Dr Greg Bahnsen - Proverbs: Proverbs 14:4 (Don't Be Too Neat) (Part 57)

And wondering exactly how he's going to preach on this particular verse. So this morning we're not only going to be looking at what God's Word has to say and how it should be applied directly to our lives. We're going to be doing a little bit of work also on sermon preparation. I'd like to talk to you a bit about how we go about using the Bible and applying it and interpreting it, because that's going to have a lot to do with why we're taking time to deal with just one verse this morning. Proverbs 14 at the fourth verse. Hear now God's word, where no oxen are, the crib is clean, but much increase is by the strength of the ox, and thus far the reading of God's word. I want to suggest to you, the temptation to the preacher is just to skip this verse. It's a big temptation. We're going through the Book of Proverbs, and as you know, we can't preach one sermon on every single verse that is here. And so I've tended to group Proverbs together topically. I've strung together a series of verses dealing with the same subject matter in most of the sermons in this particular series of studies. We come to this particular verse, however, and it seems to be an isolated text. There aren't any other verses on this subject in the Book of Proverbs, and nor do I believe there are in the whole Bible. And so the temptation is just to pretend it's not there. As I'm going through, you know, I've been the one who has decided what we're going to take next and what subject and how it's going to be strung together. My guess is if I didn't mention Proverbs 14:4 to you, you probably would not remember it was there. You would not come to me in a matter of weeks or months and say, pastor, we never got to that fourth verse of Proverbs 14. How come? What's going on here? Why did we miss it? And so, believe me, the temptation is great. I could get away with it, I think, if we just skipped over this verse altogether. I want to suggest to you, however, that as part of my pastoral philosophy, which I hope is faithful to the Word of God, I can't just Skip over Proverbs 14:4, even though it seems to make no big difference to us. I mean, after all, where there's no oxen, the cribs clean, that's obvious enough. And there's a lot of increase, much crops by the Strength of an ox. What are we going to learn from that particular verse? We could skip that, but I don't believe it is appropriate to do so. Paul tells us in 2 Timothy 3 at the 16th verse that all Scripture being inspired by God is profitable. It's profitable for doctrine and for correction and reproof and instruction in righteousness. Every scripture, in fact, if you read that in the Greek, it's even stronger. Every single writing has profit to it. There's benefit there. And therefore I have a challenge set before me, and you have a challenge set before you. When you come to a verse in the Bible and you say, well, that seems to be disposable, that seems to be superfluous, we don't need that. If God tells us that because it is his word, there is profit to it, there is some benefit to be found in it, and we don't see that benefit and we don't make proper use of it, then we are impoverished for that. Moreover, we're probably acting a little bit high and mighty because we're suggesting that though God took the time to communicate something to us, we don't need to hear it. We can, as it were, be senior editors of God's Holy Word. We can say to God, this was an interesting draft, but this verse has got to go. It's not important. You see what an abhorrent attitude that would be. If God says every Scripture is profitable for our learning and for our correction, indeed for our instruction in righteousness, then we must pay attention to every verse. And we must ask what's wrong with us if we don't see how to apply it. Paul goes on to say that all Scripture is beneficial for instruction in righteousness in order that the man of God may be thoroughly furnished to every good work. Thoroughly furnished. Paul says, if we pay attention to everything God has said, there'll be nothing lacking in our lives. Every good work that God would require of us can be done. The instruction we need to make decisions in all of our lives, to have the proper attitudes, to reach the proper conclusions, to do those things that are pleasing to God. We can do everything God requires of us. If we pay attention to everything God has said, we will be thoroughly furnished to every good work. Now you see, the downside of that is that if you don't pay attention to every Scripture which is profitable for instruction and righteousness, then to that degree you will be lacking in perfect equipping for good work. God has provided an armor for us. God has provided a roadmap for us. If you Want to change the image? And what would you do with a roadmap where you've cut selected portions out and just thrown them away? How good is your armor going to be if there's just gaping holes here and there? We've got to remember that if God says it's important and that we'll be thoroughly furnished if we pay attention to every bit of His Word, when we neglect a portion of His Word, we are opening ourselves up to the attacks of Satan. We are going to be lacking the direction we need. The roadmap of life is going to be incomplete, perfect furnishing, thorough furnishing to every good work means pay attention to every word. Indeed, Jesus said in Matthew the fourth chapter, when he was responding to Satan, that man should live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Jesus instruction was not just this generalized, I'm afraid, sometimes little sentimentalized, pious idea that we not only live by physical things, we don't live by bread alone, but we also live by spiritual things. The word of God, that thought though it may be true, is not precisely, is not specifically and pointedly what Jesus was saying. Jesus said, man shall live not by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. And the reason you must live by every word from God's mouth is because Satan can quote Scripture to Jesus. That ought to frighten you. Satan has the ability to use the word of God. My guess is that Satan knows the Bible better