Dennis Tuuri

# Proverbs 26 Sermon Transcript

Proverbs 26 is the sermon text. As a summary of its teachings, I’ll read again verses 1 and 2 and verses 27 and 28. Please stand for the reading of God’s word.

“As snow in summer and rain in harvest, so honor is not fitting for a fool. Like a flitting sparrow, like a flying swallow, so a curse without cause shall not alight.”

And now verses 27 and 28:

“Whoever digs a pit will fall into it, and he who rolls a stone will have it rolled back on him. A lying tongue hates those who are crushed by it, and a flattering mouth works ruin.”

Let’s pray.

Father, we thank you for your scriptures. We thank you for Hezekiah’s collection. We thank you, Lord God, for these proverbs given to help kings rule in the context of their states. Help us, Lord God, now to be taught by your spirit as we meditate on your word that we may both strengthen community and be committed to that, and also committed to put away the sins that so easily weaken community.

We thank you for the community of the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you for calling us as kings and priests in it. Help us to be kingly in our wisdom and our application of that wisdom as a result of your spirit taking this word and writing it upon our hearts. In Christ’s name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated.

Proverbs 26 is the second chapter in the kingly collection of Hezekiah. That’s why we sang the responsive psalm that we did about giving the king thy judgments. And as I just prayed, we are called to be kings and queens in the context of Christ’s community. So these proverbs are given first and foremost to kings that they may rule well and secondarily to us as well that we may rule and build in the context of the community of the Lord Jesus Christ.

I want to talk today first about the importance of community to God’s plan. Secondly, about the ways we are called to strengthen community. And then third, from Proverbs 26, some specific warnings about men and specific actions that weaken community.

**The Importance of Community**

First, the importance of community. You all know—I hope you know—that our vision statement appears on the bottom of every announcement stapled to the back of every order of worship every Lord’s Day. Our vision statement culminates in a three-fold action coming out of worship that ends in mission, discipleship, and community.

So our vision is to love the triune God and transform the fallen world. Lord’s day worship reorients us in terms of the covenant and we leave here with a renewed sense of mission, a renewed commitment to disciple the nations, including our children, our friends, our communities, and also a renewed commitment to rejoice in and build community. Community is that third aspect, and it all comes from Matthew 28, the Great Commission.

Jesus gathers the disciples together on the mountain. He prepares them for that by telling them that the weak women at the first half of chapter 28—that we think of as weak—are going to conquer the world as opposed to the mighty guards of the tomb who lie in conspiracy plots. Weak women. And the Lord God uses the weakness of the church of Jesus Christ, described as the bride of Christ, to conquer the world.

And then he tells us how to do that in the last half of chapter 28 in Matthew’s gospel, the Great Commission. They meet to worship him. And in the context of that worship, he tells them to go. He tells them to have a sense of mission to the world. He tells them to disciple the nations. And he tells us that the way to do that is to baptize them, bringing them into the order and administration of the church. And also to teach them all things I’ve commanded you.

So to disciple the nations is the second element of how we take this worship out. And then he gives us this great promise: “Lo, I am with you always.” Christian community is a fact. And the increase of community is what the world and Jesus Christ is in the process of affecting. So community is absolutely vital to the calling of the Christian.

Rich Lusk had an article in a recent edition of the Auburn Avenue Chronicles, a newsletter put out by the church in Monroe, Louisiana, called “God Is Not Enough.” I’ve given you that on the outline here. It’s a kind of provocative title, but Lusk calls us to meditate on the fact that Adam was created, right? And Adam’s alone, sort of, but he’s not really alone, is he? God says it’s not good for man to be alone.

But from one perspective, Adam is not alone. Adam has a vocation. He’s got all the blessings of the Garden of Eden. He’s got wonderful stuff to eat. He’s got the tree of life to eat from, and eventually the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Everything’s given to him. He’s got relationship with Jesus, right? He’s got relationship with the God who created him. He’s not alone. He’s in a place of tremendous blessing. And yet, in the midst of that, God says it’s not good for man to be alone. And maybe another way to say that is God is not enough. That’s maybe an overstatement for effect, but you see what the point is.

Not enough for Adam. He needed community. He needed a wife. And another way to put that is that God is pleased to communicate his blessings to us through the mediation of people. Community is absolutely essential to godly human existence.

Jean-Paul Sartre said that hell is other people. That’s an interesting description of what hell is. Hell is other people. Now, in point of fact, in the context of the real hell that really does exist—you don’t hear much about it anymore, but hell really does probably is seen as primarily an isolation from people. Hell is isolation from every point of meaning and purpose. But Sartre, echoing so many people today, says that hell is other people.

Jonathan Edwards, on the other hand, said, “Heaven is a society of love.” A society of love. Wonderful way to phrase it, isn’t it? Heaven is a society of love. Sartre thought that hell was other people. Well, to the Christian, isolation is not good. It’s not good for man to be alone.

Psalm 133—this is really taken again from Rich Lusk’s article. We know this psalm tells us about how good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. This is a great thing. But maybe you didn’t notice which—what I pointed out in the little outline here that is bracketed off at the bottom end by this phrase: “For there the Lord commanded the blessing, life forevermore.”

At the middle of this is the precious ointment coming down upon the head, even upon Aaron’s beard, and then the dew of Mount Hermon. So you’ve got oil and dew and the priests and the mountains at the middle, and at either end you have this blessedness of people dwelling together in unity. And then this is the blessing that God has commanded: life forevermore. So to us, life is other people. Heaven is other people. And God says that we’re to pray, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

If we agree with Edwards that heaven is going to be this wonderful eternity spent with our friends who will always treat us right and our friends whom we will always treat right, like we’ve done in this life, you see, heaven is this great society of love and charity. Well, God says that’s what we should be praying to have in existence here on earth. We’re to bring heaven to earth. And so community is absolutely vital and essential for the Christian.

