Making Life Work #18

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The CEM Network is pleased to present Ronald L. Dart and Born to Win.

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Is it really all that hard to get smart? You would think so, given the scarcity of good sound common sense, wouldn’t you? But Solomon didn’t think so. A lot of his work is poetry, and in that poetic style, he personifies wisdom as though wisdom were a lovely young woman who is doing her best to get through to us. She is everywhere calling out to us to get wisdom, get understanding, and telling us that wisdom and understanding are going to make our life work and work right. He goes to the trouble of contrasting this young woman with the streetwalker who is trying to get you to do something rather different. But it’s great poetry that Solomon writes for us, but it’s also great truth. In Proverbs 9, verse 1, he says, Wisdom has built her house. She has cut out her seven pillars. She has killed her beasts. She has mingled her wine. She has furnished her table. She’s then sent forth her maidens and cries in all the high places of the city and said, Whoever is simple, let him come in here. As for him that wants understanding, she says, Come, eat of my bread, drink of my wine. Forsake the foolish way and live and go in the way of understanding. So here, in poetic style, we are presented with a banquet of wisdom. Tables are all laid out. Wine is mixed. Everything is ready to go. And she says, come on in and dine. This is Solomon’s introduction to what follows in the book of Proverbs. And at this point in chapter 9, Solomon turns to a series of examples of wisdom that make up the bulk of the book of Proverbs. The Proverbs basically are ideas that grow naturally out of the law of God. And right here, we come to one of the most misunderstood concepts in the Bible. If you’ll bear with me, I think I can clear up a major muddle about the law and the Bible. There are certain laws that we call the laws of nature. We live with them every day, and while we might think we would like to repeal them from time to time, we can’t live without them. They make life possible. Gravity is an instance. How long do you suppose man has lived with the law of gravity before Sir Isaac Newton finally noticed it? Well, it was a very long time. Gravity was here. Gravity worked. We didn’t understand it. We didn’t really even recognize that it was a law. until one day Isaac noticed that apples, when they detach themselves from the limb of a tree, fall. They come down. They go straight to the ground. They do not go out sideways and certainly not up. He determined that that was significant. And out of that grew really a branch of science that is still today researching and trying to understand this remarkable feature of our environment. It’s a natural law. It’s just there. We can’t repeal it. We can’t do anything with it. Even if we wanted to repeal it, it would be a terrible mistake. We would all die. Well, it’s gravity that holds our atmosphere in place and keeps the water in the seas and enables us to keep our feet planted on terra firma. These things that we call laws are merely the description of what is and how it works. And even with Sir Isaac Newton’s discovery, we still don’t really understand how gravity works. Now, these laws did not arise out of arbitrary legislation. They are necessary. Without gravity, life would be impossible. A spaceship is only a temporary accommodation. Gravity holds us to the planet. along with the atmosphere, and along with the water. These laws cannot be repealed, and they will ultimately lead to the end of the universe, for it will expand until finally it loses momentum, and gravity will pull it all back together again until it collapses in one giant black hole. And until all that happens, these laws are immutable because they are a part of the physical creation. Now, right alongside this set of natural laws is another set. When man came on the scene, another set of natural laws came right along with him. The first set of laws made life possible. The second set of laws make life work. The set of laws that came along with man is just as complex as the set that came along with the physical universe. Probably far more complex than we realize. And man, just like gravity, man has lived with them for generations without ever really recognizing that they are laws. Then there is the Bible, which contains a great deal of revealed law. Now, the laws of the Bible are not arbitrary. They grow naturally out of the nature of God and the nature of man. You know, man is what he is, and we have always been and we always will be as long as we’re human. And God is the way he is and always has been and always will be as long as he is God. The laws of the Bible are manifestations of a great complex underlying law that is immutable and will exist as long as man exists. Do you get the picture? You have this underlying law that governs everything man does, for good or for ill, And the laws of the Bible are merely manifestations of that law in certain places. I think the New Testament writers might have called this great law the law of love because it has to do with loving man and loving God. And the law of Moses and the law of Jesus Christ are manifestations of the same underlying law. They don’t fight. The law of Abraham was good. The law of Moses was good. It revealed more than Abraham knew, but it did not even begin to encompass the law of Christ. So why do we seem to have differences in the laws that are required in the Old Testament and those laws that are required in the New? Where do these conflicts come from? Why do the theologians