sermon-archive – jeffersonvann

JOY

JOY

Isaiah 16:10-12 NET.

¹⁰Joy and happiness disappear from the orchards, and in the vineyards no one rejoices or shouts; no one treads out juice in the wine vats — I have brought the joyful shouts to an end. ¹¹ So my heart constantly sighs for Moab, like the strumming of a harp, my inner being sighs for Kir Hareseth. ¹² When the Moabites plead with all their might at their high places, and enter their temples to pray, their prayers will be ineffective!

When we studied the poetry of the Bible, such as the Psalms, we primarily examined words coming from humans directed toward or about God. But now we’re looking at a different genre. We are focusing on literature that is mostly directly from God through a human prophet. It’s important to understand that the direction differs in prophecy. Prophecy involves words from God through the prophet, whereas poetry involves words from humans about God or to God.

All of these words in the Bible come directly from God, the Holy Spirit, in that He inspired them. He inspired poets to say what was needed for the songs to be written. In the Old Testament’s prophecy section, we see words from God the Holy Spirit as a testimony from God Himself. Today, we often use the word prophecy to refer to predictions. Some of these are found in the Old Testament prophets. For example, messianic prophecies throughout the Bible predict the coming Messiah; many were fulfilled at Jesus’ first advent when He was born. Others were fulfilled during His earthly ministry, and some are yet to be fulfilled at His second coming. The second coming is a primary focus of Old Testament prophecy. While many messianic prophecies appear in the Old Testament prophets, most prophecies focus on the Day of the Lord, which is the second advent.

But the prophets spoke directly from God to the people, culture, and time in which they lived. That explains why we have passages like today’s text, which speaks directly to the nation of Moab and is a prophecy from God to that nation. Although Israel was God’s chosen people to bring about redemption for all humanity, that does not mean Israel was God’s only concern. Even in the Old Testament, we see reflections of a God who is the God of all nations and cares about them all. Today’s text reflects that because it is about a nation other than Israel.

You might remember that Moab, as a nation, consisted of people who were relatives of the Israelites. Moab came from Lot, Abraham’s nephew. Both the Moabites and the Ammonites are descendants of Lot. You might recall that Lot’s daughters got their father drunk and slept with him. They both became pregnant and gave birth to the ancestors of those two nations. The names of these nations reflect this fact. The name Ammon means “my people,” and the name Moab means “from the father.” Moab was the ancestor of the Moabites to whom God speaks in today’s text.

Even if we only consider the three verses from today’s passage, we can still learn something about Moab as a nation. We find that they are a nation of vineyard owners and orchard keepers. Evidently, the land they possess is well-suited for fruit trees and vineyards. They also appear to derive great pleasure and joy from this way of life.

Another thing we learn from today’s passage about the Moabites is that they are very religious. They don’t worship at the temple in Jerusalem, but they have their own temples and high places where they pray and make sacrifices. They didn’t follow in Abraham’s footsteps; they have their own religion. However, we see from today’s text that they are very dedicated to practicing it. But we also learn from today’s passage in Isaiah that their devotion to their religion will not influence God. Isaiah declares judgment upon Moab.

The Lord will end the joy of the heathen.

Isaiah says that joy and happiness will disappear from the orchards. He explains that in the vineyards, no one will be rejoicing or shouting. The reason is that the labor that brings about joy will come to an end. No one will be treading out juice in the wine vats. Isaiah, speaking for God, says that God has brought the joyful shout to an end.

It’s essential to examine a passage like this, especially in today’s season. Christians around the world during this Advent season are talking about joy from the Lord. We have every right to speak about joy from the Lord. But we must remember that the joy that comes from the Lord is a joy for those whom the Lord is pleased with. Just as the peace that God promised when He sent Jesus into the world, the joy He promises is also explicitly directed toward those who will accept Christ. The joy entering the world only comes to those who receive Jesus Christ as King. This is the message of the Old and New Testaments.

The prophecy Isaiah shares in today’s passage concerns the destruction of Moab as a nation. There is no Moab today, so that prophecy has been fulfilled. However, there’s more to this passage than just the prediction and its fulfillment. God gave us that message not only because of the Moabites, but because what happened to them will happen to all the heathen nations that haven’t accepted Christ. He will take away the joy from those nations and remove all who claim to have a relationship with God but have not come to His Son and accepted Him as their King.

Last Sunday night, we watched a movie during the evening service. The film showed a tribe living in the jungle that had not yet learned about Jesus. Some of you have talked to me afterward and said that the movie really shook you up. You couldn’t understand how people could live like that. It’s important to remember that there are still people in the world living without Christ and without hope. They are living in darkness and have not yet experienced the light of Christ.

We are still living in an age where our primary focus should be on reaching the lost. There are not only many individuals who need salvation, but also thousands of people groups who have never heard the name of Christ. Some of these might be experiencing temporary joy in their current lives, but as the Moabites did, that joy will be short-lived and ultimately disrupted by the judgment of Almighty God. We must have compassion for these people and strive to get the gospel to them. If the only way to reach them is by sending our sons and daughters, that is what we must do.