It’s of tremendous importance. And so we have this great obligation then to strengthen community. This is part of our central vision as a church—our goal is to strengthen community. And if our worship service gets to the place where community is being attenuated or weakened, then we have to figure out what we’re doing wrong here on the Lord’s day. Because if worship is this great kind of matrix out of which everything else flows, worship is to produce a sense of the importance of community and a commitment on the part of God’s people to strengthen Christian community and not to weaken it.

**Strengthening Community: The Marital Foundation**

Last week really was part of strengthening Christian community from one perspective. In the Song of Solomon, the first couple of verses, there’s a nice little synopsis of what that great book teaches about love. I think I mentioned this last week, but it’s just incredible that people try to talk about what it means human husband-wife love without having primary reference to the Song of Solomon. How can we talk about worship without talking about Leviticus? How can we talk about love without talking about the Song of Solomon? How can we talk about ruling in the context of Christian culture if you don’t understand the wisdom of the book of Proverbs?

So God has these great books hidden away in the Old Testament to too many people today, and our eyes may be wide open, but we can’t figure out how to worship, how to love our mates, or how to rule because we’re not looking at these books that are totally given over to just those subjects.

I just wanted to very quickly—I made this claim to my wife this last week—that you know all you got to do is remember the first couple of verses of the Song of Solomon or remember to go to the first couple of verses if you’re a wife and sort of remind yourself about everything in that sermon last week. What it says in verse 2 of Song of Solomon is: “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for your love is better than wine.”

So she initiates and desires intimacy. First, she initiates. Secondly, she prioritizes the relationship. “Your love is better than wine.” Third, “Your name is ointment poured forth.” She respects and with her speech lets her husband know that she respects his name—all that he is, his vocation, his calling, his interests, right? So her speech is respectful that way. And then fourth, “Draw me away.” She gets her husband alone with her, right? Gets him off with her, just herself, away from the kids, away from the extended community for periods of time. So she seeks intimacy, she values the relationship, she speaks words of respect to her husband about his name, all of his person. She tries to get him alone.

And then finally, this leads to the success: “The king has brought me into his chambers.”

Now, I don’t mean to say by this—you know, I certainly don’t mean to imply that if wives do everything right, their husbands are going to love them. Men are fearfully and wonderfully made. God has set eternity in our hearts. We are needful of God, and we are exceedingly powerful, made in the image of God. And a man can turn away the best attempts of his wife to minister God’s grace to help him love her. And a woman can turn away the best, hardest efforts of a man and still not be respectful or properly biblically submissive and joyful in the relationship.

That’s just the way God has made us. So I don’t mean to make anybody feel guilty, any women feel guilty after last week’s sermon. I’m just saying these are the ordinary means we’re supposed to use on the part of husbands and wives to encourage and assist each other in building the base—the foundational base of Christian community—which is the relationship of husband and wife that yields to a family and it yields to kids and kind of builds the base of the church, and that’s the foundational level.

So one way we strengthen community is to focus upon building the base. I saw on America Online just a couple of days ago this story that marital bliss is a really important factor to happiness. A happy marriage, this survey found out, is—if you move from kind of a neutral marriage to then having lots of good times together and a happy marital life—that increases your happiness as much as a $100,000 a year raise would increase your happiness.

So these guys say—I don’t know how they figure this stuff out—but tremendous value. On the other hand, when people get divorced, it’s like getting reduced in pay $60,000, this study found out. So marriage, like, you know, you cannot go out tomorrow, men probably, and get a $100,000 a month raise, but you can feel just as good as if you did by prioritizing your relationship with your wife and delighting in that relationship.

You see, we’re always chasing the money. But this survey is consistent with biblical truth. Biblical truth says, you know, money is kind of a trailing indicator. It’s somewhat important, but what’s really important are these human relationships. And if you correctly prioritize those, while you’re feeling as good as if you were making as much as those maybe minor league baseball players—okay, prioritize everybody. Prioritize this then in terms of building the base.

We strengthen community by building a base by prioritizing it. And then greetings at evening. I didn’t remember if I mentioned this or not last week, but it’s so important wives: when the husbands get home at night, that you’re kind of—you know, the Song of Solomon—”I hear him coming. He’s coming. Oh, I’m so happy to see him.” If your husband knows that’s what you feel like when he gets home, you know, you got the place ready. You’re making him feel good. You’re speaking words of “Boy, it’s great to have you home.” This is a good thing. Words of respect and love. And of course, this is mutual. But the point is that we strengthen biblical community by building upon the base, which is this husband-wife relationship that I’ve talked about in these couple of sermons on husbands and wives.

**Strengthening Community: Bowels of Compassion**

Secondly, we strengthen Christian community with bowels of compassion. That’s an old King James phrase from 1 John 3. Turn to 1 John 3:16 and we’ll read there for a couple of minutes. And what I’ve got here is: I say the bowels of compassion—the dangerous necessity of compassionate community to our assurance of salvation. Okay, what is all that about?

Well, I mentioned—we’ll turn, we’ll look at these verses in just a minute—but I think I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I saw a fellow named Richard Sennett on C-SPAN. I tend to like to watch Booknotes, or whatever, however long I can on Saturday. It’s a C-SPAN feature on satellite TV where they have authors speaking. I saw Edmund Morgan from the Puritans, who wrote *The Puritan Family*, on there a couple weeks ago. That was wonderful. Well, a week or so ago, I saw Richard Sennett. He teaches at the London School of Economics and New York University. Interesting guy. He’s a sociologist that a lot of people are looking to for this idea of community building.

