This morning, we're going to consider just one verse in Proverbs. It's a well-known verse. It's a poignant verse. It's Proverbs 29. Verse 18, if you would turn there with me.
Proverbs 29, 18. This verse points us to our desperate need for the word of God. Proverbs 29:18. God says. Where there is no prophetic vision.
The people cast off restraint. But blessed is he who keeps the law. Let's pray. Lord, would you open our eyes now to behold wonderful things? From your word, beautiful things in your word through the power of your Holy Spirit.
And in the name of Jesus I pray. Amen. Back before there was an internet or a world wide web, computers and computer software came with printed manuals. Explaining how to operate a computer or a software program. I remember purchasing an audio editing software set that came with no less than six.
printed manuals with thousands of pages of instruction on how to use the software. Back in those days, the church I grew up in was a fairly large church with a large office staff. All the computers, all the staff had computers at their desks.
Some of the staff members didn't know how to use their computers as well as others. And so the church hired an IT guy to help train the employees and just keep things running smoothly in the office.
Well, one day, this IT guy went to one of the secretary's computer stations because she was having a problem with something. And after diagnosing it for just a minute, he turned to the secretary and said somewhat sarcastically, oh, I see the problem. Your manual is in the wrong place. It's on the shelf collecting dust. Whatever the problem was that she was having must have been answered in the manual.
It turns out you had to read the manual to know how to use the software. We don't much like manuals, I think. I guess some people do, but for the most part, it seems that when it comes to using a new app or new tool, some new kitchen gadget, maybe a new automobile, we would rather just figure it out by trial and error instead of taking the time to read how the thing is supposed to work. In our YouTube era, we're accustomed to the learning method that says, don't tell me, show me, and make it quick, 60 seconds or less, because I've got things to do. We're often not well acclimated to having to concentrate for extended periods of time to master a task or a tool or to be thoughtful about how we ought to be using a tool.
We just want to use it. We want it now. We want it quick. Just give me the keys and let me start driving. I'll figure this out as I go.
That's often the temperament of the world we live in. But not everything in life is intuitive.
Some things simply cannot be figured out as you go. Without the risk of some incredibly destructive missteps. We like to think of ourselves as having common sense and wisdom and an ability to intuit our way through life, but there's a problem. We are not neutral bundles of common sense walking through life with an undo button at our disposal just in case we mess up. The attitudes we entertain, the thoughts we contemplate, the choices we make lead to actions that are real.
Not virtual. And those actions have temporal And eternal consequences that are real, not virtual.
Some of which can never be reversed. We don't get to just reboot the computer or reinstall the software and try again. What's done is done, and we have to live with the consequences.
Now we're not talking about computers and software, are we? We're talking about life in the real world, life lived with other people, life lived before a sovereign creator. And our sovereign creator has told us what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is evil, what is true and what is false. If we don't know the difference, it's not for lack of information. We have the manual.
It's on the shelf. The question is, have we read it? And are we following what it says? What you know and believe has a direct bearing on what you do. And what you do has real life consequences.
In a perfect world, if you know and believe what God has said, you will do what God requires and good consequences will flow from it. If you ignore what God has said, you will do whatever you want to do and bad consequences will flow from it. That principle is true, but here's the thing. We don't live in a perfect world, do we? We live in a fallen world.
We live in a corrupt world. There's a virus called sin that has contaminated this created order and the system is not functioning as it was intended. But here's the beauty of the situation. God has given us a user's manual. And that user's manual includes not only instruction on how to use the app, it also takes into account the virus.
and tells us how to overcome the virus. To speak plainly, God's Word, the Bible. tells us how to live a life that is pleasing to the one who has created us. the one to whom we must all give an account. And that instruction includes how to deal with the corruption of sin.
If we heed that instruction, life is happy and good. If we neglect that instruction, Life gets worse and worse until we're destroyed. If we were to summarize the message then of Proverbs 29:18, it would be this. To know God is joy. To ignore God is misery.
To know God is joy. To ignore God is misery. And we know God first and most clearly through his word. God is a God who speaks. God is a God who begins all of his work with words.
At creation, he spoke and said, Let there be light, and there was light. He begins the work of new creation, the plan of redemption by coming into the world as the word made flesh. God is a God of words. He is a God who speaks. And when we listen to that word and heed that word, we find joy.
When we disregard that word, we perish. What is your relationship then to the Word of God?
Well, it's either characterized by indifference and neglect or by submission and regard.
So let's consider each of these for a few moments this morning. The first half of our proverb describes the person that's characterized by disregard. for God's word. where there is no prophetic vision. The people cast off Restraint.
The first thing we need to do in order to rightly understand what this proverb is saying is to define what is meant by prophetic vision. And perhaps we ought to begin by correcting a common misunderstanding of this verse. The old King James translated the verse like this, where there is no vision, the people perish. And that's an accurate translation. In the original Hebrew, this verse has no adjective attached to the word vision.