The reality of God’s judgment upon the nations remains unchanged. The heathen are still lost regardless of what happens to us. They need to hear the word of God and to listen to it from the Church of God. Yes, God loves them, but He also hates their sin. Just as God pronounced judgment upon Moab, many people groups around the world are facing God’s judgment.

The Lord has no joy in doing this.

Isaiah, speaking for God in today’s passage, says that His heart constantly sighs for Moab, like the strumming of a harp. His inner being sighs for Kir Harosheth, one of the Moabite cities. Isaiah opens a window into God’s mind, revealing His heart. He shows a God whose heart is breaking because He must destroy the wicked. You see, God is a God of justice. When something is wrong, He must correct it. As the ruler of this universe, He is responsible for fixing mistakes. But God is also compassionate. He does not want to destroy the lost. He is not willing that anyone should perish, but He desires all to come to repentance. However, He has set a date for judging the great and the small. When that day arrives, there will be no more time for mercy. When the trumpet sounds and time ends, those who are lost will be forever lost.

Why does God tell us that he has no joy in destroying Moab? Specifically, why is this statement included in the Israelite scriptures? Why does God speak this through the mouth of an Israelite prophet? There must be a reason this is relevant to the children of Israel. It reveals the heart of their God. It shows that their God is not a respecter of persons. He loves the children of Israel, but also loves the children of Moab. He loves the followers of the Christian Bible, but also cares for those who follow other Bibles and have not yet seen the truth in his holy word. God’s heart extends beyond just those who consider themselves his. His heart cries out for us to reach those who don’t see themselves as his. He takes no joy in their destruction—he took no joy in the destruction of Moab. He takes no pleasure in the destruction of those who rebel against his truth. He considers them his children, even if they are prodigal children. He eagerly waits for the day when the prodigal son will come to himself and return home.

There is only one Way to the Lord.

There is a heretical teaching that continues to spread among Christian circles. This false teaching reflects everyone’s desire to be saved. Some say that as long as you are sincere in your belief, it doesn’t matter what that belief is. But we don’t see that idea in today’s passage. Isaiah says that when the Moabites plead with all their might at their high places and go into their temples to pray, their prayers will be ineffective. Isaiah shows that these Moabites are sincere in their belief and eager for God to save them, but they are going about it the wrong way.

The New Testament gospel communicates the same message. Jesus states that he is “the way, the truth, and the life,” and that no one comes to the Father except through him. Many of us struggle with this truth because we know there are many nations, many religions, and many ways people try to reach God. All around us, we hear people saying there are many ways to God. However, when they do so, they are not reflecting the Christian gospel. Today’s text reminds us that you can be sincerely seeking God and still not reach him. God has given us only one way of salvation: through the Lord Jesus Christ. That means many prayers will not be answered because they have not come through Jesus.

The joy we talk about at Christmas is a joy found only in Jesus Christ. The good news of the gospel is good news of great joy. However, the gospel is conditional, with Jesus Christ as the condition. This means that when Jesus comes, there will be joy in the world, but it will not reach everyone. As seen in other prophecies in the Old Testament, the coming of Christ will bring great fear and sorrow to those who have not accepted Him. That is why, when we proclaim the Christian joy of Christ’s coming, we must make it clear that the joy we speak of will only belong to those who have accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior.

Furthermore, the joy we speak of when we sing “Joy to the World” is a joy only experienced when our Lord returns. The joy we feel now is terrific, but it is only a preview of an even greater joy. The joy of Christ coming as a baby in Bethlehem was marvelous, but it was just the beginning. It was a joy for those who welcomed Christ into their hearts. It was a joy for Mary and Joseph. It was a joy for the shepherds. It was a joy for the wise men. It was a joy for Simeon and Anna.

The Advent season is a time for you and me to ask ourselves if we have room in our hearts for Jesus Christ. The joy of Christmas is ours if we can answer that question in the affirmative. Likewise, the joy of the second Advent is ours if we have found room in our hearts for Jesus as our Lord and Savior. Otherwise, like the Moabites, we will see that all we will eventually experience is loss, and even if we are sincere in our prayers, those prayers will never reach God. Even worse, when our Lord does come in his glory with all his angels, he will greet us not as our Lord and Savior but as our Judge.

If you want joy, absolute joy, incredible joy, let Jesus into your heart.

PEACE

PEACE

Isaiah 2:17-22

¹⁷ Proud men will be humiliated, arrogant men will be brought low; the LORD alone will be exalted in that day. ¹⁸ The worthless idols will be completely eliminated. ¹⁹ They will go into caves in the rocky cliffs and into holes in the ground, trying to escape the dreadful judgment of the LORD and his royal splendor, when he rises up to terrify the earth. ²⁰ At that time men will throw their silver and gold idols, which they made for themselves to worship, into the caves where rodents and bats live, ²¹so they themselves can go into the crevices of the rocky cliffs and the openings under the rocky overhangs, trying to escape the dreadful judgment of the LORD and his royal splendor, when he rises up to terrify the earth. ²² Stop trusting in human beings, whose life’s breath is in their nostrils. For why should they be given special consideration?