You know, there’s certainly—everybody knows—there’s a loss of so-called natural community in a technological society. You know, agrarian societies have kind of inbuilt natural community—extended family, small towns. We were at the Washington County Fair yesterday looking at the animals, and it’s kind of neat. You go to the auction where they’re auctioning the animals off, and you know people are trying to help the kids get money for their pigs or their cows or whatever it is. They’re all trying to bid it up. There’s a community, you know, that’s kind of based in sort of a natural sense of agrarianism.

But as a culture moves, properly more and more technologically advanced and more and more, you know, kind of into larger cities—that’s not wrong. But what it means is that natural community falls away and you have to think of ways to actually work at community, okay. So Sennett and men like him are being looked at for how to advise culture to try to rebuild community because community’s completely falling apart.

Sennett’s an interesting guy. He grew up in a housing project in Chicago. He’s white. A lot of black kids there too. And so they had a racial difference. One of the games they would play is glass war. And these little kids would find pieces of broken glass or make pieces of broken glass and throw them at each other. This is one of their games. And of course, it wasn’t a particularly friendly game.

This guy, it turned out, was incredibly adept at playing the cello, but then somehow he ended up with an accident that destroyed his hand, and he was no longer able to play the cello. So he has experienced in growing up the difficulty of community—you know, a racially—you cannot become black or you cannot become white no matter how much you might want to. There is built into it a sense of difference or otherness. He cannot get his hand back to where it was. He cannot play the cello anymore.

So this is part of the motivation for this man trying to think: How do we build community in the face of people who have disappointments? They can’t play the cello like somebody else can. They can’t be black. They can’t be white. Whatever it is. He grows up in a very poor neighborhood, a housing project. You know, how do we live? How do we have community between haves and have-nots, etc.

So Sennett is sort of looked at as one of these thinking sort of guys that people look to for how we create community. So he’s trying in this latest book he’s written, called *Respect in a World of Inequality*, to come up with other models for community strengthening.

You know, the welfare reform model is to try to get everybody on the same plane in terms of economic status. It’s a meritocracy. If every—it’s kind of a typical American approach. If everybody just works hard enough, everybody can be a millionaire, right? So it’s a meritocracy. But he’s saying, you know, maybe that’s not the best way to think of how we should go about building community. Maybe we should try to think of how to build community when you don’t have everybody equal. When you’ve got haves and have-nots who are somewhat permanently stuck in these perspectives.

The guy with the crushed hand can’t play the cello anymore, no matter how hard he works at it, okay? And there are people who may not be able to fit in this generation. Maybe their kids can, but because of the change of technology and the change of how the economic world flows these days, maybe they really will never be able to make more than just eking out a living for their family.

And so, how do we build community across those kinds of differences? And what Sennett and others say is what they want to do is build community on camaraderie as opposed to compassion. Because when you start building community on compassion, you reinforce this idea of the other, right? You’re being compassionate to somebody with something less than you. And that quickly devolves into an us-versus-them: “I’m better than them. I am a better person because I have more goods and services,” when in reality you may just have not had the accident that crushed your hand, right?

So compassion is dangerous because it leads into kind of a snobbery and a looking down upon people, and it’s just as dangerous because it can lead to a sense of pridefulness that somehow I have more money, I can play the cello because I’m a better person, as opposed to my parents worked harder with me, I had natural ability, and the other guy didn’t.

So what Sennett is saying is that compassion is a real dangerous model. So maybe we should use this idea of camaraderie instead of compassion. So—compassion. And I would agree with Sennett that compassion as a tool to strengthen community is dangerous. It’s dangerous for demeaning and degrading other people, and it’s dangerous for causing ourselves, one that give compassion to others, to feel like we’re better.

Having said all that though, the scriptures are quite clear that, well, as dangerous as compassion may be, leading quickly to envy, resentment, pridefulness, etc., still it is what we’re supposed to do. The scriptures say, “Now, let’s look then at 1 John chapter 3.”

“Hereby perceive we the love of God because he laid down his life for us, we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But who so has this world’s goods and sees his brother have need and shuts up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth. And hereby we know that we are of the truth and shall assure our hearts before him.”

So you see that God says, have bowels of compassion—have intestines, interior to your being—not as a thought exercise or a decision of the will, but really care for people. Have bowels of compassion. And not only does it positively enjoin this to us to create Christian community directly in the context of differences in money—right? You got stuff to give; they have stuff they need; give to them—so it’s talking about economic diversity in Christian community.

And in the midst of that, it doesn’t say, you know, camaraderie. It says compassion. And it actually says that this presence of compassion for your brother or sister in need is a test of whether you love God. It’s how you assure your heart that you have faith. So you see, it is dangerous, compassion as a community-strengthening device. But it is absolutely necessary because God says so. And not only that, but it’s necessary as one of the ways that God gives us for the assurance of our own salvation.

How do we know that we’re Christian? God says one way you know you are sure your hearts before him is if you have not shut up the bowels of compassion that the spirit of God has given you for others in the context of community. We are to be positively charitable. We’re to have compassion. We strengthen biblical community by engaging the bowels of compassion—not just in feelings but in actions—then of assisting one another.

Now, what he uses here is economic sharing, right? You’re talking about money. So people that have more money in the congregation are supposed to be thinking about people that have less money in a congregation, and they’re supposed to be positively looking for ways to minister to them goods and materials, money, okay?

And God says whether you look that way or not is whether or not it’s a test of whether you’re a Christian or not, whether you can assure your hearts before him.

