Category: Devotional Grist

We come this morning to speak about a subject which many erudite Theologians have insisted is the Theme of Scripture. One prominent theologian once said that covenant theology was the architectonic principle of Reformed theology. As such the time we are able to give to it is totally inadequate to the immensity of its subject matter. Our subject matter this morning is the Biblical motif of covenant, specifically as to it’s sign and seal of initiation — Baptism. Narrowing it down even further we will spend some time considering the place of God’s children’s children in the covenant.

It is not to much to say that until we start thinking rightly again on this matter of covenant the Church will remain hopelessly compromised in its identity and mission, just as it currently is.

We will start with our cursory examination today by looking at Acts 2, though in doing so we will be coming in at a point in the story of covenant that has already long been told for centuries. However, working from Acts two we will work backwards in a kind of retrospective movement to consider the long roots of covenant.

As we come to Acts 2 we have the fairly familiar story of God’s gathering of His Church on the day of Pentecost. The Disciples receive the Promised Holy Spirit and the immediate consequence is that Peter Preaches a Sermon. At the end of his sermon the hearers cry out, “Men and Brethren, what shall we do?”

In vs. 38 Peter, speaking as the mouthpiece of God, and calls on them to Repent, (that is to turn to God out of sorrow for sin) and be Baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins. Peter then tells them the consequent of this action will be the receiving of the gift of the Holy Spirit. in vs. 39 Peter tells them that the “promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.”

We want to examine these words of vs. 39 a bit more closely. Peter speaks of “the promise,” and we are suggesting this morning that “the promise” that Peter speaks of is another way of speaking of “the covenant.”

Before we go any further then we should try to get in our minds first what this promise is and then what a covenant is and then the relation between the two.

Now as to the promise that Peter speaks of I believe we must identify as God’s age old promise to the Israel of Israel that He would be their God and they would be His people. Peter speaks of this Promise to these Jews who were cut to the heart in conviction as a warrant for why repentance and baptism is extended unto them. So, when Peter references “the Promise” the repentant Jews present would have known this is what he was speak referencing. This Promise of God to the Church in the Old Covenant is littered throughout the pages of the Old Testament.

Genesis 17:7-8 “And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.”

Exodus 6:7 “I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the LORD your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.”

Exodus 19:5-6 (with 20:2) “Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. Theses are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel…. I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.”

Exodus 29:45-46 “I will dwell among the people of Israel and will be their God. And they shall know that I am the LORD their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt that I might dwell among them. I am the LORD their God.”

Leviticus 26:11-12 “I will make my dwelling among you, and my soul shall not abhor you. And I will walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people.”

Deuteronomy 4:20 “But the LORD has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be a people of his own inheritance, as you are this day.”

Deuteronomy 7:6 “For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.”

Deuteronomy 14:2 “For you are a people holy to the LORD your God, and the LORD has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.”

Deuteronomy 26:18 “And the LORD has declared today that you are a people for his treasured possession, as he has promised you, and that you are to keep all his commandments,”

Deuteronomy 29:13 “That he may establish you today as his people, and that he may be your God, as he promised you, and as he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.”

2 Samuel 7:24 “And you established for yourself your people Israel to be your people forever. And you, O LORD, became their God.”

1 Chron. 17:22 “And you made your people Israel to be your people forever, and you, O LORD, became their God.”

Jeremiah 7:23 But this command I gave them: ‘Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people. And walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.’”

Jeremiah 11:4 “That I commanded your fathers when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, from the iron furnace, saying, Listen to my voice, and do all that I command you. So shall you be my people, and I will be your God,”

Jeremiah 24:7 “I will give them a heart to know that I am the LORD, and they shall be my people and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with their whole heart.”

Jeremiah 30:22 “And you shall be my people, and I will be your God.”

Jeremiah 31:1 “At that time, declares the LORD, I will be the God of all the clans of Israel, and they shall be my people.”

Jeremiah 31:33 “But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”

Jeremiah 32:38 “And they shall be my people, and I will be their God.”

Ezekiel 11:20 “That they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God.”

Ezekiel 14:11 “That the house of Israel may no more go astray from me, nor defile themselves anymore with all their transgressions, but that they may be my people and I may be their God, declares the Lord GOD.”

Ezekiel 34:24 “And I, the LORD, will be their God, and my servant David shall be prince among them. I am the LORD; I have spoken.”

Ezekiel 34:30 “And they shall know that I am the LORD their God with them, and that they, the house of Israel, are my people, declares the Lord GOD.”

Ezekiel 36:27-28 “And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.”

Ezekiel 37:23 “They shall not defile themselves anymore with their idols and their detestable things, or with any of their transgressions. But I will save them from all the backslidings in which they have sinned, and will cleanse them; and they shall be my people, and I will be their God.”

Ezekiel 37:27 “My dwelling place shall be with them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”

Hosea 2:23 “And I will sow her for myself in the land. And I will have mercy on No Mercy, and I will say to Not My People, ‘You are my people‘; and he shall say, ‘You are my God.’”

Zechariah 8:8 “And I will bring them to dwell in the midst of Jerusalem. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God, in faithfulness and in righteousness.”

Zechariah 13:9 “And I will put this third into the fire, and refine them as one refines silver, and test them as gold is tested. They will call upon my name, and I will answer them. I will say, ‘They are my people‘; and they will say, ‘The LORD is my God.’”

2 Corinthians 6:16-17 “What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, ‘I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you,’”

1 Peter 2:9-10 “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”

Revelation 21:3 “And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.”

Revelation 21:7 “The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son.”

So, when Peter speaks of the Promise that was to them and their children he is giving them God’s warrant that repentance and Baptism is for them.

Now, this, in turn, allows us to speak a little more concretely about the idea of covenant. We have said that when Peter speaks about “the Promise” it is a short-hand way of speaking of God’s covenant. The idea of covenant then means a coming together to form an alliance of a people who will remain distinct from those who are not part of the alliance. It presupposes two or more parties who come together to make a contract, agreeing on promises, stipulations, privileges, and responsibilities.

We still enter into covenants though we seldom use that language. The covenant most widely known yet today is the covenant of marriage. A Bride and a Groom come together to form an alliance. The two of them who have formed the alliance will remain distinct from those who are not part of the alliance. In the Marriage covenant promises are made, privileges set forth and responsibilities are owned. In this Marriage covenant there is a relational reality between husband and wife but that relational reality has a legal foundation. That legal foundation is covenant.

So, when Peter speaks of “the Promise” he is speaking of God’s covenant Promise that He would be their God and they would be His people. This promise was the foundation of the covenant where people were gathered as a people who were distinct from those people who had not been gathered into this covenant. In this covenant between God and His people there is a relational reality between the People of God and the Lord Christ but that relational reality has a legal foundation.