There is something special about the Christmas season. It occurs at the end of the year for most of the world. It is a time of great excitement and activity. But the fact that the Advent season falls at the end of the year makes it a moment for reflection. Even amid the busyness of events, we seem to find time to pause and consider what truly matters in life. For many of us, Christmas is a time spent with family. It’s an opportunity to strengthen our relationships. For many, it’s also a time to reconnect with our faith. When we think about that baby in the Manger, we are reminded that we are part of a story unfolding before us, where God is actively involved in our daily lives.

I heard a sermon years ago titled “We Interrupt This Program.” That’s what God is doing at Christmas. He interrupts our lives, making us pause and think about what truly matters. That’s what God did when He sent His only Son to be born in Bethlehem. Life has gone on much the same way for generations, until Jesus came. The Christmas season is a time for us to pause and recognize that we are part of a universe in which God plays an active role.

The themes related to the Advent weeks help us reflect on these ideas. Last week, we focused on the theme of hope. We examined Ecclesiastes 9 and saw very little hope in that passage. Yet, Solomon in Ecclesiastes 9 encourages us to enjoy life. The only reason enjoying life is wise is that there is more to life than what is under the sun. Solomon did not know all the details of what God had planned for us. But he understood that there is more to life than just what is under the sun. We now know more than Solomon did. We know that there is hope beyond the grave because Jesus came and promised eternal life at the resurrection. Therefore, we have even greater cause to hope in our God.

This week’s Advent theme is peace. The passage we are looking at says very little about peace. But there is an essential reason for that, which I think will become more evident as we study this text. So let’s look at what the prophet Isaiah says in today’s text.

Isaiah describes the terrible Day of the LORD.

The day of the Lord is a common topic among the Old Testament prophets. The typical prediction they make is that God will come to judge the world. Malachi predicted a day when the world would burn like a furnace. He said that “all the arrogant evildoers will be chaff. The coming day will burn them up. It will not leave even a root or branch” (Malachi 4:1).

It is the same day of the Lord that Malachi mentioned, which Isaiah also refers to in today’s passage. He is describing a time of great fear for those living on the earth because God’s wrath has arrived. He depicts those trying to hide from the coming destruction and all the proud individuals caught in the web of God’s wrath, humiliated.

This message is a warning to everyone. The final verse tells us to stop trusting in human beings, whose life breath is in their nostrils. It questions why they should receive special treatment. Of course, in our world, people often get special consideration. We depend on many to tell us what life is and what truly matters. Many of these individuals are proud, arrogant, and even reject God and the Bible. Still, we are tempted to trust them because they are prominent, wealthy, and influential.

But Isaiah’s message is clear: those who are proud, arrogant, influential, and rich will be targets of God’s wrath on the day of the Lord. We are warned not to favor such people. All proud individuals will be humbled; their pride will not save them. Their rebellion against God will be remembered, and they will face the punishment of eternal death in the lake of fire.

Isaiah says that the day will reveal what people have trusted in.

He talks about how people of the world trust in the proud, the rich, the arrogant, and the influential. They have placed their trust in the wrong people. They should have trusted the humble, the meek, the righteous, and the pious. But these people they chose to reject. Instead, they selected those who would rule over them, exercising power because of their strength. But Isaiah states that on the day of the LORD, everyone will realize that that strength was actually a weakness. Everyone will see that they backed the wrong side. They trusted those who deceived them. They trusted those who boasted in their unrighteousness. But the day of the LORD will reveal the righteousness of Christ and shame all the unrighteous. Isaiah explains that those proud men will be humiliated. He says that those arrogant men will be brought low. He affirms that the Lord alone will be exalted on that day.

A second thing that people have trusted in is idols. In Isaiah’s day, idols were everywhere. The entire culture was fascinated by idol worship. Today, we don’t build personal idols or have family idols. But that doesn’t mean we don’t trust in idols. Anything that replaces God in your life is an idol. In that way, idolatry is still alive and well in every culture on Earth. On the day of the Lord, our idols will be exposed for what they truly are.

Isaiah says that the idols will be thrown away that day. He describes people hiding in caves and holes in the ground, trying to escape the terrible judgment of the Lord and His majestic splendor when He rises up to terrify the earth. What will happen to those idols? He says that people will toss their silver and gold idols—crafted for worship—into caves where rodents and bats live. They will be discarded because people will finally realize those idols are worthless.

For our generation and country, we will also find that many idols in our lives did not live up to their promises. Those without Christ might cling to their idols, but these idols cannot protect them from God’s coming judgment.

There is a warning for us in this message today. It reminds us to trust in the right things. Many people are demanding that we trust them, and many things seek to take up our lives and time. But only God and His word are genuinely deserving of our trust.

The consistent view of the Day of the LORD in the Old Testament was one where God would come to judge. But it also taught true believers that the day of the Lord would be a day of deliverance for them. God was very concerned that people would be caught off guard on judgment day. He wanted to ensure that everyone had a chance to repent and come to Christ before the Day of the LORD. That is why the Old Testament also spoke of another day. This day would be when God sent a special message to everyone, telling them how to prepare for the day of the LORD. That day was Christmas Day.