One application of this that’ll be coming up in the next few weeks in this church—it’s already going on in this church—one way that people in our congregation are employing this is when they adopt children who have tremendous needs and will grow up fatherless, motherless as orphans in other countries. They bring those children into their homes and they take their goods and services and, trans-globally now, they have bowels of compassion toward children, or maybe here in the state, and they want to give of the resources that God has given them to those children.

The Combs are doing this right now. The Merediks are in the process. Others have as well. This is a wonderful Christian endeavor, and it’s a very expensive endeavor to do it cross-globally. And one of the things that the deacons are talking about right now with the Merediks is setting up a fund to try to assist people who want to adopt and are making a good income but don’t want to use every last dime of their money to try to adopt kids. So the whole congregation can help them build up a fund by which we can help people that have reasonable assets. We don’t want to fund people who can’t take care of their own family and then some. But we can help people with money, goods and services to adopt kids and share their wealth with them. And it’s a way—it’s a way to let these bowels of compassion, you know, flow.

So bad imagery, but you know what I’m saying? This is a way to exercise Christian compassion and strengthen community. And you’ll have opportunity to kick in five bucks, ten bucks, whatever it is, in the next few weeks. We’re providing a mechanism here for you to assist in the establishment of an adoption fund to share goods and services from this country, from our households, with people either from our state or across the world that have less resources and don’t have even families.

So the Bible says this is how we assure ourselves, and it uses money. But I think that clearly we can think of other things we have to minister one to the other as well.

Roger W. is going to be encouraging you to sign up on a survey form. We’ll have it at the doors as you leave service today where it kind of lists what skills and abilities you have, and we’ll put a little directory together, so if people, you know, want to, or need some skill, they know they can call on you to help with that skill. And it’s a way to let this community-strengthening of compassion flow.

We should look around. Here’s the point: one way we strengthen community is to see what assets God has given to us and use them to assist people that don’t have those same assets, whether it’s money, knowledge of the scriptures, social skills and abilities, friendships, whatever it might be. You know, we have a positive obligation to try to make up the differences that exist in the context of our community as best we can.

And so we should have compassion for one another that tries to see what each other is missing in their fulfillment and joy of the Christian life and minister to that.

We have stressed in Proverbs that we need to be careful with our children, what sort of friendships they build, right? We know that. We know that, you know, to hang out with the wrong set of kids is bad. You’re going to learn their ways. Hang out with kids who you’re going to want to emulate. That’s good and proper. But another purpose for friendship is to minister to people that need friendship. If our children only grow up knowing that they’re going to try to pick friends that can benefit them, we’ve kind of flipped the whole thing on its head. Friendship and community is strengthened as we seek to minister to one another.

You young people in this church can apply this immediately. You strengthen community in the body of Christ when you see a visitor here—young person, child, whatever it is—and you go out of your way to introduce yourself, out of your way to introduce them to other people. You strengthen community. You’ve got relationship here at the church, and you want to—you want to—you want to minister that relationship to people that come into this church and others at the church who may not have as many friends or relationships as you have.

It’s very important, you know, that you kind of recognize that if you’ve got more money, your tendency is to become prideful about that, and with your speech, denigrate people without more money. If you’ve got—if you’ve been blessed with either friendship, money, whatever it is, intelligence—it’s very easy for you to not be compassionate. But God says you’ve been gifted by him to strengthen Christian community by having these bowels of compassion that then result in you positively working and acting for the well-being of others.

So we strengthen Christian community in that way.

**Strengthening Community: Faithfulness and Compassion**

Secondly—or third, so—it’s important we strengthen it also through faithfulness. Compassion and community. This is—see on your outline—Hebrews 2:17. I keep giving you these little teasers; I hope for my series on Hebrews to start in December. Turn to Hebrews 2:17 in your scriptures, and we’ll look at this for just a minute.

Part of my reason for doing this sermon is because, you know, as we grow and as we got this building, community became a little less natural for us too. And so I don’t want community to fade here. I want us to look at the things that can strengthen the tremendous community God has given to us, that it doesn’t tail off, right? And that it—and that it—and it actually is strengthened.

Hebrews 2:17. The way Hebrews works is there’s seven sections, and each section has an introduction at the conclusion of the previous section. Hebrews 2:17 is at the end of the second section, but it also serves as an introduction to the third section of Hebrews. And it says that in all things he had to be made like his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, make propitiation for the sins of his people.

And the next section of Hebrews will go about it in reverse order. It’ll say Jesus is a faithful high priest, and then it’ll say Jesus is a merciful high priest. So the introduction in verse 17 at the end of the second section has to do with Jesus being a merciful and faithful high priest. And then it’ll actually go on—if you read the next couple of chapters, it’ll talk first about Jesus being faithful, and we should be faithful. And then it’ll say that Jesus is compassionate. He has bowels of compassion for us. He’s touched as we were touched. He knows our temptations.

And I think that what I’m trying to point out here is this is essential for understanding the priestly work of Christ. He is compassionate and he is faithful. And if we are Christians, if we’ve got the name of Christ upon us, we’re to be faithful to God’s word. We want to minister the truth of God’s word. We want to call people and exhort them to obedience. And we want to be obedient. But if we’re all obedience and no compassion, we’re not like Jesus.

On the other hand, if we’re all compassion and no calls to faithfulness to each other, then we’re not like Jesus either. This is like that old thing I used to say from the book of Micah. You know, God says that it’s required of us to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God. The right wing stresses the doing of justice, faithfulness, we could say obedience to God’s word. The left wing of political action stresses doing mercy, compassion. But if we’re humble before God and are Christians, we, as we are priests to this world, will be moved by these two great truths: faithfulness to God’s word and calling people to faithfulness, and compassion for people as well.