than many of us in this congregation. And that should frighten you because he's a very wily, a very slippery, a very deceptive kind of being. And he'll make use of Scripture to teach us to do things that are directly contrary to Scripture unless we live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. You see, here's how Satan operates. Satan takes Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple. It doesn't mean a point on the building itself. That's a geographical location outside the temple, overlooking a deep ravine there in Jerusalem. And standing at that point, Satan says, now look. The psalmist said, the Lord will give his angels charge over you to keep you in all your ways. Go ahead and jump. You have the promise of God. Do that. Satan can take a verse of the Bible out of context and misapply it and tempt even the Lord of Glory to disobey his heavenly Father by using that verse improperly. Jesus said, man shall live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. And when every word is taken into account, you wouldn't put the Lord your God to the test. Jesus said, you know, that would be inappropriate. That would be the wrong attitude to have toward God. And so though the temptation is there to skip Proverbs 14:4, I just can't do that. Neither can you. All scripture is profitable and we must live by every word from the mouth of God. And so this morning we're going to try to find out what benefit there is for us in this verse. But there's a second reason why it'd be tempting to skip over it, and that's because it's so difficult to translate, so difficult to interpret. And I don't ordinarily do this. In fact, when I teach young men how to preach, I try to tell them that you shouldn't take your congregation into the kitchen and show them how you put the meal together. But this morning we're going to do a little bit of that, going into the kitchen and seeing how the meal is put together. We're going to have to do a little bit of exegesis here of this particular verse so you can appreciate the difficulty I'm talking about. The original Hebrew is somewhat obscure and has been interpreted in a vast number of ways, not all consistent. It's not easy to get the commentators to say the same thing about this particular verse. So now put yourself in the preacher's shoes. Here's this verse that doesn't seem to be connected with anything else, seems to be a minor point, easily could be skipped over. And on top of it, people don't even agree about what it means or how it should be translated. Now, how can I stop, stand up here and say, thus saith the Lord about this verse when there's so much controversy about it? Well, I can and I will, because I believe it's my duty to do so. And I want us to learn something about just what I've been talking about. The difficulty of even one little verse in the Hebrew and the temptation that comes to skip over it for that reason. In the first place, let's remember that the infallibility of God's word applies not to any of our translations, not to any of our copies of the Bible. But the infallibility of God's word applies to the original. When God revealed His Word in this particular case, Proverbs 14:4, when that was first inscribed as His Word, that was the authoritative benchmark of what he meant and what he wants us to do. Now, it was written in Hebrew. Not every translation of the Hebrew is an infallible one. I mean, ask any first year student in Hebrew and he'll remind you that mistakes are made in translation. God has not given a promise anywhere that I'm aware of that every translation of His Word would magically turn out to be perfect. Nor has God guaranteed that every copy of His Word that would be made throughout history would magically turn out to be perfect. There are disagreements between various manuscripts or copies of Scripture. I'm glad to report to you that they are very minor. In fact, it's phenomenal. When you do textual criticism, the accuracy of God's Word, especially over against what we see in other ancient documents. And so we have nothing to be embarrassed about that. I remember the first time I heard somebody say, well, the Bible's been copied over and over again, and you know how many mistakes have entered in. And I thought to myself, wow, that really is something to worry about. Until I got old enough to take classes in the subject and learn something from a more scholarly point of view about it. And anyone who knows anything about textual criticism will tell you the Bible is the benchmark for all ancient documentation in terms of accuracy of transmission. So though there are differences and we have to adjudicate them, they are extremely minor. They affect not one point of Christian doctrine. No doctrine that the Church stands upon rests upon a scribal difference. Infallibility applies, however, not to our copies and not to our translations, be they better or worse translations, but to the original. A second lesson I want us to learn this morning from this is that it is highly appropriate to require technical skills in Hebrew and Greek of those who would be teaching elders in the church. We go through this every generation. We're going through it very strongly right now. The urge is there in order to get more men into the ministry, to lower the standards in the Presbyterian Church, in the Christian Church, for those who would enter the ministry and lower the standards not only in terms of the amount of doctrine you must be able to expound and defend, but also whether you are able to read the original languages, Greek and Hebrew. See, the thought is, that's difficult. And I'll be the first to admit, because I don't enjoy language study all that much, that having, you know, two languages that we don't speak ordinarily, you don't travel around and speak Hebrew with people or Greek. And even the Greek that you could speak in Greece is not the Greek of the New Testament. So it just seems like it's so awkward, so difficult. We have so many translations and so many commentaries. The thought is, let's lighten up on this requirement. Let's not make men go through this thing. This seems like a vain, academic, sterile, cold hurdle to go over for people to enter the ministry. I