Thus far we have established that “the Promise” that Peter speaks of is the God’s Promise that forms the Covenant. We noted what that Promise had always been through Scripture. When Peter calls on them to repent and be Baptized what is being formed then is a covenant community. The community of the people of God. Sometimes called “the Church.”

We have said that the covenant means a coming together to form an alliance of a people who will remain distinct from those who are not part of the alliance. It presupposes two or more parties who come together to make a contract, agreeing on promises, stipulations, privileges, and responsibilities.

Here in Acts 2 Peter calls on convicted men to be confident that they can enter into this covenant as God’s distinct people based upon the fact that the Lord Christ’s death and resurrection forms the legal writ whereby they can escape the rebellion against God that was manifested in their crucifixion of Christ. Most simply put that legal writ whereby we can come into the covenant where God’s favor exist is the truth that Christ died as our substitute.

Two things to note before we move on

Notice the continuity we find between the Old and New Testaments. In the Old Testament God had made Promises and those Promises are being referenced in the collection of the post Pentecost Church. Whatever is going on in Acts is not a going on that is unrelated to the goings on we find in the Old Testament. To understand Acts 2 you must understand the Old Testament.

Second, notice the legal quality of covenant. The modern church forever has on their lips the idea of “their relationship with Jesus,” but whatever personal relationship exists between the believer and the Lord Christ is a personal relationship that is defined by legal categories such as substitution, reconciliation, redemption, ransom, propitiation, expiation, atonement, justification, imputation and covenant. And the fact that you may not be familiar with those terms indicates that we the Clergy — that I as clergy — have failed you. The modern church today is all about the relationship as seen by their constant sappy “God is my girlfriend” choruses but there remains among us precious few who understand that the relationship with Jesus, which is so incessantly spoken of, is only as legitimate as the legal foundation upon which it sits.

So, thus far we’ve identified the “Promise” that Peter refers to and we’ve attached that to the idea of covenant. Subsequently we have spoken a bit about the idea of covenant.

Let us briefly consider Baptism at this point.

Following Jesus’ words in Mt. 28 to Baptize the Nations Peter calls for the Hebrews to be Baptized.

Baptism then becomes what is known as the “sign of the covenant.” It is the means by which God marks out those that are uniquely His as distinguished from those that are not His. I have, in the past, likened this sign of the covenant as akin to ranchers branding their cattle. When they see their brand on a Steer they know it is theirs.

Previous to Baptism the sign of the covenant was circumcision but that sign in changed to Baptism in the new covenant. This change of sign is consistent with what Jesus said when He taught that one does not put new wine into old wineskins. Circumcision was part and parcel of the old wineskin that had to be replaced. It was replaced with Baptism. In the replacement we see that the bloody rite was set aside for a bloodless rite. This is because that with the work of Christ all bloody rites had been fulfilled. Circumcision had been a picture of Christ’s work but now that Christ had been cut off there was no longer a need for a rite that reminded of blood.

And so enters the waters of Baptism. Scripture puts the highest regard on Baptism calling it in Titus the washing of regeneration. St. Peter can even say that “Baptism saves us.” St. Paul can remind the formally pagan Corinthians of their Baptism saying, “but ye were washed, but ye were sanctified, but ye were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God,” thus providing linkage between baptism, sanctification and justification.

Something else we should note here. The fact that all of Israel’s rites were changed or set aside reminds us again that God is done with Israel as a Nation. National Israel is no more God’s people then I am a Rothschild. In point of fact Scripture can refer to National Israel as a “synagogue of Satan.” National Israel as been as thoroughly set aside by God as circumcision has been set aside by Baptism, though we anticipate great numbers of individual Hebrews being in the Kingdom of God.

Now we are ready to look at more of vs. 39. When Peter speaks of this “Promise” and, by way of implication, this covenant, Peter also says in terms of the Promise that it is for not only to those hearing Peter’s sermon but it is also for their children.

Now we have to try to hear Peter’s words through the ears of a covenant people who had been shaped by centuries of living in terms of covenant categories. A faithful Hebrew could only have heard these words “and to your children” as meaning the Promise of the Covenant long established was a promise that included all who were underneath the authority of the head of the household. It is the way it had always been in Scripture.

Indeed, it is the witness of Scripture to believe that since we are not our own and since we belong to God then our children belong to God as well since the Scriptures teach that children are a heritage FROM the Lord, the fruit of HIS reward. We believe that when Peter announces that ‘the promise is to you and to your Children and to as many who are afar off’ that a Believing mindset (Hebrew at that time) would have heard those words in light of how God had ALWAYS historically dealt with families, and we find nothing in Scripture that suggests that in the New Covenant God deals any differently with His people on this issue. Nowhere do the Scriptures teach that children are not to be given all the privileges of what it means to belong to God. Nowhere in the Scriptures are we taught that children must wait for covenant privileges and covenant signs. We believe that all men are either in the Kingdom of Darkness or the Kingdom of God’s dear Son (Colossians 1:13) and we do not believe that God has given His Kingdom people children who do not normatively partake of both covenantal and Kingdom blessings.

We believe with Scripture that whenever God made covenant with man He always included the children of whom He made covenant with in that covenantal arrangement. This is true in the covenant of Works with Adam as seen in the curse upon Adam’s posterity that followed Adam’s fall. It wasn’t just Adam and Eve who fell but all their posterity. We see this family solidarity in the Covenant with Noah, in the Covenant with Abraham, and in the Covenant with David. The general principle of children going with the parents is seen in the delivery of Lot with his daughters, in the curse on Sodom, in the destruction of the Canaanites and Amalkites, and in the destruction of Achan and his family for Achan’s sin. In all of these the infant children go with the parents. It seems that it be requisite that if in the New and Better covenant this common thread were to be reversed there would have been a clear demarcation that the contrary was now expected. There is not a hint in the New Testament that the children no longer are the recipients of the covenant Promise which Peter speaks of here.

Now, we might ask, why might this idea be so unnatural to us that children are included in the covenant?

I can’t answer that with certainty but I can hazard a guess or two.

Guess #1

America was formed on the social theories of John Locke. Locke’s social contract theory is posited on the idea of the sovereign individual and teaches that human beings are isolated and abstracted egos. Before we are anything else we are sovereign individual integers. These sovereign individual integers may make alliances so that “us” and “we” are uttered but those alliances and the corporate structures that result (i.e. – general will) are all based upon the notion of the sovereign self.

