myself, oh God, and have come to an end.” So those weird words we had trouble pronouncing—”Illukall”—those again can be translated into what they actually mean. And it seems to make a lot more sense. And this is the way most modern translators now translate that portion of verse one.

So the Sojourner brings a burden, and in this burden he declares: “I have wearied myself. I have wearied myself, oh God, and I have come to an end, for I am more stupid than any man. Now in your translations it said ‘surely I am more stupid than any man.’ The word translated ‘surely’ in the Hebrew is always a connective. And so what it does is tie that ‘more stupid than any man’ back to verse one. How has he wearied himself? Why has he done that? Why has he come to an end? Because I’m more stupid than any man, and I do not have the understanding of a man. I neither learned wisdom.

Now in the King James, it then says, ‘Nor do I have knowledge of the Holy One.’ But that word ‘nor’ can just as easily be seen as opposition—not in addition to what’s just happened. Those things are all connected together with the connective words. But now we get to a phrase that’s put in opposition. I’m a stupid person. I’m a dumb beast. I’ve had a tough life all my life. This wise old man tells us, “I don’t know anything, but I do know Yahweh.” And I think that’s a proper translation of these verses.

Either way, maybe he’s declaring his real lack of knowledge of even God in a full sentence. But he immediately goes on to talk about the importance of God’s word. So this introduction to this really gives us the key to the whole thing. This man Agur, the Sojourner, is declaring his humility in the sight of God. This is the state that we are in at various times of our lives. This is a state—if you take these verses as a unit—that we will identify with at differing portions of our lives.

If we get old, we know more and more about who God is, but we know more and more how stupid we are and how, apart from God, we’re useless and can do nothing. That’s what maturation is. It’s counterintuitive, isn’t it? You think that well, old people get really smart and they’ll know they’re really smart and they’ll be great in what they do. No, that’s not the point. Maturity in the scriptures is a maturing in knowledge of God and his word. Surely, but the more you know about God and his word, the more you know you don’t know about God and his word.

I was sitting with a man, a pastor I respect highly, a man whose speech is never colored in the sense of using strange language. And he used a very colorful expression. Three of us were sitting around—three pastors—trying to find a verse in the Psalms and we couldn’t find it. We were bemoaning our lack of knowledge of the Psalms. And this man said—and he’s been a pastor about 20 years—”You know, I’ve been a pastor 20 years and I don’t know. And he used a colorful expression. I’ll say ‘squat.’ I don’t know much,” is what he said. “I don’t know blankety blank.” And I thought, “He means that. I know this man. He does. I’ve never heard him use language that was a little off-color, but he did this time because he was telling the truth. He was saying just what this Sojourner was saying. I don’t know anything. I’m at the end of my days. I’m a mature man, but I really don’t know nothing. That’s humility before God.”

Later, we walked over to his church building and he said, “You know, I need to ask you two’s forgiveness.” And I thought I was going to hear an apology for the colorful language. And what he said was, “I need to ask your forgiveness because, you know, the Lord has taught me a thing or two.” And I thought, “That is really interesting. That was several years ago. It’s going to stay with me all my life. It’s a picture of what the Sojourner is saying here.”

And if we’re going to move and attain to civil rule, if we’re going to become Lemuels, we have to do it with a true humility before God that recognizes our limitations, our severe limitations, and our need to understand more and more about what God is revealing.

So humility is what this scripture, this chapter, is all about. Humility before God. A humility that says, “You know, I can’t figure out what happened this last week in my home or my family. I don’t know what’s going on in my relationship to this person. I’m at a loss.” Don’t feel bad. That’s the way the Sojourner’s life is normally. He says he’s at a loss. But in that loss, we trust the God because he does know everything.

He moves on from saying, “But I know the Lord.” I think that’s what he says. And then what he emphasizes is the word of God. Right? He goes on from there to emphasize God’s word. First, though, he gives us a little picture of what he doesn’t know, right? He asks a riddle. He says, “Who has ascended to heaven and descended? Who has gathered the water in his fists? Who has gathered the wind rather in his fists? Who has bound the waters in a garment? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What’s his name? And what is his son’s name? If you know.”

See, he’s humble before God. These are questions that remind me, at least, of the book of Job. This is the way God talks to Job at the conclusion of that book. He says, “I’m the one who does all this stuff. Can you do these things?” No. God asserts his primacy. And the Sojourner, in his humility, really does represent that he knows God.