The word prophetic is not in the Hebrew. The word vision, in its most literal sense, simply means sight. But it's a specific kind of sight, the kind of sight that a seer or a bard might have, or in the context of Old Testament Israel, a prophet. It's a prophetic sort of seeing. In this sense, it has the connotation of prophecy or revelation, an oracle that's given to a person, perhaps through a vision or a dream.
So the King James is accurate to say where there is no vision, the people perish. The ESV simply makes explicit what is implied by saying where there is no prophetic vision, that kind of vision, the people cast off. Restraint. What many, however, have done with this verse is taken that word vision and defined it in an incorrect way, in a very current, modern sort of way, as if it refers to a person's goals for the future. or personal aspirations and dreams.
The equivalent of maybe a person's life goals or an organization's vision statement. Vision oftentimes has come to mean something a person wants to see happen, and so they set out to make that vision a reality and begin measuring their success or failure in life in relation to that goal, that vision. And so Proverbs 29, 18 is understood by many as saying that if people don't have a clear goal to aim for, a clear vision of future potential, they're just going to wander aimlessly through life without purpose. without fulfillment.
Now, while there's nothing wrong with developing vision statements or setting goals, that's not what Proverbs 29, 18 is talking about. In fact, to understand the intended meaning of the word vision, In the first half of Proverbs 29, 18, we just have only to look at the second half of the proverb. And we've mentioned this before. Most proverbs are made up of two parallel statements that define each other or elaborate upon each other. In the case of our proverb here this morning, vision corresponds to the law, which is the word Torah.
The Old Testament Israel's Bible. This proverb is saying that without the authoritative word of God. As given by the inspiration of the Holy Spirits to the prophets of old, people throw off restraint.
Now, God has not always spoken in the same way, has He? Scripture describes that there was a time when the normal way in which God would speak was to raise up a spokesperson, a prophet, a patriarch, a leader, and give him the words to say. And when a prophet spoke in this way, he was literally speaking for the Lord. Thus saith the Lord. How and when God spoke to mankind in this way was up to God.
In fact, there were some long stretches in which there was no new divine revelation. We read about one instance of this that occurred right before the call of young Samuel to the office of prophet. 1 Samuel 3.1 explains, Now the word of the Lord was rare in those days. God would speak and give new information, new revelation, new instruction to his people. And can you imagine how exciting it would have been when God spoke something new and fresh that had not been previously revealed?
But there were times when God would remain silent for years, sometimes for centuries. as was the case between the end of the book of Malachi and the beginning of Matthew. But with the coming of the Messiah in the Gospels, we have received the perfect revelation of God and His gospel in the person of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. The apostles, who were eyewitnesses to that perfect culminating revelation of God, wrote down what they had seen and heard, and that written record. The New Testament.
along with all that the former prophets and inspired men of old had written down, now comprises the whole of God's revelation, His prophetic vision to man.
So much so that the New Testament assures us that what we have is sufficient, it's complete, able to thoroughly equip us for every good work. What we have is so complete that anyone who adds to it or takes away from it. from this divine revelation, what we call the Bible. We'll be cursed. with unimaginable misery.
So the modern day equivalent, then, of an Old Testament believer heeding the words of prophetic visions is a Christian who is listening to and believing the words of Scripture. This proverb is not exhorting us to go look for a guru who can speak divine secrets to us or for some prophet who can utter new revelation to us or even for a personal vision or a dream of what we would like to do or become in the future. No, this proverb is exhorting us to look to the revealed word of God which is contained in the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments and to read it and learn it and believe it and obey it. We're being called to receive the prophetic vision that has already been revealed.
Now, from our vantage point in redemptive history, it cannot be said that there is a lack of prophetic vision. Not only do we have that vision in our possession, We, unlike the original audience of Solomon's Proverbs, have the complete prophetic vision, the whole Bible and the incarnate Son of God and the gospel in its fullness.
So, in what sense can it be true of us that there is no prophetic vision?
Well here it is. If there is no prophetic vision, It is because we have failed to heed the word of God. When God's word is read, When God's word is preached. Do you listen? Do you heed?
Do you submit your life to it? Or do you disregard it through inattention, through unbelief? Through sheer neglect. If the habitual attitude of your heart and mind towards the Word of God is one of disregard, Our proverb tells us that these attitudes will lead to a casting off of restraint. What does this mean?
What does it mean to cast off? Restraint. Well, let's think for a moment. about this fruit of disregard for the word of God. To cast off restraint means to let loose.
to run wild, to let down your hair. We have a very vivid example of this casting off of restraint in the 32nd chapter of Exodus. You know the story. Moses had been summoned up to the top of Mount Sinai where God was giving him the moral law, the Ten Commandments. While Moses was gone, the people got impatient and a terrible thing happened.