want to suggest to you that if we ever give into that reasoning, though, we are doing exactly what Paul wouldn't have us do about the whole counsel of God. Because what we're saying is that men who come up against the verse like Proverbs 14:4 will not be able to expound it to their congregation, or they will be at the mercy of others who have learned the languages. A man who stands behind the pulpit needs to have the confidence that he can look at the original and make a judgment of his own pleasing to God, and on the basis of it, expound his word to God's people. If the whole of Scripture is to be available to our ministers, then our ministers must be able to go to the original and understand it. And so it's not for some kind of pedantic or traditionalist reason at all that I take a very strong stand in our presbytery and elsewhere for keeping the original language as part of the requirement of entering the ministry. A third thing that I'd like us to learn from this difficulty that we're facing this morning is that those who do not have the skills that we require of a minister of the Gospel in Greek and Hebrew, those who do not have advanced skills or technical ability in language, are not hopelessly dependent upon priests who stand between them and the Scriptures. You say, well, that sounds funny. Just a moment ago you said you don't want the pastors to have to rely upon other people. But if we don't learn Greek and Hebrew, then aren't we dependent upon you or upon others? My point is that even if you are not called to have to expound the word of God with authority from the pulpit on a regular basis, even if you therefore don't have to have that original that ability in the original languages, you don't become dependent upon just one priest. For you see, the fact is there are multiple translations and there are English language commentaries that talk about the original. And where you feel that your pastor may be wrong, or where you see that there's a disagreement between people, you are able to go and study for yourself that issue to a certain degree. You are not, as the people in the Middle Ages, hopelessly dependent upon the that priest who alone knew the Latin, who alone could expound it, and you had to take his word for it. That is not the situation today. And so there is a problem here with the original Hebrew. It is obscure and we're going to get to the bottom of it and we're going to go right into the kitchen and roll up our sleeves here and do something about it right now. The difficulty of this verse comes from two Hebrew words at the end of the first line. Let me read it for you. Where no oxen are, then you have a difficulty in the Hebrew two words, avis, bar, where no oxen are, then something follows from that, and there's going to be some dispute as to what follows from that. Then the rest of it is fairly clear. But much increase or a great number of crops come by the strength of an ox. On the one hand, where there are no oxen, something happens. On the other hand, the strength of an ox can give you a lot of crops. Okay, well, what is it that we read at the end of that first line? The first word that I mentioned, avis in Hebrew denotes the feed trough of an animal. In Isaiah 1:3, for instance, you see the same word. Because we are doing this together. Let's turn to Isaiah 13. Remember the well known verse, the ox knows his owner, and the ass his master's crib. That word, crib in my translation is the word we're talking about. The ox knows his owner, and the ass his master's crib. But Israel doth not know, my people doth not. Consider the word that appears in Proverbs 14:4 is the same word for crib or for manger, the feed trough for an animal. However, because it means that it's easy for the word also to come over time to denote the place where feed for an animal is found. So not feed trough, but granary, the place where the feed is stored there. For Jeremiah 50, verse 26 uses a form of the same word that we are looking at in our passage this morning in Jeremiah 50:26, it's obvious feed trough is not the proper translation. Let me read what my translation has for you. Come against her from the utmost border, open her storehouses, cast her up as heaps, and destroy her utterly. Let nothing be left here. It's not destroyed the feed troughs, it's destroyed the place where the feed is found, the storehouse itself. And so the first problem we have is that this verse allows for either feed trough or granary, broadly the barn, perhaps even the stall where the feed trough is found. So it can be taken in a number of ways. The real problem comes with the next word. So we have feed trough. And then the Hebrew word bar appears. And bar means with the vocalization in Hebrew being identical it can mean either clean or pure, or it can mean grain. One is the adjective clean, the other is the noun grain. And I could give you some illustrations. We won't take the time for them right now. David says, you know, the man who dwells with God has clean hands. When Joseph collected grain in ancient Egypt, the word that is used there is the same word that is found in our verse. So it could either mean feed, troth, grain, or feed troth, clean, of course, and in Hebrew you have to supply the missing things that we would put in English. What you come up with is either there is a feed trough of grain or the feed trough is clean. The interesting thing is those stand just about opposite one another in meaning, don't they? There's a feed trough of grain, or the feed trough is clean, meaning it would be empty. And so let me go over some of the various suggestions that you'll find in the commentators and translations for how to understand this verse. We're going to look at five of them. The fifth is the one that I think is preferable. In fact, I think it's the only one defensible, the end. But I want to go over this and try to teach you how to do a little technical work. And then finally we'll say, well, why do we care about feed troughs and oxen and that sort of thing? There's a good reason to first of all, it's been suggested in the New English Bible and by other commentators that we should translate, where there are no oxen, the barn is empty. No oxen, nothing in