Before the day of the lord, God sent a message of peace.

The biblical God is a God of judgment, but He is also a God of compassion. He does not want anyone to perish but desires all to come to repentance. Therefore, it makes sense that God would make every effort to reach as many people as possible with the message of peace, preventing them from suffering His judgment. God’s plan included a message designed to capture people’s attention and help them avoid trusting in the wrong things. The message needed to be strong enough for the world to notice and clear enough for people to see the difference between following God and following idols.

God’s message of peace was not written in a book. It was not carved into a sculpture. It was not an audible recording. God’s message of peace was a person. The Bible tells us that God so loved the world that he gave us his only Son. Jesus himself was the message that God sent to prevent people from facing his wrath on the day of the Lord. Those who put their trust in Christ protect themselves from that terrible day of the Lord.

The angel told the shepherds not to be afraid because a Savior is born in Bethlehem. The angel choir sang “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among people with whom he is pleased!”

Paul taught that Christ is our peace because he has united us all as children of God. He said that Christ came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near, so that through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.

So, we have bad news and good news today. The bad news is that a terrible day of war and destruction will come in the future of this planet. The good news is Jesus, because he makes it possible for us to have peace with God now and to avoid that coming destruction.

We sing of the baby Jesus sleeping in heavenly peace. The truth is, he is our heavenly peace. He is the Prince of Peace. He will finally bring peace to this world at war.

HOPE

HOPE

Ecclesiastes 9:7-10 NET.

⁷Go, eat your food with joy, and drink your wine with a happy heart, because God has already approved your works. ⁸ Let your clothes always be white, and do not spare precious ointment on your head.

⁹ Enjoy life with your beloved wife during all the days of your fleeting life that God has given you on earth during all your fleeting days; for that is your reward in life and in your burdensome work on earth.

¹⁰ Whatever you find to do with your hands, do it with all your might, because there is neither work nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom in the grave, the place where you will eventually go.

The message of Solomon in his book Ecclesiastes can sometimes be challenging to learn. Some have called him a pessimist because he does not appear to give the “pie in the sky” gospel that many modern religious people preach. If you look at verse 10, it seems that Solomon is telling us that the only thing we have to look forward to is the grave. But then one wonders why he tells us, in verses 7-9, to enjoy life. He is not telling us to deny the finer things in life. He is telling us to feast on the best food and drink. To wear the best of clothing, to anoint our heads with oil, and to enjoy our marriages. The reason we should do that is that life is short.

Solomon does not seem to be following the same religious playbook as others. He looks at the same data others do, but he reaches a different conclusion. Solomon is not teaching us that life is futile. He is telling us that it can be wonderful, but also warning us that it does not last. So, he does not advocate withdrawal from life in a self-imposed monastic hermitage. Instead, he challenges all of us to engage in life and, if we are fortunate enough to have work, a good marriage, or any of the other benefits of this life, to consider them all a reward. Do not ignore those rewards. Enjoy them. Just remember that none of these things is permanent. Enjoy life’s temporary rewards, and also seek a more permanent kingdom.

Our Advent theme of hope centers on that idea as well. If we look at life under the sun, we can experience many good things, but the longer we live, the more we realize that life is temporary. It does not last. If we are looking for hope, we will have to look beyond the limits of ordinary life. Hope has to come from beyond the boundaries of this world. The message of the coming Messiah did that for the Jews during the long wait for Jesus. Their focus on the future king added an extra dimension to their lives. No matter who they were or what their personal experiences were, the vision of God’s saving King empowered them and helped them to stay focused on him.

Solomon taught that Hope is not found in retreat, but in engagement.

He didn’t tell them to waste their lives. He taught them the opposite approach. They were to invest their lives in today, as he did fully. Solomon was not just a thinker. He was a doer. He built things. He collected things. He was a Renaissance man long before the Renaissance. He modeled enlightenment long before the Enlightenment era.

There would be many seasons and eras that would ignore Solomon’s advice. Even many who sought to obey the commands of Christ would seek to do so by shutting themselves off from the world. They were not wrong. Our Lord did teach us to deny ourselves, take up the cross, and follow him. But Solomon taught us that we can put our hope in God’s future world while still being active and relevant in this one.

The prophets told us to wait on the Lord. Isaiah said, “I will wait for the LORD, who is hiding his face from the house of Jacob, and I will hope in him” (8:14). He spoke of a day when the Lord would 0swallow up death forever; and wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth. He wrote that it will be said on that day, “Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us. This is the LORD; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation” (25:8-9).

Isaiah’s point is that God would bring about the renewal and restoration of all things. He encouraged his readers to actively wait on God to do what only he could do.

Solomon taught us that we can wait on the Lord without retreating from life. The New Testament tells us about a couple of old-timers who had done that. They had long and fruitful lives, and then, when they were older, they met Jesus.

Solomon taught that Hope is not found in death, but in God.