He knows that God is the one who has ascended and descended. God is the one who can control the winds. In the Old Testament, the winds are not just the physical zephyrs, but they’re the angels of God. The angels are all ministering spirits, and winds—the way the Bible talks about it. And God is the one who controls those angels controlling the operation of the universe. God ascends and descends. He takes his heavenly perspective and purpose and does things in the context of the world on the basis of that.

And before that, the Sojourner is humbled, right? He knows he doesn’t know anything. God is the one who takes the very created order and makes a garment for himself, decides to dress up in the creation. He can take the water even and form a garment for himself. We know that the heavenly throne room is portrayed as this glassy sea before him. We know that when he comes, he comes in a cloud. He wraps the moisture of the cloud around himself. That’s the visual imagery of the Old Testament. God takes the elements of the created order to beautify himself, to glorify himself. And he does that kind of stuff.

He’s the one that wraps the water around him like a garment. He has established the foundations of the earth. He began all of this. And he’s working in the context of this. He’s got a heavenly pattern that he’s doing here. He’s controlling the angels and the forces of the world to create beauty for himself. That’s what the purpose of God is in history. This is who he is.

And so the wisdom here—that the king knows, that the godly man knows, to exercise dominion—is that he’s nothing compared to that. He knows Yahweh, but he also knows that he’s at a loss many times in the context of his life. And that’s the way we are. Some of you, I know, are going through situations that are absolutely inexplicable to you—why things have shaken out the way they have. You know, and if you haven’t gone through that this last week, there’s probably been something that’s happened in your life over the last few years. If you’re an older person, you’ll go through a dark night of the soul. You’ll go through various times as you mature where you’ll recognize that you don’t know squat, you know? But what he says is he moves on to say: “But I know God is moving everything around me for his particular ordained purposes to beautify himself and his creation. I’m part of that process.”

And so he takes hope in knowing God. And actually, he declares himself here to be the son of God. Now, ultimately that’s reference. It’s going to talk about who is the son of Yahweh. It’s Jesus Christ. And that’s what this text points to. Jesus does that. But he has just identified himself as a son of Yahweh, most blessed is he. So there’s something to this that he knows he has relationship to God—a father’s son type.

And he may not know much about who he is or his own wisdom, but he knows Yahweh. And that begins to give him understanding of who he is as well. And he goes on in this introductory section, you know, emphasizing humility before God. He goes on then to talk about how God has revealed himself. And that’s the scriptures. “Every word of God is pure. He is a shield to those who put their trust in him. Do not add to his words, lest he rebuke you and you be found a liar.”

So what he knows is God, and he knows God is revealed in the context of his word. And that word tells him that when he does his work in the context of the world, he’s supposed to have a shield around him. And that shield is the word of God, and that shield is pure. The word means purified gold. Dross has been removed from it.

You know, Solomon, who began this book—primarily his book—when Solomon was to go into the temple and to do his work moving into the context of the courtyard, he had a whole bunch of golden shields, huge golden shields that were pounded out, and the phalanxes that would surround Solomon the king as he goes in to do his work—whatever he went in official capacities. He’d have these soldiers with these huge gold shields.

See, when Solomon went into the courtyard of the temple or when he went to receive people in the context of his own dwelling place, Solomon recognized that he was to be in the glory of Yahweh, not his own glory. He was clothed ultimately with the glory of the King of Kings, the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s what those shields represented to him. And he understood this relationship of the shield to the word of God.

The king, the proper king, is humble before God. And his glorified state—he knows—is only glorified as he basks in the glory of God in his word. He doesn’t take his glory, his understanding, his mindset to do what he’s got to do. He’s surrounded by the glory of God. Now, when Israel is taken into captivity, or when there’s a defeat after Rehoboam comes along, the shields are removed. When Rehoboam’s foolishness divides the kingdom, the shields are all stolen away. Rehoboam makes bronze ones. That’s all he had left to make. But he then goes in—the scriptures tell us in Chronicles—and he goes into the official capacity as king, surrounded by bronze shields. He’s become repentant. Rehoboam begins immature and foolish, but at the end he surrounds himself with the reflected glory of God, although bronze by now because of his own foolishness.

So you see, it’s Psalm 131 all over again, right? Most of you know that I’ve given lots of you that assignment to memorize that psalm and to meditate upon it. You know, there are many things that we cannot understand—what’s happening—and there are other things that we might understand what’s happening, but we have absolutely no control of it. Well, don’t lose heart. Take heart. Recognize that that’s the proper state of who we are as Christians. A proper humility before God—recognizing that we don’t know much and we can’t control much—and we rest. Psalm 131 says, “Trust in Israel. Let Israel trust in Yahweh. Rather, trust in Israel. Let Israel trust in Yahweh from now and forevermore.” That’s what the mature dominion-oriented man does. That’s how we become bold as a lion—not through being smart, but through being humble before God and trusting in his wisdom.