the barn. That's the thought here. The problem being that the word empty doesn't appear in the Hebrew at all. And that would only be inferred from taking this as the granary is clean, not the feed troughs, but the place where grain is stored is clean, clean, because there's none there. But you see, that's a second order implication from what the Hebrew actually says. And the problem that I have is that it makes this clause merely the equivalent, put in the negative, the negative equivalent of what the next line says. See, what you'd have is, where there are no oxen, the barn is empty. But where you use the strength of the ox, you have a lot of crops. It's not impossible that you could do that, but it does make it simply a repetition in the negative form. A second possibility, then found in the Revised Standard Version and other commentators, is, where there are no oxen, there is no grain, meaning there is no grain for the farmer to gather to use to feed his family, sell or what have you. No oxen, no grain, no crops. Only problem with that is that the only way you can get that translation is to change the Hebrew. And I don't think that's a very safe thing to do. Although the Revised Standard Version doesn't seem to have many scruples about changing the localization or the order of the Hebrew text in order to get what seems to the translators a more smooth reading. And I don't trust that sort of thing. I'd like to stay as close as I can to the original. Moreover, even if you translate it that way, what we end up with is a simple agricultural fact, namely that oxen are valuable for farm production. So what? Well, the possibilities that have been given are. So we should learn to take care of our animals, some commentators say, because oxen are important to farm production, to take good care of your animals, or since oxen are important for farm production, learn the general truth that resources and investments will be required if your goals are to be achieved. To put it briefly, success costs something. If you want a lot of crops, you got to have oxen. Well, the problem I have is not only do you have to change the Hebrew to get that translation, it doesn't seem to me very probable. That message was worth noting. Just doesn't seem to carry a lot of punch. Why do I need to be taught something about the agricultural value of oxen? A third translation is now getting away from the idea of the barn and grain is that there is a manger of grain. Here we a number of, not a large number, but some technical translators have taken this as there's a small amount, a meager amount of grain, no oxen. You only have a manger full of grain. There's only a little bit of grain, as today's English version puts it. And so what we learn is no oxen produce a small crop. Many oxen produce a large crop. But that's a pretty awkward way to express such a point. Why is manger being used to typify smallness? Why would someone say, if you don't have any oxygen, you only get a manger full of grain? Why don't you say just a cupful of grain or, you know, a basketful? Why manger in particular? That would be a very awkward way to put that. And I think it would be a very trite point to make. Anyway, you want a lot of grain, you got to have a lot of oxen. Doesn't seem to be the sort of thing you would expect in God's word that doesn't automatically disqualify, but it should make you wonder if maybe the translation is straining. A fourth possibility says that the manger is not full of grain, but the manger is empty. And you find that in the new international version some of you have on your laps this morning. The idea here is that no food is needed. No food is being spent for the animals, no oxen, nothing in the trough, the manger, the crib is empty. And so what we learn if we translate it this way is that a farmer must balance the ox's grain consumption against the value of the ox's labor. The farmer must look at how much grain he has to feed to the ox and balance that against the amount of grain he gets if he uses the strength of an ox and thereby learn how worthwhile it is to put out that expense. But again, the Hebrew term never takes the exact sense of empty. The manger is empty. You could get that maybe by inference from the manger is clean, interpreting clean as bare, therefore empty. But I think this message is no more noteworthy than the ones we've been looking at, too. And so we come, finally, two Hebrew words we've been struggling with here. Finally, I'll tell you what I think the author is trying to get at. He's saying the manger is clean, where the word clean is not being used in the sense of bare, but really clean, nice and tidy. The manger, or the crib, or perhaps even the stall, the place where the feed trough is found, is clean. That is the only translation, after working quite a while with the original here, that's the only translation, I think, which is exactly true to the Hebrew possibilities and does not leave an awkward sense, a strange way of putting it. There's a little bit of grain is expressed as there's a manger of grain. That's very awkward. We don't have to resort to that on this translation. So I'm going to suggest, if you don't have this in your Bibles, you might write it in the margin. Where there are no oxen, the manger is clean. Or you can put the stall is clean, if you want to expand the thought. Very simply put, there are no animals. Thus the animal trough area doesn't need to be tended and cleaned up after. That's only half the battle, if that's what the author's saying. And that makes some sense. No oxen, no mess to clean up. But if you want a lot of crops, you need the strength of an ox, you see, that gives A nice poetic contrast. It makes sense. It fits the Hebrew. Why is it in God's word? What do we learn from this? I want to suggest you we learn something very important if we are going to be wise people. And the message is put in the title of today's sermon. Don't be too neat. Don't be too neat. There are people who might think, if I want to keep a nice clean barn, I want to keep the stall nice and tidy. I'm not going to put any oxen in there. But you see, when you make a decision like that, short sighted and oversimplified as it is, you're also