The Israelites needed to be reminded of their history. We share that history. There are two of those reminders that Solomon mentioned in today’s text. In verse seven, he said that God had already approved of their works. This does not mean that God overlooked their sins. We have plenty of biblical proof of that. But what Solomon was talking about was the everyday life-work of people. He encouraged his readers to see God not as an enemy, but as a loving Father.

Solomon ended this book with these words: “Having heard everything, I have reached this conclusion: Fear God and keep his commandments, because this is the whole duty of man. For God will evaluate every deed, including every secret thing, whether good or evil” (12:13-14). Here’s the good and the bad news. The bad news is that we can fail. We can fail others and forget God. But the good news is that we can also obey God. King Solomon needed to remind his people that repentance is possible. No matter how many times they forgot their creator, they could always return to him. When they did, they would find their heavenly Father right there, where they left him, ready to forgive and reconcile with them.

We need to remember this, too. There’s a song that always reminds me of this when I hear it. The song is called “When God Ran.”

“Almighty God

The Great I Am

Immoveable Rock

Omnipotent, Powerful

Awesome Lord

Victorious Warrior

Commanding King of Kings

Mighty Conqueror

And the only time

The only time I ever saw Him run

Was when He ran to me

Took me in His arms, held my head to His chest

Said “My son’s come home again”

Lifted my face, wiped the tears from my eyes

With forgiveness in His voice

He said “Son, do you know I still love you?”

It caught me by surprise when God ran

The day I left home

I knew I’d broken His heart

I wondered then

If things could ever be the same

But one night

I remembered His love for me

And down that dusty road

Ahead I could see

It’s the only time

The only time I ever saw Him run

When He ran to me

Took me in His arms, held my head to His chest

Said “My son’s come home again”

Lifted my face, wiped the tears from my eyes

With forgiveness in His voice

He said “Son, do you know I still love you?”

It caught me by surprise

It brought me to my knees

When God ran.”

The second truth about God that Solomon reminds us of here is that he has given us lives to enjoy, and we should enjoy them. In verse 9, he says, “Enjoy life with your beloved wife during all the days of your fleeting life that God has given you on earth during all your fleeting days; for that is your reward in life and in your burdensome work on earth.” Here, again, we see the good and the bad. The bad news is that life is fleeting and can be burdensome. The good news is that we don’t have to live it alone. There are others whom god has given us to make life enjoyable. Praise God for that.

So, Solomon’s wisdom does not tell us to seek death, but to embrace life.

The ultimate message of hope is Christ.

Solomon does not mention the Messiah, but he surely knew about this promise from his own history. The prophecies spoke of another son of David whose coming would bring restoration to the universe. This season of Advent helps us remember that the hope of the ages began being fulfilled when our Lord came to us as a baby in Bethlehem. We join the angels and the shepherds and proclaim the good news of his first Advent. We also sing the second stanza of that song when we proclaim the promise of hs second coming. Both advents are fulfillments of God’s promise and humanity’s most profound hope. Just as the Israelites waited on the Lord to fulfill his promise, so we wait in anticipation of our Lord’s coming today. We hear him speak his final words in Scripture in the 20^th verse of the 22^nd chapter of Revelation. He says, “Yes, I am coming soon!” John replies, Amen! Come, Lord Jesus! It would not be a bad idea for us to hang on to those words. No matter what we face today, we can constantly be reminded of our hope by listening to our Savior say, “Yes, I am coming soon!” And when we hear it, we can reply, Amen! Come, Lord Jesus!

NOT FITTING

NOT FITTING

Proverbs 26:1 NET.

Like snow in summer or rain in harvest, so honor is not fitting for a fool.

Today’s passage is another standalone proverb from the book of Proverbs. It is not part of a series focused on a specific theme. I chose this verse because it is highly relevant to our modern 21st-century culture. We have a biblical responsibility to speak into our current culture and shed light on it with the principles taught in God’s Word. If we don’t do that, we might give people the impression that the Bible has nothing to say about what people are discussing in the public arena.

We need to be cautious when we do this so that we don’t give the impression that we agree with people because we oppose their opponents. This often happens when Christians speak out in the political arena. If we advocate for compassion for refugees, we might be perceived as aligning with Democrats. If we oppose abortion, we might seem like Republicans. However, Christians can support both positions because our understanding of justice is based on the Bible, not the platforms of either major political party.

So, please understand that what I am saying this morning does not come from the right or the left. It is not from the red or the blue. It is a biblical proverb, and those are meant to teach all people how to make appropriate decisions in their lives. In the Bible, the wise choice is not based on strategy. It is not based on majority rule. It is not based on economics. In the Bible, the wise choice is the morally correct choice—always.

The fools will think you are a fool if you do the right thing. The mocker will mock you for being naïve. The sluggard will accuse you of acting recklessly. The schemer will criticize you for not being devious enough. But if you focus on doing what is morally right, God will smile on you. You may not get rich quickly, but you will never have a reason to feel guilty or ashamed of your actions.

Some things just don’t fit right.