According to the Lockean social contract myth human beings are isolated Egos. Each of us have a will of our own, and each is free to make choices on our own. We are sovereign “I’s” first and foremost, though we may, for various selfish reasons, combine with other I’s into a political society

If this is really what is going on, then the most effective argument for infant baptism may be the creation account which teaches that man in isolation is not fully man. It is not until the creation of Eve, and so the inauguration of the community whole, that man is fully self. In short, man only finds the meaning of the individual self in the context of community. The vast majority of the contemporary Church denies this insisting that man as the individual must give assent to the community whole – The Church with Christ as King – before the community whole can recognize the individual as a member of the whole community.

The reality that people develop as members of community before they choose the community to which they will belong is part of the warp and woof of life. We don’t wait for a baby to accede to being part of a family before it is part of the family. What we concede to family life the contemporary Church denies to God and His family-Church. Lee didn’t embrace being a McAtee before he was a member of the McAtee family. In point of fact Lee’s self-understanding will only develop in the context of his understanding and place in the community whole. With that reality being true for all people it strikes me as past curious that the the great majority of the Church today requires their children to embrace being a member of the covenant before they can be acknowledged as a member of the covenant. The only thing that can explain such a mindset is a basic presupposition that insist that the sovereign self is prior to the community. This notion we do not find to be a truth drawn from Scripture.

So, epistemologically self conscious Reformed people bring their children to the Baptismal font because we don’t buy into the deeply embedded American notion of social contract theory. We are not Lockeans. We are Christians.

Guess #2

My second guess as to why we find it so difficult to think of children as being in the covenant receiving God’s covenant promise to be their God is because we forget that our response to the Gospel Promise is not the Gospel. The very dubious argument goes that since children can’t respond to the Gospel by repenting and believing (a very questionable assertion) therefore the Gospel can’t reach them. But the Gospel Promise of God that He shall be our God and we His people is not dependent upon our response. Rather our response is dependent upon His Promise.

It is true … Babies can’t respond in ways we can catalog, to the covenant Promise.

And let us all thank God that is true because what better imagery could you possibly have that God does a solo act when it comes to determining who is and who isn’t in the covenant and so a recipient of the Promise then a helpless child who is only capable of receiving the promise?

Don’t get me wrong. I look for the proper response in the people I am charged to keep. Proper responses to the Gospel promise, in terms of ever increasing walking in obedience to God’s law, is to be expected along the way of ever increasing maturity in the faith. But as necessary as our proper responses are to the Gospel they are not the Gospel. The Gospel is that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself not imputing their trespasses unto them. God does all the saving. We are all just passive recipients in our reception of the covenant Promise and helpless babies being baptized is the best picture we could have of that.

Perhaps this is why Christ said that “one must become as a little child in order to enter into the Kingdom of heaven.” Perhaps it is the case that when we require a response to the Gospel from our babies in order to give them the liquid Gospel of Baptism we have at that moment turned God into the one who waits on our initiation before He responds as opposed to our confession that God always initiates before man responds.

I must say a word here about the purpose of this covenant community.

The covenant community has been formed as the Church militant. We will have plenty of time to rest when we are on the other side gathered as “the Church at rest.” Christ has told us that we are a army when He told Peter that the Gates of Hell would not prevail against us.

The Church, as God’s covenant community, is God’s activist community. We are commissioned to make our own long marches through the institutions. In Christ we are already have the guarantee of victory. But we still must fight.

Our orders are to fight
Then if I win
or bravely fail
What matters it?
God only doth prevail

The servant craveth naught
Except to serve with might
I was not told
to win or lose
Our orders are to fight

We’ve been placed into the covenant community with the Promise of God to be our God with the purpose to be His shock troops. Yes, it is true that we have internal enemies to contend with (pride, selfishness, envy) but let us not so concentrate on those enemies that we forget that we have external enemies to contend with as well.

If the covenant community prays “Thine Kingdom come” then they should work to that end as well. The covenant community must repent of its retreatism, its quietism, and its pietism, and become once again a people who in taking every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ, seek to extend the present Crown Rights of the Lord Christ into every area of life.

On this score O. Palmer Robertson could say,

“The total life involvement of the covenant relationship provides the framework for considering the connection between the ‘great commission’ and the ‘cultural mandate.’ Entrance into God’s kingdom may occur only by repentance and faith, which requires the preaching of the Gospel. This ‘gospel,’ however, must not be conceived in the narrowest possible sense. It is the gospel of the ‘Kingdom.’ It involves discipling men to Jesus Christ. Integral to that discipling process is the awakening of an awareness of the obligations of man to the totality of God’s creation. Redeemed man, remade in God’s image, must fulfill – even surpass – the role originally determined for the first man. In such a manner, the mandate to preach the gospel and the mandate to form a culture glorifying to God merge with one another.”

O. Palmer Robertson
The Christ Of The Covenants – pg. 83

I told you at the outset that the time we give to the idea of covenant this morning will be totally inadequate to the subject matter at hand. And now I’ve proven it. I’ve possibly left you with more questions then I have answered. I am ever ready to receive questions if people should have them. If some of this sounded confusing I can only ask you to join with me in my constant prayer that God would open our eyes to even more of His covenant truth.

Kingdom

When we pray “Thine is the Kingdom” forever we are acknowledging that God is God over all. There are no lesser gods that God competes with. All belongs to Him.

St. Paul captures something of this idea when he writes in Romans 11:33

“36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.”

Of course when we pray this we are acknowledging that God has absolute dominion over His creation. When we pray “Thine is the Kingdom forever,” we are confessing before God and remind ourselves that God does not have any competition. We need to be reminded of this when living in a time when earthly potentates cavort and strut upon the world stage as if they owned some kind of dominion that is original to themselves. We also need to be reminded of this when all to often we meet Christians who somehow think that the devil somehow is ruling now while God is a spectator. To such people we offer that God’s is the Kingdom forever.

The song “This is my Father’s World captures something of the truth of “Thine is the Kingdom forever.”

This is my Father’s world.
O let me ne’er forget
that though the wrong seems oft so strong,
God is the ruler yet.
This is my Father’s world:
why should my heart be sad?
The Lord is King; let the heavens ring!
God reigns; let the earth be glad!

A piece of poetry that has always charmed me communicates much the same message,

Truth forever on the scaffold,
Wrong forever on the throne,
Yet that scaffold sways the future,
and, behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow,
keeping watch above his own

God alone has the sole authority and the exclusive prerogative to rule. All belong to Him and all is His Kingdom.

And so here we are praying and when we pray “Thine is the Kingdom forever,” we are recognizing God’s right of ownership and dominion. When we pray such we then arise and live and move in terms of that exhaustive dominion. As Christians we are not beggars and paupers. We are children of the great King who holds dominion forever and we offer no apology to anyone for God’s Dominion authority.