This has proved really useful to me as I ride the bus from Canby up to Oregon City. Usually a lot of, you know, drug dealers, jail people, and people with all kinds of problems in their life. And this is what I try to keep in my mind now in my witnessing: sympathy, compassion with where people are at, but faithfulness. Not all compassion with no faithfulness—then you don’t help them at all. But if all I do is talk about their requirement to obey Jesus and I’m not compassionate, then I’m not like Jesus either.

Compassion and faithfulness are essential elements for strengthening Christian community.

**Future Men’s Camp and Strengthening Community**

And then D on the outline, we have an upcoming opportunity. September 9th through 11th for the young boys, ages I think it’s 11 to 18 or something like that. David T., Brian E., Isaac M.—those are the main guys in this thing. They’ll take the ages. We got in a literature rack today. There’s registration forms and activity lists, and Brian will be coming up here and making a rah-rah announcement.

I hope you know, because it’s a great event coming up: Future Men’s Camp. And that’s what we’re doing with these boys—it’s an event to try to strengthen community, right? And it’s not—a lot of you—you have teaching there, good teaching from Doug H., but a lot of it is activity, building teamwork amongst these boys, having them learn to compete both individually but also as a group, and there’ll be prizes. There’ll be winners and losers, just like there’s guys that can play the cello and guys that can’t because their hands are crushed, right?

There’s people that have inherited wealth and houses and stuff from parents, and other people that are eking out a living. That’s the way it is in the providence of God. Winners and losers, to some sense economically and in other ways. The question is, can we honor and glorify God in our winning and in our losing? You see, can we be content with what God has given us? Can we be not prideful with all the great blessings he’s given us? And we minister grace and respect to one another.

Sennett said the problem with compassion is that it deteriorates respect. But we’re Christians. We know that the first gift that God gives us in the worship service is respect. It’s glory. It’s weightiness through the forgiveness of our sins. And we know that to strengthen Christian community, we are to minister glory to one another, even when the other guy loses the race and you’ve won, or even when the other guy’s won the race and you’ve lost.

See, that’ll be the test for these boys. That’ll be what they’re being guided to develop in terms of strengthening that little artificial community at Future Men’s Camp—is a strengthening of community through compassion and faithfulness and through ministering to one another, even if they win or even if they lose.

To lose well, to win well, and to have good thoughts and attitudes toward those who might have pushed you a few minutes ago in the game. So we have an opportunity to work on these skills and strengthening community coming up for these young men. And I hope every last young boy who’s eligible age-wise goes to this camp. It is going to be fun. It’s going to be a great experience for you. It’ll be our first attempt at this. We’re going to try to do this every year, but it’s a way we have self-consciously tried to think through: How do we strengthen community? How do we build respect amongst winners and losers? You see how that works?

Okay. So, strengthening community, keeping in mind that we’re to—we’re to be faithful and call people to faithfulness. We win. We compete hard, but we’re also compassionate when others lose. Okay? So compassion and faithfulness are the two sides of the priestly aspect of Christ. And John tells us that we have to have bowels of compassion as kind of the root of how we strengthen each other in the context of community.

**Warnings: What Weakens Community**

Now, Proverbs 26 warns us about several kinds of men or actions that weaken community. So strengthen community through faithfulness and compassion and all that stuff. Take advantage of the opportunities coming up. Minister financially to people. Minister friendship to people. Minister, you know, grace to one another, respect in this Future Men’s Camp coming up.

But now there’s some things that weaken community, and we want to be very careful to avoid these and to understand how they work. Proverbs 26. And what I’ve got in your outlines is that verses 1 and 28 give us the brackets. The whole section really are different. The whole section can be seen as warnings to a king. This is the kingly collection. Hezekiah’s collection begins in chapter 25: “The glory of God to conceal a matter; it’s the honor of kings to search a matter out.” It’s all about kings in this section.

And kings are going to have a big community of people they’re governing. And in that community, there’s going to be some foolish people. There’s going to be some slothful people. There’s going to be some people that just aren’t very careful in their speech. And then there’s going to be people who are actually hateful with their speech. King’s got to know about this stuff so he can rule well. He has to know which ones to beat and which ones not to beat. He has to know which ones to punish and which ones to reward. And he’s got to be on the lookout here for activities in the context of his community that could be quite destructive.

And what we have here is a bracketing. I believe in this section, clearly, as you read it responsibly, you saw the groups I just mentioned. It’s pretty easy to see them, right? But look at verse 1: “As snow in summer or rain in harvest, so honor is not fitting for a fool.” That throws us back to chapter 25, which was all about the honor a king should have. It’s the honor of kings to search a matter out.

How does a king get true honor, not false honor? So now it’s a segue into people that should not be honored. Fools should not be honored. And what it says is it compares this: if you give honor to a fool, it’s like snow and sun, or rain in harvest. And verse 28 says, “A lying tongue hates its victims, and a flattering mouth works ruin.” Rain in harvest works ruin. You got things growing up, hard-driving rain—that’s the word that’s used here. And the imagery agriculturally means not just—it doesn’t quite work. It’s not going to make the harvest go well. It means a rain that destroys the crops. That’s the idea.

And so it is destructive to community to give honor to a fool. And so at the other end, it matches up with the fact that this lying tongue and a flattering mouth works ruin. Works ruin to who? Just the individual? No. These are community dangers. So the fool and the tongue at the end—these are four different kinds of people. We could say three. The fool, the sluggard, and the person that doesn’t use his tongue right. The tongue right is in two groups. There are four different kinds. But they’re sort of linked together too, if you read it carefully.

You know, there’s a segue between the fool and the sluggardly man that really lets us see that the slothful man is a fool too. So, you know, there are four different kinds of things going on, but they’re sort of all of a piece. And they’re kind of summarized here with the beginning and ending brackets that tell us that they are highly destructive of community. So the king is warned: there’s some stuff going on here that will destroy your community if you’re not careful. So, king, watch out is what he’s saying here.