So it really sets up the entire discourse here. This declaration of the Sojourner that he is humble before God, that he’s not prideful and lifted up. And we’ll see the corresponding book when we get to the end of the text. It’s very similar and not similar. It’s the opposite of a person who is not humble but who is self-exalted. And he then begins to move in the context of his discourse of his own weakness.

## First Numbered Saying: Verses 7-10

So the first of numbered sayings is in verses 7 through 10. And these sayings I subtitled “True Humility Means Knowing Our Limitations.”

So he begins with a numbered list. “Two things I request of you. Deprive me not before I die. Remove falsehood and lies far from me. Give me neither poverty nor riches. Feed me with the food allotted to me.”

Now, so you know, he doesn’t say, “Give me the wisdom to deal with foolish, lying men.” He says, “You know, it’s best for me if I’m not around those guys because I’m going to be tricked. You see, as we move to kingship and dominion, we think that what it means is knowing how to deal with everybody and knowing how to deal with liars and fools. Here’s some of that the Proverbs has given us. Some of that. But the wise man, the humble man says, “You know, God, you may bring cheats and liars into my life, but boy, I sure hope you don’t because I have no ability to really work through those kind of situations. Take them far away from me.”

“Don’t give me poverty on the one hand or riches. Feed me of the food allotted to me, lest I be full and deny you and say, ‘Who is the Lord?’ or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God.”

He’s saying, “I know my limitation. Patience. He says, ‘I’m fearful of myself.’ Are you fearful of yourself? I asked someone that this morning. They thought I was crazy. I thought, ‘Are you afraid of yourself?’ The wise man is angry at the picture of the wise man—you know, this is linked to becoming king—is true humility before God. And the wise man fears himself. He says, “Don’t put me in a situation where I’ve got so much money I’m going to be tempted to forget about you because I probably will. And on the other hand, he says, “Don’t leave me so poor that I’m going to be tempted to steal and dishonor you in that way because I probably will.”

You know, it’s the old Clint Eastwood thing. You know, a man’s got to know his limitations. We have to know our limitations. We have to recognize that. Have prayer meetings. I know that some people prayer meetings fairly regularly. Give me money, lots of money. Not Agur’s prayer. He prays just the opposite. Don’t give me too much money. Give me enough so I’m not poor. I’m not tempted, but don’t give me too much.

Later in the text, we’re going to read—we heard about the leech. The Sojourner, he doesn’t want too much stuff. On the other hand, the ungodly people, the prideful people, they can’t ever get enough stuff. You see the contradiction or the opposition that’s placed there. So the wise man, the humble man, knows his limitations. He has a proper fear of himself as typified in this first of the numbered lists. “Lord God, you know, don’t put me in situations where I’m going to be tempted beyond what I’m able to endure to sin because I know I will.”

## Second Numbered Saying: Verses 11-14

Now the second numbered saying is in verses 11 through 14, and this moves to arrogance. Now we’ve talked about so far the whole setup. Then it is true humility before God—humility that recognizes our limitations of knowledge and power and also recognizes the limitations we have in terms of temptation and being given to particular temptations.

But now he’s going to start to talk about—he’s going to contrast this humble attitude with the arrogant. And this doesn’t say there are four sayings, but there’s clearly four generations talked about here in a very numbered sort of fashion. So I’ve listed them as a four: “Arrogance and a Destructive Generation.”

“There’s a generation that curses its father, does not bless its mother. There’s a generation that is pure in its own eyes, yet it’s not washed from its filthiness. There’s a generation—oh, how lofty are their eyes! And their eyelids are lifted up. There is a generation whose teeth are like swords, whose fangs are like knives, to devour the poor from off the earth and the needy from among men.”

There is a young group of people who are not honorable toward their parents. The absence of blessing the mother is tied also to the cursing of the father. Now the word “curse” there means to make light of. It doesn’t mean to actually usher some sort of lying, swearing imprecation against your father. But it means to make light of them in different ways. And that doesn’t seem so bad. That seems like a normal teenage kind of thing—a generation that doesn’t really bless its mom. And actually, it’s kind of disrespectful. Calls their father “the old man” and their mom “the old lady”—as an example from when I was a teenager. Kids did that. Why do they do that? Because they’re pure in their own eyes, yet they’re not washed from their filthiness.