There is also another slight implication here. Because God’s is the Kingdom forever we do not recognize the Kingdoms of other lesser gods. The Sons of Allah and the Sons of the Talmud and the Sons of all lesser God’s are obliged to bow before Him whose Kingdom encompasses all and whose present Kingdom is forever. The God of the Bible is not a God who does time sharing arrangements with other Gods. He does not parcel out His Kingdom dominion here and there so that competing gods each can have their share of the earthly terrain. God’s Kingdom dominion extends everywhere and all lesser gods will bow and all the knees of the adherents of the lesser gods will bow to God’s Kingdom dominion.

Power

The word power here is dunamis. It is the word from which we derive our words “dynamite” and “dynamic.” When we pray that “Thine is the power forever,” we are recognizing God’s eternal and infinite omnipotence.

When we recognize God’s power we recognize His ability to act or produce an effect; and His possession of authority over others. God revealed His power by miraculously delivering Israel from Egyptian slavery (Exodus 4:21 ; Exodus 9:16 ; Exodus 15:6 ; Exodus 32:11 ) and in the conquest of Canaan (Psalm 111:6 ). God’s acts are foundational for His claim on Israel. God’s power includes not only the power to judge but also the power to forgive sin (Numbers 14:15-19 ; Jeremiah 32:17-18 ).

When we think of the Power of God though we must not miss the everyday power of God that we so often rush right by. We are ourselves sustained by the power of God. Our every breath is only drawn because of God’s sustaining and governing power. The rising and the setting of the sun. The coming and going of the seasons. The growing of our crops and the maintenance of our families is only because of God’s power.

Yes, God uses secondary sources to sustain His universe. But to often we get caught up so much in the secondary sources that we forget God has the primary authority. Gravity keeps us from falling off the planet but who has the power over gravity? We rejoice in the company of our family but they do not have the power of life and death in themselves … Only God has that power.

And what of our right standing with God? Only God has the power to establish that and to keep us until the final day. It was God’s power from eternity that enter into covenant to Himself to all the saving of a people who could not save themselves. It is His power that has delivered us from the cankers of guilty, pride, and envy that would have otherwise eaten us alive. It is because of His power we are delivered from the self destruction that all men pursue who are not under the hegemony of His power. It is because of His power that we are gathered here today to be built up in the faith and to be reminded with what a great salvation with which we’ve been won.

What more shall we speak of this glorious power? Shall we speak of the power working in the resurrection? The power that brought us from death to life? The power that keeps us hungering and thirsting for righteousness?

Praise God for His glorious power.

Glory

When we pray that “thine is the Glory,” we are recognizing God’s position as the Great King and ruler over all. The word here literally means to “give weight to, to honor.” It is to stand in awe of and to grant respect. It is to recognize the inequality between the character and nature of God and ourselves. God is glorious and we are sinful. It is thus to ascribe praise and adoration to God because He is other than we are.

We have a hard time with the idea of the glory of God because we are a people who are prone to integration downward into the void. Which is to say we are constantly requiring those temporal realities that have glory — those temporal realities that are superior to us — to find the lowest common denominator with those things that shouldn’t be given weight or honor to because they are not superior.

So for example we work assiduously to veil the glory of those who have temporal superiority so that we are not required to give them weight or honor. When we embrace programs where those who are not exceptional are given points so that they might be as exceptional as those who do not need points we are refusing to give glory (weight, honor) to those who are glorious.

Kurt Vonnegut told this tale in his short story “Harrison Bergeron.” Written in 1968 this is a which satire raises serious question concerning desirability of social equality and the extent to which society is prepared to go to achieve it. It is the year 2081. Because of Amendments to the Constitution, every American is fully equal, meaning that no one is smarter, better-looking, stronger, or faster than anyone else. We might say, in the context of the sermon this morning, that no one has more intrinsic temporal glory than another person.

The Handicapper General and a team of agents ensure that the laws of equality are enforced and that no one is recognized as more glorious than anyone else. The government forces citizens to wear “handicaps” (a mask if they are too handsome or beautiful, earphones with deafening radio signals to make intelligent people unable to concentrate and form thoughts, and heavy weights to slow down those who are too strong or fast).

The whole idea here is that the temporal glory must be suppressed.

Now a people saturated in this idea in the Temporal realm — the realm of everyday living — is going to find it very difficult to think of God as being glorious. In their existence glory is bad. No one should have glory. And so the idea of God being glorious is a character trait that they either cannot identify with or they cannot recognize.

There was a time when we would still automatically give glory to people in our community. There was a time when the aged would automatically be given deference and respect and so some of what we are calling glory. There was a time when a visiting dignitary might be given deference and respect but, while exceptions exist in our culture, this automatic extending of glory (deference, respect) is hardly to be found.

And so because it is not in our everyday living we find it difficult to understand what it means to pray, “For thine is the glory forever.”

God is Glorious and when we pray we recognize God’s glory. The Glory of God is stamped everywhere across the pages of the Scripture. From the miracle of Creation, to the miracle of his long-suffering with sin from the fall forward, to the deliverance of His people from captivity, to His shekinah glory as seen in the Temple, God is everywhere Glorious in Scripture.

And our Lord Christ, being very God of God, shares in that Glory. (Revelation 1)

12 Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, 13 and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. 14 The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, 15 his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. 16 In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength.

17 When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead.

Oh for the ability to come to grips with the glorious character of the Triune God. That God is a God all together worthy of being ascribed with all honor and respect. Oh for the ability not only to say it or pray it or preach it but I would give anything to have just a beginning of the right estimation of God’s glory for I struggle as much as the next person stuck in the mire of a culture that is altogether unfamiliar with the idea of glory — both temporal and divine.

Of course none of us can take in all of God’s glory, as Moses was told on the Mt. Sinai. But to have just an inkling of God’s superiority, God’s otherness, God’s excellence, God’s Grace, God’s Love, God’s justice, God’s Mercy. To have just an inkling of that would satisfy all the doubts and questions we have. To have just an inkling of that would change us so that we would never be the same again.

This is of course a matter of adoration. When we say “thine is the glory” we are attributing to God something that is not true about ourselves. God alone is glorious as the absolute standard by which we measure all other lesser glories.

And so in the doxology we are reminded that part of our prayer life should be this matter of adoration. Prayer is not only a matter of confession and supplication. Prayer is also a matter of adoration. God is the maker and we are the clay and so it is fitting and proper to offer up adoration unto God.

You do understand of course that when we speak of giving God glory we are not bestowing something on God that He could not have unless we bestowed it. No, when we pray “thine is the Glory, Forever,” we are merely recognizing a state that already exists as true. God is glorious whether we recognize it or not. The world is suffused with the glory of God.