not going to be very successful in life. You're not going to have a lot of crops. If you're not willing to go through the difficulty of cleaning up after your animals, you say, is that really worth saying? Yes, it is. I'll be the first to admit I need to hear that message. See, I have kind of a fetish about keeping my desk nice and orderly and not having people put things on my bookshelves that don't fit in and that sort of thing. And there may be a place for that. But you see, that is a limited place and we need to remember that being too neat is a sign of foolishness, not a sign of wisdom. We like to believe that cleanliness is next to godliness or tidiness is next to godliness. And what the Bible would teach us is sometimes cleanliness and tidiness are next to sterility, not to godliness. And so I'd like to teach three things. And you children who think that you've got a way to explain your dirty room are going to find out otherwise. I caught you there. I knew that would be the thought in your mind. There are three things we should learn from this proverb about life. First of all, beware of oversimplified and short sighted reasoning. It's so frustrating to the counselor, so frustrating to the pastor, because often the difficulty that I run into in the lives of my parishioners is that they engage in oversimplified reasoning. Short sighted reasoning. Just think of the farmer. That's what we're being taught here by illustration. The farmer who considers only the tidiness of his stalls would not be a very wise and certainly not a very successful farmer. Here's a man who says, well, there's only one factor to consider in life that's keeping things clean. So I'm not bringing any oxygen into my stalls. Forget that. Well then, what are you going to plow your fields with obviously, how are you going to have a successful crop if you're not willing to go through the mess that comes for having oxen in the stalls? It would be short sighted, it would be narrow, it would be oversimplified to only look at one consideration. Tidiness. And I'm afraid that throughout life we are tempted both in our mental laziness and sometimes in our perverse spirit. We are tempted throughout life to take into account only one perspective, only one principle, when in fact there are other principles and perspectives which are equally applicable to a situation. Let me give you an absurd illustration to make my point. You've traveled to New York on vacation. On your way back you decide to buy a newspaper. You give a dollar to the girl at the counter. She gives you the change. You're in a hurry, you don't count the change. You put it in your pocket. It's the only change you have. You run off to the airplane, I'll get my illustration right, read your newspaper, arrive in la and you put your hand in your pocket and take the change out and lo and behold, she gave you 5 cents too much. She overchanged by 5 cents. Now what would you think of a person who said the only principle that applies here is that of honesty. I will buy a $290 ticket and fly back to New York and return this 5 cents? See, it's an absurd illustration, but it gets at what I am struggling with sometimes in your lives and in mine where we take one principle and in a narrow minded way think. That's all I have to think about. That's the only factor involved here. I'm going to be honest to the nickel, fly back to New York and so end up paying nearly $300 for a newspaper. Now you see, there are other principles. For instance, her responsibility, weighing the 5 cents versus the $290 ticket and so forth, stewardship, time, on and on and on. And when you put all of it together, I think that's how we get to the conclusion that most of you would have reached just like that. You don't fly back to New York to return the 5 cents. Well, that's an absurd illustration. The ones that I usually deal with and that people, people get hung up with are not absurd and they're very, very painful. Because what happens is we learn a little bit and we think that's all I have to know about a situation. We need rather to develop the skill the book of Proverbs tells us. I think we need rather to Develop the skill. Remember, wisdom is a skill, as I've taught you before, to develop that skill to collate, balance and coordinate the relevant principles which would lead in isolation, perhaps to divergent conclusions. If I only looked at this principle, I might conclude this. If I only look at that principle, I might conclude something opposite of it. What do I do when both principles are relevant? Wisdom is the art and the skill is the wit to take what God's word says and apply it to a situation to see how all of these things fit together. And I don't believe the word of God contradicts itself. I don't mean to suggest to you that the Bible says do two different things and now you're hopelessly in a bind. I believe there is a way to make these things mesh. But I also believe that you don't find that conclusion by being lazy mentally. You have to think hard, you have to pray. You have to be sanctified. You need to get more experience in the word of righteousness, as Hebrews 5 puts it. Let me give you some illustrations. And and I don't have time to cover the whole list of things, but try these. On a particular occasion, do you correct your spouse for something he or she has done? Think how oversimplified your reasoning could be. You could think, well, they're wrong. People who are wrong need to be corrected. Boom. That's it. Forgetting also that maybe you should take into account your own humility, whether the beam is out of your own eye, whether you've become a nag, whether it will not be correction but will rather be taken as denunciation, whether it will accomplish anything constructive, whether you were speaking seasoned with grace or whether your speech is meant to tear down. I mean, there are a lot of factors that go into making that decision. And the problem is, and the reason why we have marriage difficulties that I work with with you all, is because we tend to be oversimplified in our thinking. We latch onto that one consideration, usually favorable to what fits our emotional needs, and we forget the others that have to be factored in as