It means they didn’t use toilet paper. That’s what the Bible says here. They’re really prideful, and their pride is why they treat their parents lightly. But what they don’t realize is they stink to high heaven because they don’t use toilet paper. That’s what it means. It’s not a euphemism. That’s what it says. When it says they’re not washed with their filthiness, that is what the text means. You’re supposed to think that.

And it’s interesting because, you know, in the counterculture in the late ’60s, early ’70s that I have some knowledge of, this is very much what they were like. They had very disrespectful views toward parents. I was one of those. And there was a general absence of toilet paper. It was actually a joke at the time. There were national cartoons printed, you know, kind of urging the communes to get some toilet paper action going on because these people tended to smell bad. And that’s just what this says. And it all results from a pride of who one is.

“That’s a generation. How lofty are their eyelids? And their eyes? Their eyelids are lifted up. They’re very, you know, prideful. But then the punchline comes in, right? What are these people? What’s their effect on society? We’re talking about rule. We’re talking about effect on the policy. And the effect of prideful young people is this: They’re a generation whose teeth are like swords and whose fangs are like knives to devour the poor from off the earth and the needy from among men.”

No matter how proudly they say they want to help the poor, in point of fact they engage in policies that are not the law, justice, mercy, and compassion of God. And as a result, their very actions destroy the poor. We now have a very permanent underclass of poor in this country because of politics led by those kind of prideful, arrogant, parent-despising children—at that time—who now occupy the halls of power in many states and in the nation.

That’s what happens, you know. It was children. It was young people, teens, young 20-year-old people that murdered millions of people in Cambodia—that led to the killing fields of absolute slaughter there. It was young people in the revolution of Chairman Mao and the Cultural Revolution that killed all kinds of people and destroyed people in that culture. It was the young people in the French Revolution—the prideful again—who destroyed that culture.

That kind of pride, in opposition to the humility we’ve seen so far in this text, destroys a culture. It tears a culture apart. And whenever a culture is torn apart, the people that always get hurt worse are the people at the bottom end of the economic scale. That’s what always happens. And so the wisdom of Proverbs tells us that, you know, revolution is a bad thing, and it’s usually promoted by people who are prideful.

So in opposition to the humility of Agur, who’s moving us to this consideration of Lemuel the king, humility is linked to true and positive dominion. Arrogance is linked to destructive generation.

## Third Numbered Saying: Verses 15-17

Then the next section is a three or four list of sucking leeches, vampires. Verse 15: “The leech has two daughters: Give and give.”

So this is a set of proverbs about dissatisfaction—no contentment with what God has provided. Humility, you see, is content with what the Lord provides. They’re not happy with, you know, all the problems we might have or this or that, but are content with what the Lord God and his providence has given to us. We’re content. And this is a series of proverbs about dissatisfaction.

“The leech can’t get enough blood out of the thing it’s leeching. Give, give, give. There are three things that are never satisfied. Four never say enough: The grave, the barren woman, the earth that is not saturated with water, and the fire that never says enough.”

So what is this? Well, we have the grave, Sheol. Everybody goes. Everybody dies. So there’s never going to be enough to fill up the grave, Sheol, the place of the dead. It’s not talking about hell. It’s simply talking about death. The barren womb. You know, now this doesn’t have to be a source of dissatisfaction. In the scriptures, everybody’s barren. Everybody gives birth to essentially dead children, but the waters of baptism bring about a new creation in that child—by way of metaphor or picture. That’s the point. Regeneration, water from above. They come into the new creation. And then the parents, having given up their child—and are presented back that dead child and they now adopt that child into their home, this new creation.

You know, it really is never our child. It’s we’re having stewardship over the children that God has given us. They’re his children, a holy seed, right? And some people, you know, who are barren are not happy with the adoption model. But really, we all are to be happy with the adoption model. And so if you don’t come to resolution—a woman about physical barrenness, her own ability to produce children with her husband—then it can just beat you up, and there’s no end to that. It becomes a source of continual dissatisfaction.

God provides the solution: the model of adoption, contentment, et cetera. But otherwise the barren womb can’t be satisfied. It’s always has trouble. The earth that’s not satisfied with water—you know, no matter how much it rains, maybe some floods for a while, but it all soaks down in. We need water to live. The water comes down and the earth sucks it up. The earth sucks up all that water, and it can never get enough water. And then fire is always perpetual.