Conclusion

It is interesting that we pray all that we have prayed because the Kingdom, the power, and the glory belongs to God. This makes all the requests of the Lord’s Prayer vertical. We are praying the matters that we have looked at not because of our interests but because of God’s interests. We pray for or daily bread for God’s is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever. We pray for our sins to be forgiven for God’s is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever. We pray for God’s will be done for God’s is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever.

This reminds us how God centered this prayer is. And though we all fall short it reminds us that all our living ought to be for God’s Kingdom and power and glory forever.

It is interesting that our Lord Christ ends this prayer by centering us again upon God and His character. This life is not about us but it is about God and as such the last thought in this prayer finds us thinking of God’s character.

The Church in the West will ever be trapped in her chains of lethargy until she can once again become God centered in her living and praying.

Lead us not into Temptation

Where do we normally think of our Temptations arising from?

The Devil

Occasionally we see the Devil show up personally unto temptation. In the Garden. In the book of Job. In the fall of Judas and the sifting of Peter but we must understand that the Devil is not omnipresent and most often the Temptations to evil, at their root, though inspired by the Devil, are not directly delivered by the Devil.

Still Scripture teaches that

I Peter 5:8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:

And so we remember we wrestle not against flesh and blood but principalities and powers and we all the while pray, “Lead us not into Temptation.”

The World

St. James says that Friendship with the World is enmity towards God.

St. John can say

15 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. 17 And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.

Of course “World” in the way we are using it means to join in league with the Sons of Adam against the truth and principles laid down by Christ. We are Tempted by the World most normally when our desire to “fit in” rises above our desire to to walk in terms of God’s authority.

The idea of the “World” as a Temptress I think is better translated “this present age,” so that the idea is that Temptation is being driven by a desire that isn’t entirely abnormal to go along to get along. So, when it comes to Temptation, “The World” is not so much things like Alcohol, Smokes, or Theater, but rather it is what we surrender in terms of our identity in order to fit in with a zeitgeist that is opposed to God’s authority.

The Scripture gives us an example of that In Demas. Early on Demas was a valued companion of Paul.

Col. 4:14 Luke, the beloved physician, and Demas, greet you.
Philemon 24 Marcus, Aristarchus, Demas, Lucas, my fellowlabourers.

But later Paul can write of Demas,

II Timothy 4:10 — For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world,

Apparently, Demas considered the relief of no longer identifying with Paul and his work and message to be more important than what could be gained from that identity.

Concrete example,

The issue of sexuality in the public square. There are many in the Church who are surrendering this teaching inch by inch in order to be able to accommodate this present age,

Horton Quote,

“Although a contractual relationship denies God’s will for human dignity, I could affirm domestic partnerships as a way of protecting people’s legal and economic security. However, the “marriage card” is the demand for something that simply cannot consist in a same-sex relationship….”

“The challenge there is that two Christians who hold the same beliefs about marriage as Christians may appeal to neighbor-love to support or to oppose legalization of same-sex marriage.”

Or another Concrete example of being Tempted by the World

“Instantaneous creation of Adam and Eve is not explicitly required by the text or its subsequent interpretation, but the historicity of a first human couple with whom God entered into covenant is indispensable to theology at significant points in almost every locus.”

Nobody in the Church made these kinds of concessions until this present age insisted that Christianity couldn’t be relevant until it made these kinds of concessions. And so large segments of the Church have become Demas like in their abandonment of the Christian faith in order to avoid being seen as “narrow” as God’s enemies count “narrow.”

So love of the world, in terms of Temptation, can tempt us to abandon our associations with Christians as Demas did or it can cause us to give up doctrinal positions in order to maintain our relevance. And because the Temptations of the World can be so intense at every turn we are taught to pray, regardless of our place or status in life to “Lead us not into Temptation.”

The Self

Temptation often comes through the self as that self still remains besotted with the lineaments of our old Adamic nature. As regenerated we still deal with lusts, envy, self-centeredness, pride, unbelief and a host of other plug uglies that raise their heads all too frequently.

Our Canon’s of Dordt can speak to this issue by noting,

“Those people whom God according to his purpose calls into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord and regenerates by the Holy Spirit, God also sets free from the dominion and slavery of sin, though not entirely from the flesh and from the body of sin as long as they are in this life.

Article 2: The Believer’s Reaction to Sins of Weakness

Hence daily sins of weakness arise, and blemishes cling to even the best works of saints, giving them continual cause to humble themselves before God, to flee for refuge to Christ crucified, to put the flesh to death more and more by the Spirit of supplication and by holy exercises of godliness, and to strain toward the goal of perfection, until they are freed from this body of death and reign with the Lamb of God in heaven.”

True it is a Christian people who are praying this prayer and we pray to God to lead us not into Temptation because as a Christian people we know all too well our weakness and dispositions. The praying then of “lead us not into Temptation but Deliver us from evil” is the prayer of a people who distrust themselves while trusting God.

This 6th petition reminds us thus again that the only place we can go is to the prayer closet and to our Father to secure help as against ourselves.

When we talk about Temptations we would do well to remind ourselves that sometimes the most effective Temptation is the most subtle,

Screw Tape Letters,

“You will say that these are very small sins; and doubtless, like all young tempters, you are anxious to be able to report spectacular wickedness. But do remember, the only thing that matters is the extent to which you separate the man from the Enemy. It does not matter how small the sins are provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one-the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”

― C.S. Lewis

What may we say of this connection between our Temptations and God?

First if we look back at Mt. Ch. 4:1 we see God ordaining the Temptation of our Lord Christ,

Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.

Clearly we see here that God is sovereign even as it pertains to our Temptations. And while James teaches that God himself tempts no one, clearly He is sovereign over the coming and goings of Temptations. And even when Temptation does come into our lives as believers we can be confident that

God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it. (I Cor. 10:13).

And so it is fitting and proper to pray that we might not be led into Temptation. Who else can calm our sinful appetites so that we are not Tempted except our Father in Heaven?

Now we turn to the prayer for deliverance.

It is likely that the Scripture here should be translated, “Evil one” as opposed to just “Evil,” though it is not wrong to translate it either way.

Mt. 5:37 / Mt. 13:19, 38, / John 17:15 / I John 2:13

I prefer “Evil One” as opposed to just “Evil” because it reminds us that Evil is not just an abstract philosophical concept but Evil is personal.