Today’s proverb begins by discussing two things that don’t belong together. They are out of place. First is snow in summer. We might expect snow in the cold winter months. But seeing snow on a summer day means something is off. The weather isn’t right for snow. I grew up in Florida, and I remember it snowed once. It landed on the ground but melted right away. The only place it stayed was on the tops of the cars. So, we kids collected it from the car tops to make snowballs—which, of course, is what snow is for. If we got snow here in Delco during the summer, I bet it would melt fast. The point of the proverb is that snow in the summer is out of place.

The second thing that is out of place is rain during harvest. You don’t want it to rain then because it would interfere with the harvest. You need dry weather to get the crops in before they spoil. Once again, the point is that such rain would be out of place. It wouldn’t be fitting.

The thing that these two similes point to – the thing that is not fitting – is honoring a fool.

Some people we should honor.

We know from the Bible that God should always be honored and glorified. He is our creator and sustainer. We are also told that the Son should be honored as well as the Father, so Jesus is worthy of our honor and worship.

The fifth of the Ten Commandments tells us to honor our parents. It is the only commandment that promises that those who follow it will have things go well with them and that their lives will be long.

The Bible also encourages younger people to honor and show respect to the elderly. When my family lived in the Philippines, we got used to younger folks placing their hands on their elders’ foreheads as a sign of respect and blessing.

The Bible also encourages respect and honor for the governing authorities. This includes more than just paying our obligatory taxes. It also means showing community, state, and national leaders respect for their offices. We could use a lot more of that in our society today.

The Bible also encourages believers to honor their church leaders. Some faith communities do this very well, but many of our evangelical denominations are so careful not to idolize their leaders that they wind up not showing respect for church offices at all.

The Bible also encourages us to honor the institution of marriage. We often find this challenging. So many marriages fail. Many of our marriages appear to be under attack, both from outside influences and internal struggles.

The Bible also encourages us to make note of those whose lives reflect God’s wisdom and righteousness. We should honor such people and make them our heroes. We should pattern our lives after theirs.

The Bible also encourages believers to treat one another as equals – especially when it comes to honor and respect. In fact, the command is for us to honor one another above ourselves. That means giving deference to others instead of our own opinions and backgrounds.

With all these instructions about honoring others, it seems odd that the Bible would teach us not to honor someone. But this is the case. There are two reasons why honoring fools is not fitting.

Honoring fools encourages their foolishness.

Fools despise wisdom and instruction (1:7), so if we honor them, we affirm their choice to remain ignorant. They have chosen careless ease when they should have chosen diligence. To honor such a choice is to dishonor the wise. They have chosen the path of destruction, and the more honor we show them, the more they will continue down that path.

In fact, Proverbs tells us that the wise person will inherit honor himself, but he is instructed to hold fools up to public contempt (3:35). It is not wise to simply ignore the foolishness around us. We have to expose it. If we do not expose it, the foolish will never learn how ridiculous they are. Children do silly things, but if their parents are wise, they will rebuke and even punish their children so they know. It is not healthy or loving to ignore it when the child acts up.

The Bible encourages us to choose wise friends so we learn to act wisely as they do. It says, “The one who associates with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm” (13:20). As teenagers, we learn that if we run with a bad crowd, we will find ourselves doing the bad things that our friends do. Imagine that!

We need to be discerning about who we spend our time with. Both wisdom and foolishness feed on the approval we give them. If we choose to be around foolish people who do irrational things, not only will we learn those behaviors, but the fools will never learn to do anything else.

Honoring fools spreads their foolishness.

The second reason that honoring fools is not fitting is that it turns the wise into fools. If we stay around people who have chosen to live ungodly lives, that ungodliness will spread to us. The people we listen to and learn from will make us like them. They can infest us with their foolishness.

I believe this proverb is highly relevant for our 21st-century audience because we now have many different ways to invite someone into our lives. In the past, if you wanted to establish a connection with someone, you would have needed to visit them at their home or ask them to come to yours. Today, people connect through many different methods. The old ways of mail, television, movies, and the telephone have now been supplemented by texting, email, streaming, and social media.

One of the things this entails is that there are now various ways we can be influenced by people we don’t know. If we don’t know them, we don’t know what their attitude toward God and his word is.

Let me present another analogy to illustrate how risky this is. Imagine you took a bunch of pills and stored them all in one box. You grabbed some pills from your medicine cabinet, others from mine, and some from the local pharmacy. But you don’t recognize any of the pills, and you have no idea what they’re for or their side effects. Would it be wise to open the box, pick a random pill every hour, and swallow it with a glass of water? Anyone would agree that this isn’t a good idea. When it comes to our medicine, we prefer to take only what a trusted doctor prescribes, and even then, we want to know all potential side effects, the condition the pill is meant to treat, how often we should take it, and when we should stop. Pills influence our health, so we are very discriminate about which pills we take.

I hope the Lord comes back soon, but if he delays his coming, I think people will look back on this period of human history and characterize it as one in which the population as a whole was indiscriminate in whom it chose to honor. We let just anybody in to speak to us and tell us what to eat, who to love, what to buy, and how to live.