tell us that Old Testament laws have been done away with and replaced by New Testament laws? Well, the reason is because the laws are revealed to us in terms of their application to life. They aren’t given to us in the abstract. They’re given to us because, well, out of a historical setting and in a historical setting where there are real people trying to do real things. And so the law is given to apply that great underlying law to them. The law of Moses says, in this time, under these circumstances, this is how you will worship God, and this is how you will treat your fellow man. Time and circumstances can change, and the application of the law can change as well. But the underlying law is immutable, and it cannot change. Now, this explains something that Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount. And if you just read through this carelessly and on into the Sermon on the Mount itself, you’re going to be confused about some of the things that follow. You have to stop for a moment and think, because all these things I’ve been telling you about this great underlying immutable law, unchangeable law, explains what Jesus says here in Matthew 5, verse 17. He told his audience not to think something. And it seems like all the theologians since that time have wanted to think exactly what he said, don’t think. He said, think not, in Matthew 5, 17, think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets. Now, take a look out the window, and if heaven and earth are still there… Jesus said, not one jot, not one tittle, not one little bit, not one scratch of the pen of the law would pass away till all had been fulfilled. Now there’s a huge mistake people commonly make in reading this passage. They assume that Jesus fulfilled the law and that therefore it can pass away. This grows out of a curious translation of this passage by the King James Version translators. The word fulfill in verse 17 is an entirely different word from the word fulfill in verse 18. Let me explain. Verse 18, correctly translated, says this, “‘Til heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all comes to pass.'” Now, what this actually is saying is that as long as heaven and earth are here, the law will remain intact until everything is finally finished. Everything that is mentioned in the law and the prophets comes to pass. It’s not going to go away. Jesus came to fulfill the law, true enough, but fulfilling it does not allow it to pass. The verse is really an integrated whole. It says in two different directions. One, until heaven and earth pass. Secondly, until everything has come to pass or been fulfilled that’s in the law in that way. The law cannot pass away. Why? Well, because it’s written in the nature of man and of God. And as long as the human nature doesn’t change, and as long as the nature of God doesn’t change, the law is still there. So as you can see, the verse is quite consistent in affirming the permanency of the law. Now, why did Jesus feel it was necessary to make this affirmation? Why this strong statement that nothing in the law can pass away? I’ll explain that when I come back after these words.

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You were not born to lose. God has no intention of spending eternity with a loser. You can know what God is doing and why. Drop us a letter or give us a call and we will send you a free CD introducing the series called Making Life Work. Our address is borntowin.com. So why this powerful two-fold affirmation that Jesus has not come to destroy the law and that the law is permanent and the law is not going to go away? Why did he have to say that in the Sermon on the Mount?

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Well, because he was about to change the application of the law and did not want to be misunderstood. So often someone comes along and changes the way a law applies to people in a given circumstance, and they think the law has been done away with. Not at all. What Jesus is doing is explaining and developing the real intent of the underlying law that God gave to man. Most of what follows in the Sermon on the Mount is a discussion of the difference between the way one set of teachers applied the law and the way Jesus said it could be applied. If you want to study it for yourself, it’s found beginning in the fifth chapter of Matthew and going on for a ways with several different illustrations. But consider this familiar example out of the Sermon on the Mount. It’s in verse 27. You have heard it was said by them of old time, You shall not commit adultery. But I say unto you that whoever looks upon a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart. Now when you think about it, the old application of the law concerned itself with enforceable behavior. It didn’t matter so much what went on in your head as long as it stayed in your head. Now, the reason for this, I think, basically is because the old application of the law was a community-based law. In other words, it regulated the way people lived together in their community. And it was designed to maintain law and order and to keep families from coming apart and keep men from killing one another because of affairs with their wives. But when Jesus comes along, he says, no, no, no. The law is more than a matter of behavior. It begins before behavior, and the violation of the law begins before you actually go in the door to your neighbor’s house. The damage is done, he says, when adultery is conceived in the heart. When you begin to think about it, when you begin to imagine it, when you begin to fantasize about it, the damage begins to be done. And you need to understand this. It’s not