When we pray to be delivered from this Evil one we are praying not only to be delivered from his agenda but also the agenda of all those who are in league with him and so all those who advocate his agenda. In this prayer we are reminded that those issues that we stand against that are contrary to Christ and His Gospel can not be abstracted from the Evil one. So when we pray to be delivered from the Evil one we at the same time pray that we would be delivered from all that opposes Christ. We pray for deliverance from unjust wars, we pray for deliverance from assaults on the family, we pray for deliverance from being enslaved by unjust rulers because these are all the machinations of the Evil One whom we are praying to be delivered from.

Of course this prayer reminds us also that because of Christ’s finished work on the Cross we have already been delivered from the Evil one. Because of Christ’s death, resurrection and ascension, the Devil no longer has any hold on us. Paul can say in Colossians that God has delivered us from the Dominion of Darkness and translated us to the Kingdom of God’s dear son.

So, we can pray “Deliver us from the Evil One,” precisely because we have been delivered from the Evil One. There is a now, not yet to this prayer.

“O Father, I thank you that you have delivered me from the Devil’s authority and power in the death of Christ. I thank you that sin as a lifestyle and way of life no longer has dominion over me. I thank you that I am more than a conqueror in Christ Jesus. Now, I ask that despite my weakness and frailty you would continue to deliver me from the Evil one.”

So, as Jesus puts this prayer on the lips of His people we see how realistic it is. We are are a forgiven people who are in need of forgiveness, we are a delivered people who have need to ask for deliverance from the Evil one. We are a people who find our beginning with our Father in Heaven and our ending in desiring His Kingdom, Power, and Glory to be seen forever.

Deliver us from Evil

As part of the Church militant our cry is always for relief from the designs of the enemy. And so until we are made secure in the Church triumphant — the church at rest — we constantly cry out for deliverance.

To cry out for deliverance in our Prayer life reminds us that our victory is not in ourselves. We can not deliver ourselves. This petition reminds us then how beholden we are to God for our final deliverance, just as we are beholden to Him for our current deliverance.

And so here we are praying this prayer that has been on the lips of God’s people for millennial. And the more we pray it with earnestness the more we see how dependent we are upon God to traverse all the dangers that we find in the Devil, in the World, and in ourselves. In praying this prayer we communicate to God and to ourselves how much we long to be done with those character flaws, those habits, those crooked desires that are inconsistent with the Christian life. Prayed in earnest and with understanding, this 6th petition throws us off ourselves and on to the mercy of God.

And yet at the same time praying this prayer reminds us that we are praying this as a already delivered people. God has secured us in Christ so that we the delivered ones keep praying for deliverance. And so the prayer, rightly understood, is also a prayer of gratitude.

Let us stand and together pray the Lord’s Prayer

Lead us not into temptation — negative side of the petition (Protection)

Deliver us from evil — positive side of the petition (Triumph)

With these two corresponding petitions the saint is asking for, on the one hand protection and preservation from sin, Satan, and self while at the same time asking not only for protection and preservation but also for much more than that – for outright victory.

The Christian does not merely desire to be kept in this battle against evil and the evil one, the Christian desires to be delivered from it. We see this demonstrated in Romans 7 where the Apostle Paul can say, “O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of death.” Paul sees his sin and he desires deliverance from it.

We should say here then that in this prayer for protection and triumph we see the characteristic Christian in prayer and it causes us to ask if our prayer lives are so characterized. Do we long for, not only protection, but do we long for deliverance from evil and the evil one?

This is a prayer that reflect that we have a right estimation of ourselves and of God.

A right estimation of ourselves because we know our own weakness towards Temptation and a right estimation of God as the only one who can deliver us from our enemies. It is a prayer that once again confesses our own lack of sufficiency. We pin our hopes not upon ourselves for overcoming in this battle that rages about us, but we pin our hopes upon God for his protecting and delivering ability.

Of course, as such, this prayer on our lips, bespeaks that character of God that we Reformed Christian, with Scripture, return to over and over again and that is God’s sovereignty. In this prayer we are entrusting ourselves to the one who directs our steps and to the only one who has the power and authority to deliver us from our own weaknesses, and from the onslaughts of the evil one.

We must be careful here though to not make this prayer only personal and individual, though it is that. We remember that the teaching of the prayer begins with the Pronoun “Our,” (Our Father who art in Heaven) and that even here the pronouns are plural. We are praying, “lead US not into temptation, deliver US from the evil one.” So while it is fitting and proper to ask for this individually we would also do well to remember that this is a prayer that God’s people together are to be praying. This is a covenantal prayer. Not only is this “lead me not into temptation and deliver me from evil” as appropriate as that is, but it is also lead us not into temptation and deliver us from the evil one. All of us together are praying that we, as the glorious body of Christ, might not be led into Temptation but be delivered from the evil one.

In this covenantal aspect of the prayer we are reminded again that in a healthy Christianity there is not a Lone Ranger kind of Christian existence. Together we are asking to not be led into temptation and together we are asking to be delivered from the evil one.

Just a brief word here on this score. We live in a time and an environment that so desperately wants to peel away from us every and all of our covenant identity markers. Our current culture wants to produce atomized individuals peeled away from Christian covenantal loyalties of Christian family, Christian church, Christian guild, or Christian school so as to remake people to be conformed to something other than Christ. If our Christian covenantal identity markers are successfully stripped away from us then we are left naked before the various non Christian ideologies which would seek to reorganize our identity — our self understanding — as set against the back drop of a rival theology that serves purposes that are alien to Christ’s purposes.

Christian covenantal categories are monumentally important and in the Lord’s Prayer we find the covenant aspect of the Christian life being subtly set forth again. We pray, “Lead US not into temptation, but deliver US from the evil one.”

As we continue to consider this two sided request of preservation and deliverance that our Lord Christ puts upon the lips of His people, we are mindful of the flow of the Lord’s Prayer. In the previous petition we are crying out for forgiveness of sins, while here we are crying out for deliverance from sin. There is a proper symmetry here. When we are united to Christ the Christian cries out at one and the same time both for forgiveness and for deliverance from the grip and filth of sin.

Logically, we cry out first for forgiveness because there can be no deliverance from the grip and the power of sin until we have first been forgiven for our sin. The cry of forgiveness is the cry for the reckoning of Christ’s righteousness to our account. The cry for preservation and deliverance is the cry that we might increasingly become what we have been freely already declared to be.

All Christians upon being united to Christ long both for forgiveness and release. There is thus an inseparability of justification (forgiveness) and sanctification (deliverance) for the Christian. And we find that here in the Lord’s Prayer. True, the proper ordering is the cry for forgiveness and then the petition for deliverance but never one without the other for they imply one another.