well. Try this. Do you stay at a party where the conversation has become unwholesome? I bet you've all been in that situation. You've gone to an office party or your friends or relatives. That makes it even tougher, right? Go to Thanksgiving, have your relatives start talking about things that you say, Christians shouldn't engaged in this sort of thing. What do you do? You get up and show how self righteous you are and walk out. Do you preach to them? Right then and there. Do you just be quiet and wait for them to ask your opinion? Well, you see, there are a lot of factors that have to be factored in to a decision in that situation. And it's the fool who says, well, I, you know, like the farmer, I want a tidy barn. I'm not going to have any ox. Don't use narrow, oversimplified thinking. Should you support a candidate who is against abortion but in favor of trade embargoes? A candidate who is absolutely immoral when it comes to economic ethics interfering in the free market, but has the right position when it comes to saving innocent human life? Those are tough decisions. And what proverbs would encourage us, I think, through this illustration of the farmer, is not to believe that one principle will settle it. You've got to take a lot of things into account. That isn't to say that everything is relative and everything's morally gray and no one can know for sure. I'm not preaching any such absurdities today. I am preaching hard mental application of God's word to reach the proper conclusions that are not narrow and short sighted. Should you ever go to an R movie, ever? Should you ever borrow money? Ever? Should you ever shop on Sunday, ever? Be careful how you answer those questions and many more. Those are just some of the toughies that I find people tend to be a little oversimplified about. So the first lesson about remembering that the dirtiness of your crib is worth something if you want to gain a big crop is don't be oversimplified or short sighted in your reasoning. Second lesson this morning that I find in this proverb is don't prefer simplicity, security and convenience to growth and progress. Don't prefer simplicity, security and convenience to growth and progress. The farmer who wishes to avoid the headache of cleaning up after the cattle and so tries to get by without them is going to be seen as a lazy and will certainly turn out to be an unsuccessful farmer. And throughout our lives we face situations where, in all honesty, it would be easier to avoid complications, a lot easier to avoid difficulties that growth and progress represent. I know people who have decided not to court, who have decided not to marry because, well, their lives are just simpler. Being single, you know, you've got to take so many headaches into account. You've got to balance so many other problems when you have another person enter into your life and you live with them day in and day out. Now, you all know that that's a problem that we face, isn't it? We tend to look at that big decision and say, well, it's so difficult now. Whether you should or should not get married in a particular situation is not what I'm preaching this morning. So some of you single people, and I don't think I'm getting on you here. What I am saying, though, is if you say, I don't want to move ahead with this because it's just, well, it's easier being single. I don't have to worry about getting along with somebody and all these other problems. That is what this proverb is all about. The farmer who says, I'm just going to take the easy way. I'm not going to clean up my stalls. I'm also not going to be very productive. How about people who decide not to have children? Same kind of reasoning. Do I have to play it out for you? We're not going to have kids. I mean, look how they'll complicate our lives. Look at the money they'll take. Who wants to clean up those diapers? We won't be able to go to the parties we want to on and on and on. Or people who say, well, I can't have kids now. I mean, this would be too difficult. Maybe in a few years when we get established, when things become easier for us. But you see, simplicity and orderliness and security and convenience are not the only factors in our lives. If we're going to be productive, if we're going to grow and see progress. There are people who aren't willing to change schools when they really should and change vocations when, in all wisdom, they should. But I want to make another application at this point about not preferring security and convenience to growth and progress. And that is specifically to the life of the church. The church that I would describe as a church at ease. There are a lot of churches. Maybe this applies to us. I'm not going to say that it does, but I want us to ask, in all honesty, does it? There are a lot of congregations that can be described as though the program's rolling along. They really are a church at ease. They're at ease at what's going on. They've just gotten used to the very casual program, the lifestyle that's been put before them. Admittedly, hard work has to be put into a project. Admittedly, it takes a lot of headaches and complications and struggles and heartbreaks to run a program in the church. But you see, if we refuse to get involved in ministerial programs and, and projects because, well, it's just so much easier to keep things Going the way they are. Have we not missed the point, the wisdom that this proverb would give us? You just ask our chairman in this congregation how difficult it can be to run a program to get people out, to get them to do what they promised to do, to even remember what they promised to do. It is a problem. And so the easiest thing would be to say, let's not start anything new, right? Let's not venture out. Let's not try anything. And as individuals, I'm afraid all of us hesitate to be inconvenienced by meetings of the church, our activities, our new programs that will do what, Interrupt our leisure, that will call for some effort, that might even let us down from time to time. And so what we tend to do is we adopt the traditionalist fall back at ease attitude. We'll just let things roll along the way they are. Like the farmer who says, why get the stall messy with some