Exodus 32 says that when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, The people gathered themselves together to Aaron, and said to him, Make us gods who shall go before us. We do not know what has become of Moses. Aaron, to his shame, listened to the people. And he led them in crafting and then worshiping. The image of a golden calf.
After this graven idol was crafted, scripture says, and the people sat down to eat and drink. and rose up to play. It's a description that's sickeningly laden with immoral overtones.
Well, Moses eventually came down the mountain and he encountered this terrible scene. The Bible says when Moses saw that the people had broken loose, and there's that term, there's that word that we saw in Proverbs 29:18, to cast off restraint. Moses saw that the people had cast off restraint. He stood in the gate of the camps and said, Who is on the Lord's side? Come to me.
The sons of Levi then gathered around Moses, and Moses commanded them to take their swords and kill the unfaithful Israelites who had cast off restraint.
Now, several features come to the fore in this account of the golden calf. features that I think illustrate the subtle seduction of disregarding the word of God. First, we see that When a people cast off the restraining grace of God's word, God's grace turns to wrath. God's grace turns to wrath. The setting in which this sin occurred was one in which God was literally writing his moral law in stone for Israel to possess.
That was an act of incredible grace and condescension on God's part to give His people this unparalleled summary of what righteousness looks like, to give His people clear direction on how to live lives that are pleasing to their Creator, lives that would lead to joy. But in an instant, this act of grace turns to wrath. As God says to Moses, Let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them. God is ready to destroy Israel and start all over with Moses. Disregard for God's word incurs God's wrath.
Secondly, when a people cast off the restraining grace of God's word. Their worship may retain an appearance of authenticity. and yet be idolatrous. As Moses descended Mount Sinai, he heard singing. He heard a worship service.
In fact, praise was even being attributed to God. Scripture tells us that Aaron Declared this diabolical worship service to be a feast to the Lord. to Yahweh. When we throw off the restraint of Scripture. We may think we're worshiping the Lord sincerely.
But that's just it. A people who have set aside the word of God are in no place to judge the authenticity, the sincerity, the acceptability of their worship. It's like a blind man trying to describe a beautiful sunset. He doesn't know what he's talking about. A person who disregards God's word.
is disregarding the God of the Word. He's not worshiping the Lord. no matter what he's convinced himself of. Thirdly, when a people cast off the restraining grace of God's word. The access they previously had to the word diminishes.
You've heard the saying, if you don't use it, you lose it. When I willfully refuse to avail myself of God's Word, there may come a point when I lose all opportunity to even avail myself of the word. God sent Moses down Mount Sinai with the most sacred tablets of stone containing the very law of God etched into them. Only to have Moses destroy these stones at the site of Israel's crass rebellion.
Now, God would graciously resupply Israel with that revelation again, but there was no guarantee or obligation on God's part to fix the consequences of their rebellion. He could have left them without the law, without special revelation, without any prophetic vision. In fact, that's what their rebellion deserved. And if that's what Israel's Rebellion deserves. What do we deserve?
We who have the full revelation of God in Christ? Hebrews 10, 28 through 31 says it very clearly. Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God? And has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified.
and has outraged the spirit of grace. Truly, it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Fourthly, when a people cast off the restraining grace of God's word. The very idols to which they run become their demise. The very idols to which they reject God for become their demise.
God will not share his glory with another. If we set up an ungodly affection, an idol, a false God in our hearts, God will not stand by and allow us to worship that idol with impunity. Moses burned this golden calf, he ground it to powder, Scripture says, and then he scattered it on the water and made Israel drink of the water. The people had to drink the water that was contaminated with the ground up remains of their idol. There was no rising up to play at that point.
Instead, Israel was afflicted with a great plague. and was thereby punished by the Lord. In fact, the habit of crafting golden calves and worshiping them would actually persist. Right to the very end of Israel's sordid history. Their disregard for God's word would only amplify with each passing generation.
until eventually Israel would fall and be carried into exile. back into the very slavery from which they had been delivered. What they thought would bring them joy. only brought them plagues and death and judgment. Fifthly, when a people cast off the restraining grace of God's word.
They lose touch not only with God's Word, but with reality itself. We see this in our generation, in our culture. We see this in Aaron's concocted story of the golden calf. He told Moses. I threw gold into the fire and out came this calf.
Now this is absurd. Sin makes us absurd. It makes us irrational. We begin bending over backwards to justify our disregard of God's word, God's truth. But you see, to reject God's truth is to reject all truth, because all truth is God's truth.
If we Disregard God's word, it won't be long before we begin disregarding truth and reality wherever they appear. Sin makes us lose touch. with reality. Sixthly, when a people cast off the restraining grace of God's word, they die. Moses immediately commands the sons of Levi to execute 3,000 guilty souls.