The close relationship between forgiveness and ongoing deliverance from the grip of Sin is seen in a myriad of places in Scripture. Consider Romans 6

“What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”

Calvin can say on this point,

In Romans 6 he (Paul) turns to discuss the sanctification which we obtain in Christ. As soon as the flesh has had a little taste of this grace, it is liable to gratify its vices and desires w/o disturbance, as though grace were now ended. Against this Paul maintains here that we cannot receive righteousness in Christ without at the same time laying hold of sanctification…. It follows therefore, that no one can put on the righteousness of Christ without regeneration.”

Also Romans 8 has this close relationship,

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.[a] 2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you[b] free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin,[c] he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”

You see it here again. No condemnation for those who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

So there is this intimate insoluble relationship between the petition of forgiveness and the petition for perseverance and deliverance. You have the petition for forgiveness and you have the petition for preservation and deliverance. Never one without the other and each presupposing the other.

This insolubility between the two is so true that Calvin can comment elsewhere,

“All those who have been grafted into Christ our Lord by His Spirit are beyond danger or likelihood of condemnation, however burdened they may still be by their sins. In the Second place, if those who remain in the flesh lack the sanctification of the Spirit, none of them has any share in that great blessing.”

So we see here the insolubility between the petition for forgiveness in the Lord’s Prayer and the petition for deliverance. We have this union with Christ and so we pray for both ongoing forgiveness that is never anything but final and we pray for ongoing deliverance.

Here we should say a word about “Temptation.” We are praying that we would not be led into Temptation. Obviously the reference is to a Temptation to sin. Well, how can we know what the sin is that we are praying that we might not be led into except for a close and proper understanding of God’s Character as championed in His law-Word?

You see even this prayer for perseverance and deliverance presupposes God’s law. We are praying that we would be delivered from lawlessness. Lead us not into temptation in those aspects of our lives that are considered more individual and private and lead us not into temptation in those aspects of our lives that are considered as belonging more to the public square.

The Temptation that we are praying that we might not be led into might best be understood as that which our first parents went through. They were tempted in the Garden. And what was that Temptation? The Temptation was to ignore God’s authoritative interpretive Word over all reality in favor of their own autonomous authoritative and interpretive word over all reality. All Temptation unto sin is the Temptation to de-God God and en-God one’s self. Temptation is characterized by setting aside God and his legislative Word in favor of our own fiat self word.

But once again at this point we run smack into God’s law. This Temptation that we are praying that we might not be led into is a prayer that is saying “lead us not into our law word over your law word, grant us thy Spirit that we might understand your Character as revealed in your law word that we might delight in it and walk in it routinely.” Deliver us from the evil one who is the Tempter and grant us triumph over him in this life.

Let us end with some concrete examples of the Temptations we might pray that we would not be led into and the corresponding hope to be delivered from the evil one.

1.) Popularity with the wrong group of people — Friendship with the world is enmity towards God
— Bad company corrupts good character

2.) Staying dumbed down — We take every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ
Scripture talks about the necessity of the renewing of the mind

All of us live in and among a people who have been purposefully dumbed down. Because this is true it has affected all of us. There is the Temptation thus to want to stay in the dumbed down comfort zone with the rest of the dumbed down oi polloi. There is safety in numbers.

Now some might contend there is a certain arrogance in this but it is not intended that way for I find myself fighting the same Temptation. This Temptation would have us be satisfied with dumbed down versions of Christianity and dumbed down understandings of grace. This Temptation would not allow us to see the in-congruence of being adherents of this pop culture while trying to be adherents of Christ.

3.) Antinomianism and legalism

There are those in the Reformed Church today who would lead us into public square antinomianism where we no longer apply God’s law to our public square interactions. God’s word has nothing explicit to say about public morality. God’s Word has nothing explicit to say about any kulturkampf (cultural struggle) that we may be involved in. To give into this would be to delivered over to the evil one.

On the other hand there are those in the Reformed Church today who forget that Justification is bases solely on Christ’s work for us and who subtly — very subtly — want to introduce our works (our performance) into the foundation of our Justifications.

Whether it is antinomianism which hates God’s law or Legalism which would use God’s law unlawfully we must pray that we would be delivered from the evil one.

Conclusion

And so here we are … weak creatures totally dependent upon God’s grace. If left to ourselves we will get it wrong every time all the time. And so our Lord Christ rightfully puts upon our lips a prayer for preservation and deliverance.

We remember that Ecclesiastes belongs to what is called “The Wisdom Literature” and so we are not surprised to find these pithy proverbial sayings. The use and work of proverbs was to structure life and to give life boundaries and borders. Proverbs was intended to be generational wisdom that was true for all times and places. There is a remarkably covenantal aspect to proverbs in as much as the minding or taking serious of Proverbs is a way in which we honor our Fathers and Mothers. In the Proverbs we have stored wisdom that was to be used by every generation and we see that it was God’s intent that the covenant generations have a continuity in the fact that all the covenant generations would be guided and structured by heeding the proverbs.

Remember the reason that the Teacher has gone into this comparing and contrasting of the fool and the wise, of folly and wisdom is that he is giving an account of why it is the case that the world is topsy turvy. One reason it is topsy turvy is that the fool and his folly has been embraced.

As we come to Ecclesiastes 10:8-10 I take it to be a description of the way the fool operates. I do so because all of what we find here is a description of failure but it ends in vs. 10 with a contrast of “wisdom brings success.” The fool operates in an unprepared fashion that exemplifies a lack of caution.

Alternately, the Teacher could be emphasizing again as he did in 9:11-12 that God is sovereign over the affairs of men and matters don’t always turn out as we thought they might.

If, what we have in vs. 8-10 is description of the way the fool operates as contrasted with the wise who have success, with the point perhaps being that the wise take proper preparation so as to avoid the fool’s the disasters that arise from a fool’s lack of caution.

— He digs a pit and falls into it
— He breaks through a wall and is bitten by a serpent
— He is hurt by the stones he quarries

then in vs. 11-15 the point is to contrast not only the work of the fool and the wise but their words also. The conclusion of all this is that the fool is good for nothing because they can not accomplish the most mundane of all tasks (they do not even know how to go to the city).

So with that in mind we look at 11-14

If the serpent bites before it is charmed,
there is no advantage to the charmer.

In vs. 11 Maurer translates, “There is no gain to the enchanter” (Margin, “master of the tongue”) from his enchantments, because the serpent bites before he can use them; hence the need of continual caution. Again, in vs. 11, like 8-10 the fool is not someone who takes caution in acting — he is not prepared.

In Ec 10:11 and following verses, the emphasis then switches to caution in speaking and to the issue of finding advantage.

In vs. 12 we are explicitly told that the words of a wise man’s mouth are gracious. We find similar words in Proverbs 10:31-32

The mouth of the righteous brings forth wisdom,
but the perverse tongue will be cut off.
32 The lips of the righteous know what is acceptable,
but the mouth of the wicked, what is perverse.