Some people think we are on the wrong road by introducing artificial intelligence into our culture. That may be true, but it might also be that the human intelligence we have been relying on is already faulty and corrupt. How do we know what we know? If we have no standard to determine whether a statement is true or untrue, how safe is our knowledge?

One of the most elementary ways to show respect to someone is to trust what they say. But in a world full of fools, sluggards, mockers, and schemers, it is not wise to trust everyone. It is not wise to honor everyone. Some of the people trying to educate us deserve public contempt. Some who are trying to lead us need to be voted out of office. Some who are trying to gain a following should be censored because they are telling lies. We can defend their freedom of speech without allowing them to teach our children. We can protect their freedom to believe what they want without allowing them to indoctrinate our children. Respecting them as citizens does not entail our honoring their influence.

We should be asking ourselves how the next generation will evaluate us. Will they consider us wise? The apostle Paul said that Jesus gave the church its leaders so that we could become mature, no longer like children, “tossed back and forth by waves and carried about by every wind of teaching by the trickery of people who craftily carry out their deceitful schemes but practicing the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into Christ, who is the head” (Ephesians 4:14-15).

He envisioned a world in which believers matured so they could be influencers. That is what Jesus said he wanted, too. He told us that we are the light of the world.

The world has enough fools. Are you ready to become wise and spread God’s wisdom? Are you prepared to let God change you so that he can then use you to change others? That is what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.

HEAVY LIFTING

HEAVY LIFTING

Proverbs 12:25 Anxiety in a person’s heart weighs him down, but an encouraging word brings him joy.

Tuesday, we began reading through the book of Proverbs, two chapters a day. Some time ago, we spent several months studying the Proverbs in our Sunday evening Bible Studies. For that reason, I don’t think we must cover everything the book has to say in the two Sundays we have for sermons on Proverbs. Instead, I will summarize some of the main ideas in Proverbs while considering the teachings of just two verses that I believe are especially relevant for life today.

Proverbs is a collection of wise sayings compiled by Solomon, the son of David. This compilation occurred approximately a thousand years before the birth of Christ. There is only one hero of the Proverbs. This is the wise person. Wise people learn wisdom from their parents and live the right sort of lives so that they avoid the pitfalls of being unwise.

There is only one kind of wise person, but there are very many different kinds of unwise person. The unwise people are the villains of the book of Proverbs. They appear throughout the book and take different names. Each name identifies the way in which this particular kind of unwise person deviates from the wisdom the book teaches.

So, here is a roster of the villains in Proverbs:

The Stupid Villains

The book of Proverbs refers to these people as fools. They are fools because they choose to ignore God’s wisdom. They disregard the instructions of wise people, whether from their parents or other leaders. They “despise wisdom and instruction” (1:7). They hate knowledge (1:22). They live carelessly, even when making decisions that can potentially destroy them.

I saw a cartoon once that illustrates the power of stupidity. It was a Hägar the Horrible cartoon. There is a character in this cartoon called Lucky Eddie. Lucky Eddy has a bow and arrow. He has pulled back the bow, getting ready to send the arrow to its target. But there is something wrong. Eddie has the arrow pointed not away from him, but directly at his own face. A passerby sees this and tries to intervene. He wants to tell Eddie that the arrow is aimed in the wrong direction and it could kill him. But Hägar stops the man from intervening. He explains, “No, that’s the only way he’ll learn.”

The point of the Proverbs is that these fools are making choices that will inevitably lead to their own destruction. Wise people must intervene because the fools are making unwise choices, which will lead to disaster. The fools are convinced that they are right, but they are not only wrong; they are often mistaken with a loud voice.

The Psalms tell us that fools convince themselves that there is no God (Psalm 14:1; 53:1). They begin with a practical atheism that renders them incapable of approaching wisdom. The Proverbs teach us to stay away from such fools and not to listen to their babbling.

The Scoffing Villains

The second type of villain introduced in Proverbs is the mockers. They are arrogant and disrespectful, and distrustful. If we try to correct the scoffing villains, they will insult us (9:7). When I was growing up, we used to say about such people that they were too big for their britches. The Proverbs warns such people that “The eye that mocks at a father and despises obeying a mother — the ravens of the valley will peck it out and the young vultures will eat it” (30:17).

The Slothful Villains

The third type of villain in Proverbs is not foolish because they are ignorant or arrogant. They are just too lazy to learn the correct way to live. These are the sluggards. They are not motivated to do anything, so they will not amount to anything. They should learn the lesson from the ant and be industrious. But the way they are going is going to lead them to poverty and destitution.

The Scheming Villains

The final type in my little roster today is the scheming villain. They may seem to be our friends, inviting us to share in their table. But there is always an angle to their kindness. They are trying to get rich by taking advantage of others. If they give a party, we should politely decline their invitation.

But the book of Proverbs is not always trying to get us to avoid the villains. Often, the goal is to teach us how to be the heroes of our own lives. The goal is not simply to avoid foolishness, but to act wisely. Wisdom is about learning to do the right thing and making wise decisions. Today’s verse is an example of that.

It talks about anxiety, but the Hebrew word used is not the same word that is usually translated as fear.

Fear is a gift, but anxiety is a curse.