merely a matter—this law isn’t— about offending God or hurting God or somehow doing harm to your neighbor. It’s about doing harm to yourself, about destroying your own life. Remember, we’re talking about making your life work. And Jesus comes along, and his application of the law to you to make your life work is, if you start conceiving adultery in your heart, you are already in trouble. The law against adultery cannot be abolished because it arises out of the nature of man. The only questions of law are how do we apply this understanding and how do we apply this underlying law in our world, our time, and under our circumstances. Jesus did not take away any of the written laws about adultery. Not one jot, not one tittle of them ever passed in the law. He couldn’t take something like that that was intrinsically wrong and make it right. All he could do was explain the intent of the underlying law. Now, I have told you all this to explain that the study of Old Testament law is of enormous value to the Christian because it reveals the mind of God as it applied in a particular situation, and from that it suggests the outlines of the underlying law of right and wrong, that law that makes our life work or that law that takes it apart. Now, when we come to the book of Proverbs, we’ve come to an absolute goldmine of material that describes various applications of the underlying law. You know, human beings are pretty smart. But our problem is, even though we kind of understand the general idea that the law describes love toward God and love toward our fellow man, we’ve got a lot of questions about exactly, you know, how this works. And what does it mean in this circumstance? And how would I apply it over here? We’re just loaded with questions. Well, one of the ways we learn is by studying examples and by seeing what has been said in other times. We study old law to understand how that old law might apply in the new world, even though times have changed. For example, in Proverbs 9, here comes a law, a law of human relationships that grows out of the natural laws that God gave to man. Proverbs 9 and verse 7. He that reproves a scorner gets to himself shame, and he that rebukes a wicked man gets himself a blot. Do not reprove a scorner, lest he hate you. You can rebuke a wise man, and he will love you. You can give instruction to a wise man, and he will be wiser. You can teach a just man, and he will increase in learning. Now, this is a really simple and understandable law of life. There is a time to tell someone he’s wrong, and there is a time to keep your mouth shut. Well, that should be obvious. What’s really, I think, not quite so obvious is that most of the time you really do know the difference. And the reason why you get your foot in it sometimes and make mistakes is not because you didn’t really know the difference. It’s because you did not take the time to think about it before you spoke. So Proverbs comes along and tells us, reminds us, this is the kind of thing that you get your child to memorize and impress upon their mind that there are times, whenever you see a person whose attitude is that of a scorner or that of a wicked person, there’s no point in your rebuking that person. There’s no point in your trying to reprove that person because the objective of reproof is instruction, is to get the person to turn around, to change his life. And when you encounter a scorner, which is really another way of saying a person who knows it all and has nothing but contempt for anybody else’s opinions but his own, it is utterly pointless to tell that person or to try to tell that person anything. If you can get this idea into the minds of your children early on and also help them to understand that there is a time to speak and a time to keep their mouth shut, well, you will have given them something very valuable. Most of the time, if you will just ask yourself before you speak, is this a good time to bring this up? You’ll save yourself a lot of trouble. When you’re in doubt, don’t say it. That’s a simple rule. All this also has a lot to do with the state of mind of the person you’re talking to. Rebuke a wise man and he will love you. Try that with a fool and, well, you can get your lights punched out. This calls on you to hold up for a moment and think about the person you are talking to. Is there any point at all in trying to correct him? Now, in this, hidden within this, is another very important principle of making your life work. Most of us in our conversations and our dealings and our goings on in the world have our minds firmly fixed on ourselves. We’re thinking about what we feel, what we want, where we’re going, what we’re trying to do, our objectives and all these things. We do not stop to take a moment to look carefully at this person and ask ourselves, what is he trying to do? What’s his frame of mind? Where is he going? Is there any point in telling this person what I think? Is there any point in trying to explain this? I’ve listened to many conversations in my lifetime and I’m always struck by one simple fact. Too many people, when the other person is talking, are not listening. They are thinking about what they want to say next. And you can see people in conversations pass each other like ships in the night with no communication at all. Well, here’s a lesson for life. Take a look at the person you’re talking to. Evaluate his attitude, his objectives. Is he a scorner? Is he a wicked person? Is he a wise person? For knowing these things will have a great deal to do with how you talk to him and what you try to explain to him. Stick around, because when I come back, I’m going to tell you where wisdom really begins.