The arrogant person here, the dissatisfied person who is arrogant in their desires, is someone who never gets enough. You know, I’ve known people like this. Sometimes, you know, some people refer to them as high-maintenance people. And there are some people that you cannot give them enough maintenance. They will—if you allow them to take all your time, all your energy, sometimes all your physical resources. And you know, as you get involved in benevolent works, you start to understand there are some people out there just like this. They never get enough. And so you have to know that it’s a picture of arrogance ultimately before God—because it’s not satisfied.

The way the humble man is content and only wants enough to where he won’t be tempted one way or the other, this person can never get enough of your time, your energy, your money—no matter what it is.

And then at the end of this is another proverb in verse 17: “The eye that mocks the father and scorns obedience to his mother, the ravens of the valley will pluck it out and the young eagles will eat it.”

So that kind of wraps this back to that destructive generation. So it makes kind of a seven or an eight out of these sections, right? Because now at the end of the ones that are dissatisfied, there’s a return to the judgment on children who despise their parents. So arrogance and lack of satisfaction and contentment are bound together in this presentation from Proverbs. They tell us what we’re not supposed to be like and what people will not be able to exercise dominion with.

It’s nice that in the Passion, there was a nice visual representation in that movie by Mel Gibson of this very text. I had shown a movie called Excalibur—a little portion slice out of it—to a class of kids in my house several years ago. In that movie also, there are crows picking out the eye of a dead one of King Arthur’s dead knights as he’s hanging from a tree. And in the Passion, the bird that plucks out the eye of the unrepentant man on Christ’s right on the cross—that man is still alive in Gibson’s movie. Very powerful scene, and it’s a scene that should bring back images of this. And it’s a scene that should scare the whatever it is out of young children who go to see it who are not respectful of their parents.

So again here, it looks like, “Okay, you got this lack of contentment, but what’s the big deal?” It’s tied in with these people that are unwashed in their own filthiness who are a destructive generation. And now the eschatology of those kind of people is portrayed by the judgment of God—birds coming down to pluck out the eye of the one that wasn’t respectful toward their parents.

It’s interesting that the tremendous flu epidemic in World War I—that influenza initiated in birds—the judgment of God coming down from heaven. And that’s what’s pictured here by the Sojourner in his picture of the opposite of true humility before God.

## The Center: Verses 18-20

Then we get to the very center of these list of seven enumerated phrases—in verses 18 through 20. By the way, that verse we just read in 17, the eagles pluck the eye out—that is the actual center. If we just take, you know, the verses before and after, how many verses total? That’s the central verse. The exact center of Proverbs 30 is the judgment of God upon people that are prideful. And so while it’s stressing true humility and its relationship to dominion, it shows us at the literary structure—or the grammatical center—it shows us the judgment of God upon arrogance.

But I think that thematically the center is this fourth of the numbered sayings—verses 18 through 20. And this talks about wonderful dominion in the world.

“There are three things which are too wonderful for me. Yeah. Four which I do not understand. The way of an eagle in the air, the way of a serpent on the rock, the way of a ship in the midst of the sea, the way of a man with a virgin.”

What seems to be the common element here is that these are things that are exercising wonderful dominion in the context of their world. You know, you read this back then, and there’s no way you can fly as a man. And there’s no way you can travel gracefully over a rocky terrain the way a serpent can. And there’s no way you can go out in the water and move gracefully like a ship. You’re going to flap your arms, maybe swim some, but you know, it’s not graceful.

And what we have here is a picture of the created order—the triple decker universe that God gives us. We got the sky, we got the land, and we got the water under the land, right? And in each of these, this proverb says there is a wonderful dominion that’s being exercised by things that are in their element—right? That eagle does it gracefully. The snake goes right through the rocky terrain, no problem. You and I would stumble and trip over it. And the ship just kind of goes right through the water. You know, they both kind of use a back and forth motion. I don’t know if that’s significant. But you know, the idea I think primarily is that there’s wonderful dominion to be exercised by things when they are in their element.

And then the fourth of that list is the way of a man with a woman. And you know, those of us that have had kids and watch kids, and certainly those that have had them and gone through this, you sort of know that, you know, boys are bashful around girls. Girls are bashful around boys. You know, they get to that age and they really can’t. They feel awkward. And then all of a sudden, someone comes on the scene and there’s a click—a relationship begins to happen. And all of a sudden, that girl opens up. She can talk to that guy. And all of a sudden, he doesn’t feel awkward at all. She’s the one. And that’s what’s being described here. You know, the way of a man courting a woman as he moves in that love relationship that God has put together. This is a wondrous thing. He’s felt awkward and out of his element, and so is the girl, but now they’re in their element because this is whom God is moving them together to marry.