There are, of course, some abnormal fears. We call them phobias. But normal fear is actually a gift. It is a heightened sense of danger that can trigger in us the adrenaline we need to either fight off the threat or flee from it. Normal fear is a gift from God, and it is not something we should try to eradicate from our lives.

But the anxiety that today’s verse talks about is something else entirely. It is a sense of dread that lodges itself inside the human heart. This anxiety sits in the heart and weighs it down. It removes the everyday happiness that makes living a joy and working a blessing. It creates its own gravity, sending every thought downward into depression and disillusionment.

The heart in the Bible is a symbol of the central thoughts and desires of the human being. When the heart becomes weighed down, its owner feels as though there is no longer any reason to live. Many commit suicide because they stop having any hope of things getting better. They see only despair and disappointment in their future.

This feeling can happen at any stage in a person’s life. This horrible gravity can weigh down both young people and older individuals. It can inflict its damage on a person anywhere along the spectrum of intelligence. It can attack a man or a woman, a boy or a girl. The rich are not immune to its power. People experiencing poverty cannot avoid its influence.

Many live with the pressure of anxiety.

In 2021, they did a survey that discovered that anxiety was the most common mental disorder and affected an estimated 359 million people in the world. Between 1990 and 2019, the number of people being affected by anxiety increased by over 55%. They discovered that people at a higher socio-economic level are more likely to suffer from anxiety. Poverty can cause depression, but wealth is no defense against it. They also discovered that anxiety disorders are becoming more and more prevalent among adolescents and young adults. Age can lead to depression, but youth is not a defense against it.

But the heaviness that today’s verse talks about is not just the result of a mental disorder. The Proverbs seems to be discussing a problem that any one of us can experience. Anxiety can lodge itself inside our hearts, putting pressure on us and keeping us from seeing any way out or any hope for recovery.

That is the problem. However, the Holy Spirit never introduces us to a problem without revealing an answer to it. In fact, every situation presents an opportunity for us to make a wise decision that alleviates the problem. The solution to the problem of a heavy heart I an encouraging word.

Our encouragement can help.

This is where the heavy lifting (from today’s title) comes into play. Our friends, our family members, and our fellow church members are in danger of falling prey to the heavy heart syndrome. They can become victims. That means that we have the opportunity to become the heroes of their stories.

The book of Job is a lesson in how not to deal with personal anxiety. Job suffered loss, disaster, and despair. His wife was no help. She just told him to curse God and die. His friends were no help. They just lectured him about his hidden sins that supposedly led to his troubles. Job’s story is a lesson for all of us in how not to lift the heavy burden of anxiety from a hurting heart.

But today’s verse tells us how it can be done. It says that an encouraging word brings joy to the anxious person. That is what we have the opportunity to do. We can replace the heavy heart with a joyful heart.

There are probably as many ways to encourage someone as there are ways to become discouraged. Here are some ways to encourage a person with a heavy heart.

We can encourage them with our testimony. If we have ever experienced the kind of anxiety that the victim is experiencing, we can tell our story, showing them that rescue from that predicament is possible. One reason that anxiety can be so damaging is that it convinces its victims that they are the only ones who have ever felt this badly. But by sharing our testimonies, we let the victims know that we were once there too, and by God’s grace, we were able to overcome it.

We can also encourage them with our prayers. Even if we have never experienced the kind of pressure that our anxious friends are facing, we can show them that we care by interceding for them in prayer. I, myself, have been there. I have been going through a rough time, and when my friends prayed for me, I saw no immediate result of the prayer. But as soon as they prayed, I felt the result in my heart. The heaviness I had felt began to lift slightly. Prayer does change things, even when the prayer does not seem to be answered. The act of praying itself can be a source of encouragement.

We can encourage them with the promises from the Bible. The devil wants to destroy people with anxiety. He wants them to feel like they are all alone in their problems, and God is somewhere distant. But the promises of God can lift that burden. Psalm 23 shows how the psalmist encouraged himself by meditating on God’s promise to guide him as a shepherd.

We can encourage them by reminding them who God is. They need to know that there is a power greater than the problem they are currently facing. They need to be reminded that God is Almighty. There is nothing too complicated for him. They also need to be reminded that God is loving and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in mercy and faithfulness.

But what if we still cannot find the words to say? My advice is – wait it out. Stay with our hurting friends and give them the gift of our time. At some point, the God of all comfort will provide us with words to say to lift the heavy loads of anxiety from the hearts of our friends. While we wait for the words to say, we can be silently praying for those encouraging words. Jesus commands us to ask, and he promises to give what we ask for. Surely, he wants us to minister to those of a heavy heart.

Encouraging those who are feeling anxiety is just one of the many ministries that every believer can be involved in. You do not need a seminary degree. You do not need an impressive church title. You don’t have to be on the church board. You don’t have to possess a special spiritual gift. Today’s text tells us that all we need is an encouraging word. It seems like a tiny thing. But most of us can share our own experience when we were weighed down with anxiety, and somebody came along and just said the right thing to lighten our load. Let’s be that somebody for somebody else.