oxen? The church should not be at ease. It should not take the outlook of convenience calls for just keeping things the way we've always done it. We should be willing to see some changes made, give you an illustration. What if the possibility were before our congregation to merge with another congregation of like mind and practice? I think all of us would have to say, oh, what a headache. All the questions that have to be ask, all the difficulties, all the logistics that have to be overcome. And maybe in the end, it's not a good decision to make. I don't know, you know, whether it is or not until we look at all those factors. But what would really be wrong is if we said, well, it's just such a hassle, let's forget it, okay? Let's just keep things nice the way we're sort of used to them now. The church at ease in Zion, the church that doesn't begin evangelistic projects or an outreach program or a new radio ministry, or a new Bible study or prayer meeting program or whatever it may be. The church that says, let's not complicate our lives. God says, if you want to be successful, you want to bring in a big crop, complicate your life, be willing to clean up the messes, get to work. Well, there's a third lesson this morning that I want us to learn, and that's that we have to recognize that orderliness can reach the point of unproductive sterility. Orderliness is not the highest value in life. This proverb is not a plea for untidiness, nor is it a justification for useless messes. And so kids clean up your rooms. This proverb doesn't say, for any reason at all, go ahead and let the oxen have a nice dirty stall. That isn't the point of the proverb. Nor is this proverb a plea for carelessness and disorganization. So you men, clean up your desk and get your files in order. Straighten up the garage, for crying out loud. You women, get your houses in order. This proverb doesn't justify going around in a slovenly way. That's not the point of the proverb. It is rather a very pointed reminder that we should not confuse efficiency with undisturbed tidiness. Sometimes we do have to get rid of our tidiness and be willing to go back and clean up the mess in order that we could become more efficient and more productive in life. The proverb calls us to be ready to accept upheavals in our lives, to clean up the messes, to complicate our lives and routines in view of the greater productiveness and success that we'd be able to gain. And you know, there's a lot of applications of this. Think about it. We could apply that principle to individual affairs. Should you learn to use a home computer or not? It's a real pain. I'll be the first to tell you. It takes a while. But you know, if you become more productive because of it, it's a good decision. Tidiness would not be the principle to use there. Should you be working out at the gym? You know, that's a real hassle. For some people, the answer is yes, for some is no. But for no one is the answer. It's inconvenient. Should you grant freedom and creativity to your children? Just think of how nice it would be if we could just put our children in straight jackets, put them in the corner, feed them when it's time, put them to bed when it's time, and never have to work with anything. Never worry about the finger paints getting on the rug. But you see, that isn't the answer. You know, you can have a nice clean stall without any ox, don't have any children, but that's hardly the way to be successful and productive in your lives. And that pun is intended. Should we be hospitable when our house is less than perfectly picked up? There are some people say, I'm never going to have anyone over until my house is just exactly good housekeeping to come in here and give me their seal of approval. I mean, tidiness is nice, but you see, you make some sacrifices for progress and Success in your life. This could be applied to institutional affairs. Boy, I'd love to apply this to our presbytery. Look at the amount of time we use for approving our minutes and getting every comma in the right place. If I can be exaggerated here. Now, I believe in having orderly minutes. I believe they should be accurate minutes. But I do believe we can also spend a lot of very precious time on something that is just refining or polishing brass when it's not necessary at all. We sometimes in presbytery complain about the inconvenience of more meetings or complain about longer meetings because we have to examine candidates for the ministry and so forth. So what we tend to do is we cut down on the length of the exams. We tell the examiners, keep it to a half hour, whatever it may be, because we want to be efficient, we want to be tidy, we want to get home on time. Look, there's a place for that principle. I don't think we should just go on and on and on either. But the problem is, in an institutional setting like presbytery, if you really want to be tidy, don't have any candidates for the ministry, you won't have to give any exams and won't waste any time at all. See, that's what this proverb's talking about. The whole foolishness of saying, look, let's get rid of the ox. We won't have any mess. And so in our personal affairs, in our institutional affairs, we can learn something from this proverb. But I think we can learn something in our spiritual matters too. You see, it takes some time, and you've got to give up some time for personal Bible study on a daily basis. You can say, hey, it'd be a lot easier not even have to worry about it. I won't even factor it into my life. No mess, no complications. You're exactly right, and you're a fool. You should mess up your life a little bit. You should get your schedule a little untidy. You should sometimes have to rush to work a little faster than you'd like to because you got up to read your Bible first. It takes time to select materials and a program to follow. Sometimes you have to go out and buy a Bible dictionary or a concordance or something. You have to learn to use these things. That's really a pain, but it's worth worthwhile. Learning to pray continually learning to pray effectively is going to mess up your life. It's going to take something away from your schedule. Overcoming the distance between you and other people