By the way, passing comment: hierarchy is necessary to godly community. A camaraderie that levels out all distinctions is not biblical. You know, one of the ways God sees fit to strengthen the community at Reformation Covenant Church is this. It’s getting some old, blind guy up in front of you who in a lot of ways is pretty goofy. And God sees fit to have guys stand in front of you who are kind of goofy and to bring his word to you. That’s a humbling exercise for those of you who are thinking about it. You probably don’t very often, but think about it for a minute. What am I doing up here? You see, it’s God says that hierarchy is good, not because, you know, guys who are your presidents or your rulers are great guys, but because it’s a reminder to you to be humble under the hand of God, who exalts who he will and uses the foolishness of men to help minister strengthening community to you.

You see, I mean, it’s again, this equal employment sort of thing that God does. So, you know, one of the ways that community is strengthened is through a hierarchy. And undoubtedly, the men that are in the position of authority, either in the state or the church, have all kinds of evident flaws. And the end result of that is that everybody is humbled and community is strengthened. So hierarchy is necessary here, just as a passing comment.

Let’s talk briefly about these kinds of men. Then first we have the fool.

**The Fool**

The fool is the self-confident maker of bad decisions. We think of being foolish as just somebody who maybe has an IQ of 80. But the fool can have an IQ of 150 or 200—I don’t know what the IQ numbers are—but he can be quite intelligent and still be a fool. Psalm 14:1 and 53:1 says the same thing. “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” So the fool is evidenced not by a lack of intelligence but by not regarding God in what he does. So there is no God. In other words, there is no God practically for my purposes. I don’t have to worry about God, okay?

There’s no fear of God in the sight of a fool. And what that lends itself to is he doesn’t fear men. You know, 1 John, how do we know we love God? By fearing each other. How do we know if we have fear of God or not? Well, by knowing if we have a proper fear of displeasing godly men. The fool has none of that. He is self-confident, and he ends up making really stupid decisions as a result of his self-confidence.

You don’t have to turn to these, but I’m going to read a few Proverbs about the fool.

“The wise in heart receives commandments, but a prating fool shall fall.” The fool talks a lot. A fool doesn’t receive commandments. He’s not trying to receive instruction. He’s just trying to display his mind because he is so self-confident of his own abilities.

Proverbs 14:16: “A wise man fears and departs from evil. See, he fears. But the fool rages in his confidence.” He doesn’t fear anything. You know, he doesn’t fear God, and he doesn’t fear then the consequences of, for instance, bad relationships, destroyed community. He rages, and he destroys community because he’s not fearful of what effect he might have upon that community.

“A fool despises his father’s instruction, but he that regardeth a reproof is prudent.” So he doesn’t have any, you know, ears to hear. And remember, father is hierarchy. He doesn’t hear theological instruction from the pastor. He doesn’t want to hear what the civil magistrate has to say. He just wants to instruct them. He doesn’t want to hear what his dad or mom has to say. He just wants to tell them what he thinks the proper way to do things is. So he doesn’t hear instruction.

Proverbs 20:3: “It’s an honor to a man to cease from strife, but every fool will be meddling.” We’re going to see here in a couple of minutes that it’s improper to meddle in a matter with your speech. But here’s the fool who meddles in other people’s business because he’s very self-confident.

Proverbs 28:26: “He that trusts in his own heart is a fool. But who so walketh wisely, he shall be delivered.” See, he trusts in his own heart. How does God direct him? He doesn’t say he doesn’t care about what God says. I mean, in his ultimate sense he does. But a fool could be one that says, “Well, God speaks, but only to my own heart.” So you can try to convince me all you want, but I’m settled in my determination, just like the sluggard—wiser in his own eyes than seven with a good reason. He ignores all of those things, doesn’t even seek them out.

The fool, he’s self-confident based upon the interpretation of his own heart, not knowing the heart is deceitful among all things and desperately wicked. Who shall know it?

Proverbs 23:9: “Speak not in the ears of a fool. He will despise the wisdom of thy words.” He doesn’t—he’s not looking for advice. He is self-confident and makes bad decisions as a result of it.

And so, Second Peter 2, Peter actually picks up this proverb about a fool returning to his own vomit that this text tells us and applies it to those that teach in the church who are calling—like the false teachers that he’s addressing in Second Peter 2. So we normally think of the fool as the non-Christian around us, and that would be correct. You have neighbors; the fear of God is not in their minds. They’re not really worried about what God thinks. And as a result, they’re fools.

Fool is the common designation for the people that we operate in the context of, and it’s important that we see what we should do with fools here in a minute. But fools also appear in the context of the church, and we have to be careful that we don’t miss out knowing that there will be some in the context of the church also who will be fools and self-willed.

And I just realized that I forgot to make this point, and I want to make this: when I talked about charitableness, having compassion for those around us, we want to see ourselves as part of strengthening community. The fool is isolated. The wise man is wise because of his actions in community. Righteousness in Proverbs is right action in community. He doesn’t break community. He engages community.

Now, there’s a time to break community when it’s proper, when there’s the last resort. But our first instinct with other Christians is to maintain community and conversation. There are a lot of people right now who are beginning to break community over the teachings of Steve Wilkins, Doug Wilson, Schlissel, Norman Shepherd, and Antie Wright, yada yada. People are saying, “We don’t understand this stuff. Is this biblical? Is it not biblical?” Great question. Is it comport with the truth once delivered? Does it build on the scaffolding of reformed confessions and creeds? Great question.