That is the end result of hating God's word. In the day you eat of it, God told Adam and Eve, you shall surely die. The wages of sin Is death. That's the penalty. But lastly, And most unexpectedly, We see that though a people cast off the restraining grace of God's word.
God's word still will not return void. but will accomplish everything he intended it to accomplish. The golden calf story ends with a foreshadowing of atonement. As Moses, who's the Christ figure in this narrative, seeks atonement on behalf of Israel. And God continues to lead them to the promised land.
In time, Jesus Christ Himself, the Son of God, will be born from the very descendants in this story, and He will redeem Israel and all the church through His death. Friends, here's the lesson to be learned from this. God's word is so holy that we dare not disregard it. But also, God's word is so powerful that it can even redeem those who disregard it. Where there is no prophetic vision, the people cast off restraint to their own detriment.
and at great risk to their own souls. Don't be one of them. Don't be found among those who cast off restraint simply because you refuse to heed. the life-giving word of God. There's a better way.
There's a safer way. There's a happier way. And it's the way of having regard for God's word. This is the second half of our proverb. Blessed.
Happy, joyful is he who keeps the law.
Now the word law, as we pointed out earlier, is the parallel term to prophetic vision in the first half of the Proverb. It refers to all of God's word, the whole canon of Scripture. To keep the law then is to hold Scripture in high esteem. to preserve it from disregard, to give one's attention to it and affections to it, to hunger for it, to listen to it, to believe it, to do what it requires. I suppose the most well-known question and answer in our catechism is the first one about the chief end of man being to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.
But do you know what the very next question asks? It asks, in light of this chief end of man, what rule has God given to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy him? And the answer, the Word of God. Which is contained in the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments is the only rule to direct us how. we may glorify and enjoy him.
Friends, if God's word is this important in the Christian life, so important that it is the only rule to direct us how to fulfill our very purpose for existing. We must desperately need what the Word gives.
So how do we get What it gives. The Catechism tells us this. It tells us how. It says the Holy Scriptures are to be read. with a high and reverent esteem of them.
With the firm persuasion that they are the very word of God and that He only can enable us to understand them. The scriptures are to be read with desire to know, believe, and obey the will of God revealed in them. with diligence. and attention. With meditation, which means we think deeply about what's being said.
with application, which means we think deeply about the practical implications of what's being said. With self-denial. Which means that in our reading of God's word, we silence our ideas, we silence our objections, we silence our sentiments, and listen only to what God says in Scripture. And finally, with prayer. Which means that we cannot trust ourselves.
To heed the word of God, we need his aid. We need His Holy Spirit. To heed God's word. is to pursue a holy life. And a holy life leads to a happy life.
We see the promise in the word blessed. A word that means happy, it means full of joy. If you cast off God's word, you will cast off all moral restraint. And in so doing, you will be casting off joy. But if you have regard for God's word, you will...
Know the things and believe the things and do the things that bring true happiness. Read the manual. Do what it says. Church, this proverb is in the Bible. Because God knows that it is our tendency to disregard what he has said.
It's likely that there are many here today who, at some juncture in your life, have just decided to hit the mute button on what God's word says. You've you've silenced the prophetic vision. You've silenced the voice of the law and the prophets. You shut your ears to the apostolic faith once for all delivered to the saints. And perhaps this morning you've come to realize that you.
Like Israel of old, have been playing religion around a golden calf of your own making. Instead of heeding the word of the living God. How do you return to the prophetic vision when once you have abandoned it? It may sound simplistic, but the answer is this. You take the first step back towards God.
You take the first step. back towards God. You begin listening to what he has already said. An Old Testament prophet by the name of Azariah once preached a sermon. During a time of great disregard for God's word.
And in that sermon, he said, If you seek the Lord, he will be found by you. But if you forsake him, He will forsake you. For a long time, Israel was without the true God and without a teaching priest and without law, but when in their distress they turned to the Lord and sought him. He was found by them. And friends, don't miss this.
God lets Himself be found by those who seek Him in faith. What grace that is. The New Testament puts it this way in James 4:8, draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. If you stop listening to the Lord's voice, Which is to say, if you've stopped heeding the words of Scripture, you're on a path. toward throwing off all moral restraint and ruining your soul.
But there's a better way. Draw near to God as he reveals himself in this book, in the Holy Scriptures. To ignore God is misery. But to heed God. is joy.
It's glory. It's eternal life. Let's pray. Father, you have spoken and we have heard.
Now help us to submit. Through the power of your Holy Spirit in us, help us to submit to what you've said. Help us in faith. to believe your promises and obey your commands. Lord, make us holy.
By your truth, your word, Lord, is truth. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Hmm.