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So what’s the beginning point of all this? How do you actually get started on the road to wisdom? Solomon answers the question in verse 10. He says, “…the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” And the knowledge of the holy is understanding. For by me your days shall be multiplied and the years of your life shall be increased. Now this is where it all starts. It doesn’t mean fear in the sense of terror, but in the sense of awe and respect. That we look to God and we say, here is someone who really has all the answers. I’m going to look to him. So would you like to live a long time? Would you like to have a nice long life, live to be 90 years old in good health, 100 years old in good health? I don’t think we’re going to manage to make it to 115, 120, and right on beyond that anymore these days. But would you like to really, as human beings go, live a long time? Well, in verse 11, Solomon said, By the fear of God, by the wisdom that God gives, your days are multiplied and the years of your life are increased. And not only that, they’re actually worth living. And he goes on to make a statement here, which is so important, I don’t know how to emphasize it enough. He says, if you be wise, you shall be wise for yourself. But if you scorn it, you alone will bear it. What does this mean? What’s that all about? It’s this simple. So much of the time when people approach the law of God, they think, I’m going to keep this law because it will please God. I’m going to keep this law because it will make me brownie points with God. God being pleased with me will bless me. God will do good things to me if I bless him because he will be pleased. It does something good for God if I keep the law. Understand something right off the bat. you are not going to do God any good by being wise. You aren’t going to add anything to him, and if you’re stupid and foolish, you’re not going to take anything away from him. There’s a great passage out of the book of Job that I always think about in this light. It’s found in Job 35.5, and it says this, Look to the heavens and see. Behold, the clouds that are higher than you. If you sin… What do you do against him? Or if your transgressions are multiplied, what do you do to him? Well, you can’t reach God. You can’t take a bucket of garbage and throw it at his feet. You can’t enter into his throne room and steal something and take something away from him. There’s not a thing in the world that you can do as the most wicked sinner on the face of the earth to touch God. Then he goes on to say, well, now, if you’re righteous, what do you give to him? What does he receive out of your hand? I know you’re going to give God a gift of $10,000, and God’s going to be enormously more wealthy as a result of what you give him, right? We ought to know better than that. He concludes by saying, your wickedness may hurt a man like you, and your righteousness may profit a man like you. And that’s all. I don’t know of anything that better explains the role of the law in the life of a man. And how on earth the theologians and others get so messed up about this subject of wondering about, well, maybe salvation was by law in the Old Testament and salvation is by grace in the New Testament. And they missed the point entirely. The law is not about salvation. The law is about life. It’s about staying alive. It’s about living good. It’s about living well. It’s about enjoying life and seeing your children and your children’s children and having an old and long and prosperous life. That’s what the law is about. It’s for you. The problem is that we disobey the law. We ignore the law, pay no attention to it, and wind up wrecking our own lives. And salvation… is a rescue effort on God’s part to save us from the wreckage that we have made. The law does not make us right with God. The law teaches us how to live. But Solomon can’t close out this ninth chapter without yet one more reference to the loose woman. He’s really concerned about this. He realizes, I think, that this is the most common way that men wreck their lives, and women too, for that matter. He said, “‘A foolish woman is noisy. She is simple, and she knows nothing.’ And so she sits at the door of her house on a seat in the high places of the city, and she hollers out at passengers who are going by on their way. She said, “‘Hey, whoever is simple, let him turn in here.’ As for him that wants understanding, she says to him, All stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant. The poor guy, the poor fool, doesn’t know that the dead are there, and her guests are in the depths of hell. What can I say? Once again, it’s not a matter of abstaining from this foolish woman, of keeping yourself away from her house that’s going to do God any good. The reason why God tells you to stay away from that is because it’s going to ruin your life. Look up at heaven. See, can you do something against God? If you multiply your transgressions, if you not only commit adultery, but you steal, lie, and commit murder, are you going to touch God? Can you kill Him? On the other hand, if you’re righteous, how’s he going to be made better by it? The answer is he’s not. So why does he give you the law? It’s to save your neck, my young friend, not to save his. And that law of God in the Old Testament is one of the most valuable pieces of literature you will ever take up in your hand. I’m not trying to tell you that every application of the law of Moses will work for you in the 20th century. It just doesn’t. But what I’m trying to tell you is that what you see in the law of Moses and in Proverbs and elsewhere in the Old Testament is how God applied the underlying truth, the underlying law to real life situations and to real people. And anything you can learn about how God responds to man is worth knowing because these are the things that turn losers into winners. Later, Solomon will tell us, there is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end, it leads to death. I want to know what that way is, don’t you? Until next time, this is Ronald Dart, and you were born to win.

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