The wise man speaks in a way that is favorable; kind; benevolent; merciful.

But of course we offer her that these favorable and kind words that the wise man speaks are not words that are intended to be manipulative or full of compromise. They are rather words that need to be spoken at the right time in the right way. Such gracious words, we learn elsewhere from Scripture are like are like apples of gold in a setting of silver.

So the gracious speaking of the wise is a speaking that is able to discern the proper time and place for the proper words, and it is as easy to lack graciousness in words by saying to little as by saying to much.

It is as easy to lack graciousness in words by being to soft as by being to hard.

As such I suppose nothing is more difficult for the wise than to speak graciously. There is always the danger to say to much or to little. There is always the danger of using the wrong tone or choosing the wrong word. There is always the reality that one doesn’t understand the mood of the audience and what they can or cannot hear at any given time. There is always the temptation to be intimidated by man and so swallow the gracious words that might be better spoken. There is always the temptation to be so puffed up that words are spoken that don’t need to be heard.

Very few of the Sons of Adam have the ability to speak words that are gracious and so show themselves wise.

Because of this we have to keep in prayer that God would give us wisdom … to know how to speak.

These words of graciousness from the Wise seeks to eliminate all needless offense and all unwarranted irritation. I say “needless” and “unwarranted” because there will be times when offense and irritation will result from the gracious words of the wise.

Tiny seemingly insignificant realities of words are monumentally important. With gracious words Abigail turned David’s hand away from bloodshed (I Sam. 25:23-33). With gracious words Moses interceded successfully with God in order to turn God’s wrath from the Hebrew children. With gracious words Jesus tongue lashed the enemies of God, and with gracious words St. Paul had startling counsel for those who would empty the Gospel.

The fool, unlike the wise is a flowing fountain of inane speech. It’s doubtful he ever considers what he says or the impact that his words will have.

The first impact the fool’s words is upon himself. He swallows himself up. The idea of “swallow up” here means “to destroy.” A fool is his own worse enemy and his words the weapons by which he lays himself low.

We have our own proverbs down this line. When someone says something unfitting we will say,

“He just shot himself in the foot.”

Our words, as everyone here knows, can bring be our undoing.

The Teacher informs us that when it comes to the fool his words are from beginning to end are idiotic. Vs. 13 may be giving us the idea of how the fool’s speech goes from bad to worse. He starts with words of foolishness and ends with raving madness.

We should interject here that the fact that we are a culture characterized by raving madness is seen in theories of literature that teach that there is no such thing as authorial intent in literature or that authorial intent if it does exist is inaccessible. This is the raving madness of fools because it cuts off the gracious words of the wise of generations gone by from this generation of fools. This is raving madness because it disallows any stable meaning in any of our literature and disallows fixity in law and ethics. This is raving madness because the fool seldom desire to apply the same standard of unreachable authorial intent to what he writes when he writes that we cannot reach authorial intent.

Of course all of this is ultimately contrasted with God’s own Word … our Lord Christ. Our Lord Christ is God’s wisdom to us. By God’s word the heavens were formed and the earth made. By God’s word all things consist. Because God’s Word … our Lord Christ is Wisdom … St. Paul can say all wisdom and treasure of knowledge is hid in that Word who is Christ.

So, as we consider all this … the words of the wise vs. the words of fools, we needs be reminded again that the only hope we have for gracious words is anchored in the reality that we are anchored in the Lord Christ who is wisdom from God. We have no hope of ever being enabled to use the gracious words of wisdom unless we find ourselves buried and risen with Christ. We have no hope of being sanctified in Wisdom so that our words become increasingly gracious as the years go by unless we are seated in the heavenlies with the Lord Christ. Would we avoid being fools with all their rash words and raving madness we would be a people who find ourselves nestled in Him who is God’s eternal Word of Wisdom.

In vs. 14 the Teacher presses on with the fool and his words

14 A fool multiplies words,
though no man knows what is to be,
and who can tell him what will be after him?

We have a proverb that parallels this idea somewhat in our own culture that says

“It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.”

Another one we have that parallels this somewhat is,

“Silent waters run deep.”

According to the Teacher the fool is someone who always has something to say.

Now, this is not a admonition against people who are wordy. One can be wordy without being a fool. However it is a admonition against banal wordiness. Wordiness that has no meaning and intends to go nowhere.

When 14b is read in conjunction with 14a the idea seems to be that the fool is one who has an opinion on everything including those things that cannot be known. No man can know what is to be but a fool will tell you what is to be. No man can tell you what will happen in the long future and yet the fool, with his multitude of words, will tell you.

Charles Bridge offers an interesting insight into the fools words here,

“But to judge the waters flowing from a fools fountain; listen to Baal’s worshipers on Mt. Carmel as they cry out to their god incessantly, listen to Rabshakeh’s proud boasting about how Assyria was going to crush Israel during the time of Hezekiah or listen to the fretting murmurings of the people of God when they complained against God leading them out of Egypt.”

The Fool has the ability to always say just the wrong thing at just the right time.

Another matter we might speak of here is the fact that because the fool is so prolix he often immerses himself in contradiction. The fool has a mind that is as crooked as his words are and so he is full of contradiction. James hints at the idea that the fool is double-minded and so his words are full of contradictions that belie his double-mindedness. So, if you want to locate a fool, listen for contradiction in his plethora of words.

application — out of the abundance of the heart a man speaks

For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. 35 The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. 36 I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, 37 for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”

In vs. 16-20 the Teacher ends with what I believe to be are words of application.

He has given us wise and fool in work and words. Now he locates the fool.

The people have a fool for King who is a child.

This is suggested by another Proverb from the book by that name,

Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child (Prov. 22:15).

And the fact that foolishness is being spoken of here is confirmed in vs. 16b by describing a ruling class that is partying when it should be governing.

Foolishness of the governing elite is also seen in these verses when they speak of laziness, idleness, and the idea that money is a solution apart from Wisdom.

Governments run by such men cause everyone to suffer from their injustices, for they will use their powers to
extract from people what they would not otherwise be willing to give. Taxes can become an intolerable burden when
sinners are in command and lead a nation as fools that think money answers everything. Certainly from this description we can see that we are a people governed by fools. Our entitlement programs are maxed out while a President spends 100 million dollars to go to Africa.

vs. 17 gives us the contrast to fools who govern.

The King belongs where he is and the princes of the realm have discernment.

We end this morning where the Teacher gives counsel. Despite the fact that people may be ruled by fools they would be wise to avoid cursing the King or the Rich who despite being fools could make their lives hell.