So that’s kind of the picture here: the universe and then mankind in terms of his the right woman in the right relationship. And remember, that’s been important in the whole set of proverbs, right? The right woman in the right relationship. So there’s this exercise of wonderful dominion in the world and in building homes and building the culture at the very center of this proverb.

And the idea is that we have humility versus arrogance. Arrogance comes to a terminal judgment. And humility becomes like that ship in the water, like that bird in the air, and like the snake on the rock. It can move in its element—of the world that God has created—trusting in God, and it can exercise wonderful dominion.

And then there’s a saying added to it. “There is this is the way of the adulterous woman. She eats and wipes her mouth and says I have done no wickedness.”

So after the whole universe is portrayed, you know sky, land, water, then we have two relationships given—the right kind of relationship between man and woman—and a return to this common theme in Proverbs of foolishness portrayed by the ungodly woman. And that’s sort of awesome too in a way. It is awesome how people given over to their sin can continue in that sin and not have a thought about it. She commits adultery, wipes them out, devours men—that’s the picture it’s supposed to give to us. It’ll eat you up, and she thinks nothing about it. The conscience once seared like that is an amazing thing to behold.

But it’s contrasted with the wonderful dominion exercised by people who are in their element, who are where God wants them to be. And where God wants us to be are those humble people, yet who are going forth as stately lions.

## Fifth Numbered Saying: Verses 21-23

All right, fifth section: a three and a four. Life-perturbing people matches up with the people that suck life. And now we have people that create perturbance of life.

“Three things the earth is perturbed. Yeah. Four it cannot bear up: A servant when he reigns, a fool when he’s filled with food, a hateful woman when she is married, a maid servant who succeeds her mistress.”

Notice that the first and fourth of those four things are both ruling elements. When a servant becomes the king, or when the maid servant becomes the mistress—when they achieve rule in the civil arena or in terms of the family—for the woman when there’s a reversal, bad things usually happen. You know, there’s an element in which class and distinction among civil rulers is proper. You know, the old American ideal of “any guy can grow up and become president”—it’s not particularly what we want. It can happen—can happen in a good way—but the Proverbs warns us in terms of civil rule that it’s dangerous when you take someone who is a fool and has no experience in these things and all of a sudden he becomes king.

This is another statement, like so many in the scriptures. We’re not revolutionary. The kingdom is built slowly. First the plant, then the corn in the ear, and then it buds out for us. That’s the way the kingdom grows. And revolutionary activities like this are bad, and they shake the earth.

The middle two are also linked. A fool when he’s filled with food, and a woman who is hated—that’s what it means by a “hateful woman”—not that she hates others, but she’s kind of despised by people for whatever reason. When she becomes satisfied through marriage, the restraint of trying to seek a husband is gone from her. And when the fool is satisfied with his food, the restraint of that hunger controlling him is removed. And when those things happen, then bad things happen. The earth is not given life. Life is perturbed and disturbed by those kind of occurrences.

## Sixth Numbered Saying: Verses 24-28

And then the sixth of these numbered sayings is verses 24 through 28: “Diligent Humility and a Constructive Generation.” We had the four generations prior to this. Now we’ve got diligent humility. There are four things—not three or four. This four matches the four generations.

“Four things which are little on the earth, but they’re exceeding wise. You see, so the picture here is the arrogant generation thought of themselves as great on the earth, lifted up, proud against their parents and against God. And in contrast to that, these are little things, but these little things are exceedingly wise and they actually produce productive purposes. They fulfill productive purposes in the context of the world.”

What are they? Well, “the ants are people not strong. Yet, they prepare their food in the summer—foresightedness on the part of little people thinking ahead, making plans, working together with diligence the way the ants work. This is wisdom, and this achieves rule in the home and in the culture and society as well.”

“The rock badgers—well, that word is coney, or like a bunny rabbit. The bunny rabbits are a feeble foe, yet they make their homes in the crags. They’re defensive in nature. They’re not going to get eaten up by all the different animals around because they built these homes out of rocks for themselves. And so, you know, the ants are foresighted and diligent. The bunnies are wise as they’ve made their homes in places that are hard to be attacked.”

“And the locusts have no king, yet they all advance in ranks. The locusts don’t have a central king, but there are so many of them, they can conquer a nation, right? This has literally happened in the history of the world. Locusts can basically take over a whole nation and eat all the produce. So enough of them.”