And foolish men who exist in little tiny denominations or little tiny individual groups of people are cutting off all these men and calling them heretics because of what they’re doing. That is foolish. It is foolish because it is a breaking of community and an isolation within a little tiny denomination or group. We wanted to be charitable toward men who bring to us these teachings that we may or may not understand, but we’re on their side.

Just as we’re on each other’s side in this church, we’re on the side of the extended community of Christ. And so we want to see ourselves as charitable toward the proponents of Monroe theology. But we also want to see ourselves as charitable toward its opponents. We want to try to do whatever we can to urge people to wise action, not breaking community, discussing this theology and its importance for Christian community, the doctrine of the covenant.

We want to keep people engaged in the dialogue and discussion until clarity is found—not just by a little group here or there, a couple churches here or there, but as the broader reformed community addresses this stuff and thinks it through and debates it over the next 10, 15 years. Then we might at some point in time be ready to start making definitive pronouncements. But right now is the time to remember to strengthen community through being charitable and compassionate both to the proponents of Monroe theology and to its opponents.

And if you don’t know what I’m talking about, that’s okay. But most of you do by now. You know that there’s a little controversy, and you’re saying, “What should I do in the controversy?” Well, the first thing you should do is have bowels of compassion for everybody speaking into the controversy, do your best to be at peace with all men, to continue people in the dialogue and discussion, and then as you have need, discuss with myself, the other elders of the church, other men at the church—hopefully have some reading groups over the next six months or a year to talk about this stuff.

But you see, it’ll do us no good if we don’t remember that the key to strengthening community is building and engaging in community, not breaking off in isolation from community. Does that make sense?

What do we do with the fool? What do you do with the neighbor who could care less about Jesus Christ and is foolish and takes inappropriate actions because of their foolishness? Well, the solution in Proverbs says that you’re not supposed to give him honor, but you are supposed to give him a rod. It’s improper to give honor to a fool. It’s actually even more destructive to community than he is. It’s like rain and harvest. It’ll bring ruin if you honor a fool.

And if you are interacting with a neighbor who is just speaking foolishly, you are not supposed to pretend like that’s just great and fine. “Yeah, yeah. No, you don’t do that. Because when you affirm people, you give them weight and you honor them. And when a person is involved in foolishness, they are not to be treated honorably. You’re supposed to use the rod on them.

Now, the civil magistrate is supposed to have locks, stocks, and barrels. He’s supposed to have corporal punishment that he can apply to adults who act foolishly and who disrupt community because of that. Proverbs 7:22 says that a certain man goes after her straightway, as an ox goes to the slaughter or as a fool to the correction of the stocks—the correction of the stocks, a rod for their back. They are to be dishonored. You see, now you can’t, you know, strike people. It’s improper, and it would not be understood, and it’s wrong for you to do that.

But you can speak to them wisely, all right? You can give them a rod with your speech. This set of Proverbs tells us that you are to speak to the fool with wisdom. Then verses 4 and 5—it says a rod for his back. Verses 4 and 5 tells you how to deliver a verbal rod. “Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes.” What does it mean?

Well, first it means you got to be careful. It tells you two different things to do, and right away it says, you know, it’s not easy to deliver a verbal blow to a fool. You got to think about it a little bit. You got to think about what they’re saying and what they’re asserting. It prepares you to act, but it prepares you by way of an apparent paradox.

Now, it isn’t really. It says that there’s times when you want to show the fool the folly of his own thinking. Take his presuppositions, his premises, draw them out to its conclusion, and then show him how foolish that is.

So a man is saying, you know, the president just stole the election in Florida. He just stole the election. The Supreme Court—this happened to me on the bus this last week. That’s why it’s an illustration fresh in my mind. There was a fool on the bus. There were two fools on the bus. There was a man on the bus who has been an alcoholic for 50 years, gets a drink every morning at 9:00 at Danny’s to get his day going. Then there was another man who gets some sort of state stipend because he’s disabled, although he looks perfectly healthy to me. I don’t know.

And this man is saying, “President Bush stole the election. The Supreme Court voted for him, and it was a Republican that cast the signing vote.” So I’m listening to this, and I turn around. “Well, do you realize that, you know, the newspapers did studies and the studies show that Bush actually won the state of Florida?”

“Well, who runs the newspapers?” he says. “I don’t know who does.”

“Republican party.”

“Oh, okay.”

You know, he is as convinced that the right-wing controls the newspapers as people on the right are convinced the left-wing controls it. And there’s a real message in that. There’s a disintegration of trust in our culture generally, and this conversation going on the bus is part of the reason why men feel empowered to speak foolishly. And you want to show him, “Answer fool. If that’s true, then what’s the results for our country? There’s no way we can know anything anymore. Where are you going to go for your advice? You can’t go to Florida.” You show him that if he’s right in his premises, what’s the folly of that?

If he’s right, that no ruler can be trusted, then what we have is anarchy. That’s the end of the game right there. There’s no authority left anymore. But then you don’t answer a fool according to his folly. You tell him, “Well, in point of that, there’s been studies done. The media says this happened.” And so you answer him not according to his folly. And then you tell him, “Look, if you don’t have reasons to denigrate the ruler of our country, you should close your mouth.” That’s what you need to tell people.

Be as kind as you want, but it’s got to be a verbal rod to the fool’s back. And the fact that nobody does this anymore is one of the reasons why we have a perpetuation of the breakdown of culture and the breakdown of community—because we have a tearing us apart of every civil ruler that we know of, and we all engage. We do the same thing, and it is foolishness. It’s foolishness. It’s tearing down our own political house. And what you do with a fool is you deal a verbal rod to his back by showing him the end result of his presuppositions and the folly of them, but then answering him with a wise answer as well, and saying, “This is the better way. This is the right way. This is the way you should walk in.” And you tell him that, you know, he should close his mouth if he’s sinning against other people in a public forum. You deliver a rod to his back or to his character. You remove honor from him in the presence of others.