in this congregation is going to take some time. It's not going to be easy. It's going to complicate your schedule. And so when you offer those reasons to me for why you are not growing in your Christian life, I want you to understand what I mean when I cryptically say, and where there are no oxen, the stall is clean. Just remember, the farmer is a fool who reasons that way. And so are you if you reason that way about your spiritual life. In all these areas, we foolishly accept neatness and accept orderliness in the place of productive success in our lives. But there's one final concluding application I want to make of this. I want you to see how God Himself illustrates the wisdom of this proverb, how he illustrates it in salvation itself. For you know, the Scriptures teach us that God is a God of order. God is a God of efficiency. Order and efficiency mark the character and the works of God. God made the world a cosmos. The Greek word itself suggests ordered, structured, put together, just right. God governs the world with regularity. This isn't a chance, haphazard world. He's very orderly, very efficient in the way he makes things happen in this world. And there's no changeableness in God. When he has a program, he sticks right with it. And he accomplishes all of his will. There's no fear of obstruction there. He is sovereign. He is orderly. He is efficient. In fact, he requires what? That in the church everything be done decently and in order. So you better believe we have a God of order and a God of efficiency. We also know that in his sovereign justice, God could very well have consigned the sinful human race directly to everlasting damnation for its rebellion against Him. That would have been, without a doubt, the easiest thing for God to do. That would have been, without a doubt, the most efficient thing for God to do. That would have been the most orderly solution to the problem of sin. God is a God of order. He's a God of justice. We have rebelled. That's it for us. God could have been very tidy about this problem. He could have cleaned it up immediately, satisfactorily and without any loose ends. But obviously, God had other ends in mind for us. Orderliness and tidiness. And efficiency is not the only thing he was concerned with. And in order to accomplish those ends, namely the salvation of his people, God was willing to undergo a tremendous disruption, to get involved in a very complicated mess and to suffer greatly for it. Isn't that the meaning behind the Word? So in that, well known verse John 3:16. For God so loved the world that he did what he gave his only begotten Son. God's love called for departing from the path of efficiency and orderliness in dealing with the problem of sin. God took the long way around to accomplish something because he so loved us, we were worth the effort. Jesus said in the garden of Gethsemane before he went to the cross, father, if you are willing, remember, remove this cup from me, nevertheless, not my will, but Thine be done. And Luke adds, being in agony, he prayed more earnestly, father, if there's any way remove this cup. Would you ask yourself, couldn't God have removed that cup? Couldn't God have said, there's an easier way to deal with this? Instead of condemning my Son, I'll just condemn the world. The world is the one that deserves that condemnation. He could have done away with the problem like that. And yet the Father's will was not to remove that cup, but to send His Son to the cross. And that's why Paul says in Romans 8:32, he that spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not also with him freely give us all things? All those are beautiful words. Spared not the foolish farmer. He spares the grief of cleaning up after the mess, and he doesn't bring in the crops. God, in all of his wisdom, spared not his own son that he might accomplish that productive and successful end of saving a people for himself. And so Hebrews 12 tells us very properly, let's look unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who, for the joy that was set before him, for the success at the end of the line, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and then sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. The principle that we see here in Proverbs 14:4, Though we were tempted at the beginning this morning to just completely dismiss, turns out to be without our being aware of it. In fact, a principle that shows the divine wisdom. God is willing to suffer a great deal for the joy that is set before him to save us. He would not even spare His Son. And so this principle of accepting some complications, some messes in life in order to achieve a greater end is one that's not only for us to follow ethically, but one for us to thank God that He follows in his divine and gracious way. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your holy word. Thank you for the precious nuggets of truth that are to be mined out of it. We ask that you would give us a willingness to study it in depth, in detail, to fight long and hard if we have to, to see what it's being taught and how it profits us. We pray you would give us such a heart so that we would not be willing to accept inadequate armor to wear or roadmaps that have missing parts. Help us to love your Word and want to live by every word that proceeds from your mouth. And we thank you for this verse that we've been studying this morning. We thank you because it's a rebuke to us who so often are foolish and short sighted and accept convenience to complication and don't see that sometimes orderliness in fact is an obstacle to achieving what you want us to do achieve in our lives. Help us to balance the principles and to correlate them properly that we learn from your Word and above all teach us to be like you, to see that what you have given us in the Proverbs is but a human earthly expression of that glorious, holy, just and wise character which you yourself display. We thank you for your love and wisdom that you didn't spare any expense, even your own Son's life, in order to accomplish the end of saving us. Thank you for not being orderly and efficient in disposing of our sins and thereby disposing of us. We pray in Jesus name Amen.