“And then the final small thing are the lizard. It’s—I know it says spider in the King James version, but the modern scholarship says this is a lizard. The lizard skillfully grasps his hands, and it is in king’s palaces.”

Now notice the transition there. Again, we should be real familiar with this pattern. We’ve got two things first—in terms of the home, right? Thinking ahead, getting food ready for the future of your home, building your home in a secure place. And what do we move to? The second half? We move to kings, right?

“And the locusts have no king, and yet they conquer. And the lizards end up in king’s palaces. And the idea here seems to be is that we’re like the locusts. We don’t have a king. We’re not going to have one king that we crown in this earth as our king, but we have King Jesus, right? And we’re his host. We’re the Lord of Sabaoth. And he sends us out like these grasshoppers, like these locusts.”

“And when God’s people work together under the province of the invisible king to us, the Lord Jesus, through the power of the Spirit, they can conquer nations. And that’s our responsibility to go forward in that way. And we’re supposed to be as wise as serpents, lizards, reptiles. The reptile skillfully grasps his hand. It’s in king’s palaces. Why is it there? Because it has no fear. It’s like that line we’re going to read about in a little bit. It goes in, and that’s where it is.”

“You know, it’s kind of like the prophets of old. They went and they spoke to kings. They had no fear of men. They were humbled before God. They knew that they knew nothing without him, but they knew too that with him they had a message to the king. You know, so these are little things, but these little things produce life and are constructive and end up ruling in the context of God’s world. That’s who we’re to be. We’re to be little humble things that under the blessing and providence of God become mighty in terms of our effect upon the world.”

## Seventh Numbered Saying: Verses 29-31

And then the final numbered saying is a three or four: “Majestic Dominion.” Kind of going back to what those other guys were like that did so well in their own particular environment. Now we’ve got:

“There are three things which are majestic in pace. Yes. Four which are stately in walk: A lion which is mighty among beasts does not turn away from any. A greyhound. Now that’s probably a rooster. Greyhound’s a bad translation. Again, a rooster, a male goat also, and a king whose troops are with him.”

And the idea here: these are particular animals again in the created order. The rooster, you know, all the hens, you know, look up to the rooster. And the male goat, you know, all the female goats look up to him. The lion is stately in pace as well. And what it’s saying is that if we recognize our humility before God, we can exercise majestic dominion even in that humility—the same way that these beings picture us.

The final one again—it moves toward it: “A king whose troops are with him. A country that’s united and not divided. A king whose people are with him. And so our job is not just to create a king without people that are with him. Our job is to speak in the political arena, convince men to follow the laws of King Jesus, have a king with troops with the people that are with him. And the end result of that: God’s majestic dominion being exercised.”

## Conclusion: Verses 32-33

Finally, there’s a conclusion—a putting off and a putting on. The last two verses: they’re funny to be here, but if you think about it, they’re a very good contrast to what was presented at first.

So what he’s done here is he said, “Look, you want to be a king, you want to rule in the context of the culture, you got to learn first how to rule in your home, how to be productive and foresighted, how to make a safe, secure place. But more importantly than that, you have to learn to be humble before God.”

It is those who are humble before King Jesus that he exalts. And one way he has of making us humble is through taking us through circumstances that are beyond our control or understanding. And our job is to peacefully lay ourselves at the feet of the King and say, “We don’t get it. We trust you. We know you love us, and we’re trusting in that and returning to that word of yours.” That’s our glory—not our own knowledge, not our own understanding. That glory, that shield around us as we go throughout our week this week, is to be the glory of God’s pure word, the refined word. And as we go about doing those things, that’s the key to exercising dominion.

So he’s stressed humility and dominion. And then there’s a final warning against those who are not humble.

Verse 32: “If you have been foolish and exalting yourself, if you’ve devised evil, put your hand on your mouth. As the churning of milk produces butter and the twisting of the nose produces blood, so the forcing of wrath produces strife.”

So he ends with an admonition, you know. At the end of the Passion, you know, it’s kind of like this scene. From what Peter or something—you got Jesus’s mother sitting there at the foot of the cross. She’s holding him, and there’s a long pause, you know. I don’t know how many seconds it goes on, but it seems like a long period of time when she’s just staring at the audience. And what Gibson is doing is he’s driving the message home. He began at the movie with, “You know, he was wounded for our transgressions.” And he concludes it just before the resurrection. That is, he concludes the Passion by showing you that it’s for your transgressions, and she’s looking at you saying, “Do you get it? Do you understand?” She’s driving home the message.