Immediately after I had this little conversation, then the man who’s been an alcoholic for 50 years starts talking about how George Bush had a DUI when he was going to college or something. And I looked at the man, and I said, “You’re going to talk about driving under the influence?” I delivered a blow. And he felt it. He immediately recognized what I’d said. And he said, “Well, you know, alcoholics can be okay too. Winston Churchill was an alcoholic. That’s my point.”

I said, “You know, don’t denigrate the president because of something he did years and years ago as opposed to what he’s doing now and whether he is acting properly.”

So foolishness is a destruction to community. The scriptures say, “Do not honor a fool, but apply a rod to him.” Also with the fool, be warned. Psalm 32:8-9 says this: “I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go. I will guide thee with mine eye.” So I’ll instruct thee in the way. I’ll talk to you, and a look of my eye will teach you. But then verse 9: “Be ye not as the horse or as the mule, which has no understanding, whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle, lest they come near unto thee.”

And then I’ve got—I think on your outline—Derek Kidner says, “Those who invite the rod are those who contrive to ignore the glance.” And the point is that the Psalm tells us that the fool is the one who needs the rod, who needs the verbal rod applied to him. He’s like the horse of the mule that’s got to be tugged with bit and bridle. And that’s what we all approach when we start listening to the words of counsel, advice, the glance of our parents’ eye, the glance of our friend’s eye, the words warning us not to be foolish.

You see, we’re all prone to foolishness, and we’re prone to the destruction of community that foolishness brings.

**The Slothful Man**

Secondly, then, in addition to the fool, there is this next group of men: the slothful. The slothful man doesn’t think he’s a slacker. He thinks he’s a realist. “There’s a lion in the streets.” He doesn’t think he’s self-indulgent. He’s just not a guy that likes to get up in the mornings ’cause he’s not his best in the mornings.

You see, he’s the man that’s like the fool. He’s got a wiser word or response to people than seven with a wise reason. He is self—he thinks that he knows best, and he’s worse than the fool. The fool’s a little bit of hope. For the sluggard, he’s so convinced that he’s right, there’s almost no getting through to him.

What’s the solution? Let him go on in his sluggardly way. What can you do? You can rebuke him as you do with the fool. But eventually his own poverty and his hunger are to drive him out of his slothfulness. “If he won’t work, neither shall he eat.”

**Improper Speech**

And then third, there is these improper speakers—careless speech and angry speech as well. The careless speaker is described first.

“Whoever meddles in a quarrel not his own is like one who takes a dog by the ears. Like a mad man who throws fire brands, arrows, and death is the man who deceives his neighbor and says, ‘I am only joking.’ For lack of wood, the fire goes out. Where there is no whisperer, quarreling ceases. As charcoal to hot embers and wood to fire, so is a quarrelsome man for kindling strife. The words of a whisperer are like delicious morsels. They go down into the inner parts of the body.”

Now, that’s the first half of improper speech, and we won’t get to the second half of people that speak hatefully and cover their hate with soft words. But recognize the importance of this action.

This morning I heard on the radio that in Baghdad there were at least three, maybe five bombings of Christian churches in the last 24 hours. So the Muslims now are deliberately firebombing and blowing up Christian churches in Baghdad. That we should be praying for the church in Iraq, of course, and it’s a horrific action. But this Proverb says that when you use improper, careless speech with your neighbor, you deceive him. You don’t tell him the truth. And then when you’re found out, “Oh, I was just kidding. It was just a joke.”

Or when you’re a tale bearer, when you talk about your friends—your Christian friends here in this church—when you are not careful with your speech, it ends up hurting their reputation. All of these things in this section on the tongue are compared to one who throws firebombs. He’s a firebrand. His words are, you know, blazing people up is what it says. Charcoal to the embers, wood to the fire, like a madman who throws fire brands, arrows, and death.

The scriptures say that you can weaken and destroy community by the most innocuous of speech—that is either mildly deceptive and then pretends that you’re just kidding of your neighbor, gossiping, slandering, putting down other people in the context of the church in your conversation with others. This is as if you had thrown a firebomb into the midst of the Christian community.

God ends this section of Proverbs by assuring us that indeed his judgment will come upon those who destroy and weaken Christian community. “Though his hatred be covered with deception, his wickedness will be exposed in the assembly. Your sins will find you out.” In verse 27, “Whoever digs a pit will fall into it. A stone will come back on him who starts it rolling. A lying tongue hates its victims, and a flattering mouth works ruin.”

You can destroy community, but rest assured that the judgment of God brings his judgment upon those who, with their inappropriate speech and careless speech, are going about weakening and destroying Christian community.

**Conclusion**

God says community is absolutely vital for us. It is one of the great goals that we should have in our lives to build and enhance Christian community. We should see its importance. We should see that to strengthen community means to deal faithfully and compassionately in the context of community, particularly looking for those that we can minister—whatever gifts God has given to us—to others. And we should avoid the foolishness of isolation, the foolishness of treating community like it’s just a given from God and being slothful about it, and the horrific nature of inappropriate speech that tears and weakens Christian community.

Jesus Christ has come to deliver us from just such foolishness, just such slothfulness, and just such inappropriate speech.

Let’s pray.

Father, we thank you for this church. We thank you for the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we pray that you would continue to guide us, Lord God, into paths that would strengthen community here at Reformation Covenant Church and into its extended manifestations in our own communities and neighborhoods as well.

Forgive us, Father, for whatever sins we have done to weaken community, and cause us now to recommit ourselves to strengthen your community. In Jesus’ name we ask it. Amen.