Well, that’s what he does here. He says, “Now look, I’ve told you how humility is the source of dominion. I’ve given you various things that you’ve probably engaged in. You’ve probably been disrespectful to your folks. You probably don’t look to God’s wisdom in things that you’re doing. You probably look to your own glory. But now I’m going to drive home the message to you. If you have done this, if you have been foolish in exalting yourself, and I know you have, put it off. Stop doing it. Turn from that foolishness. Don’t do it.”

And then he tells why you shouldn’t do it in verse 33. And again here there’s a translation problem. The word churning, twisting, and forcing are all the same word in the Hebrew, okay? And the word is set up with the first phrase. Milk is churned to produce butter. So let’s use that word: “As the churning of milk produces butter and the churning of the nose produces blood, so the churning of wrath produces strife.”

Another interesting thing is that wrath, the word translated wrath, is the same word but plural as nose. Wrath is connected to the nose. The nose is the center of the face. It’s the center of who we are. And when we flare the nostrils, we’re angry. You see what’s the point of this?

Well, it says there’s a proper churning, a working that we’re supposed to be doing—humbly before God. We’re supposed to take a pail of cream, to be a little master, to either drown in the cream or turn it into butter. We’re to be those who churn the situation that God’s placed us in and create butter out of that. The Lord God promises a land flowing with milk and honey, right? Be a land that we can make all that butter in because butter is great stuff. We’re supposed to churn and exercise dominion—quietly, slowly in what we do—creating blessing from God.

If we don’t do that, then we’re doing the wrong kind of churning. Now we’re churning someone’s nose or our own nose, getting bent out of shape about something that produces wrath instead of contentment, humility before God. And our wrath churns us up. It churns other people up. We feed that wrath in our pride and our lack of humility. And that’s what produces strife.

You know, Agur says, “Hey, you’re supposed to be a king. You’re supposed to walk stately, boldly into the task that God has given you to do.” And you accomplish that by humbly working away at the task that God has given you to do—today, today. And by putting off the exaltation of ourself. The exaltation of ourself is what inevitably produces strife in the context of the world. The proper humiliation of ourselves before God and a cleaving to his word, his truth, is what establishes us as kings and queens in our home, as rulers in the church, and then as rulers in the context of the civil state as well.

You know, I believe it’s important for Christians to enter into the political arena, but I do not believe the worst thing we could do is enter into that arena in some kind of prideful, triumphalistic sense—using the tools of the modern world in terms of political action that will not give us courage as the lion has courage. What will give us courage is a recognition that we can’t figure it all out. But we have an obligation to take the word of God and have it transform our lives to make us productive people, churning out butter, and to speak forth that word in slow, measured ways—but ways nonetheless—that end up churning a culture of blessing as well.

Humility is the key to exercising dominion. Counterintuitive, but then God’s ways always are because they’re not our ways.

—

Let’s pray. Father, it’s our desire, Lord God, to see blessing in our homes, to see blessing in our church, to see blessing in our community. We want to be, Lord God, those that speak forth your word into all that we do and say. Grant us, Father, that we would have a stately pace this week as we walk into it under the Lord Jesus Christ.

Father, we know that you’re ultimately the one who, whose angels rather are ministering spirits to you. You control the environment around you. You indeed bring down to earth what you are purposing in heaven. But we also know, Lord God, that we are called to do that as well. We have ascended into heaven, Father, to hear your word. And we will descend back down to know how it is we’re to build our lives, receiving vision from the work of the Lord Jesus Christ and his word preached to us today and the liturgy enacted.

Father, we thank you for having us ascend and descend, seeing the relationship, Lord God, of heavenly truths and earthly truths. Thank you, Lord God, that you give us power to take elements of our world, to bring together forces in the world to accomplish the purposes that you give us. We thank you, Lord God, that you call on us to mature the world round about us. Indeed, in some analogical way, to clothe ourselves with the beauty of your creation.

We thank you for that, Father. And we recognize that we are the ones that are called as well to exercise purpose—grabbing a hold of what you’ve given us to do and the mission and task you’ve given us from that heavenly perspective. Applying the forces that you’ve given us to work with in the context of our particular callings and lives to the end result of producing your beauty and glory in the context of our culture and of this world.

Thank you, Father, for our high and holy calling. Thank you that we are truly united to Jesus, your son, and we are now your sons as well. In his name we pray. Amen.