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We thank you so very much for
your son, Jesus, and we just ask that as we spend time in
your word that we would rely upon your spirit and that we
would have a sense of humility. that we would look at this text
from your servant Ugar and that we would, or Agor, and that from
Agor that we would learn the lessons that we need to learn,
that salvation is from you despite our limitations. We thank you
so very much for everything you've given us in your son's name,
amen. So this past week I started a
new book, which isn't weird. The subject of the matter is
very interesting. I don't want to get lost in the weeds of what
the book's about, but it's a giant conspiracy theory. That's what
the book's about. I knew going in that I was buying a book about
a conspiracy theory. I guess I'm just a glutton for
punishment of listening to people who have massive conspiracy theories. What I enjoy about conspiracy
theories, interestingly enough, is that it actually shares a
little bit more of what people are afraid of, right? So this
one's a political one, and so really what it demonstrates is
that people don't trust those in government. There's another
interesting thing that happens in the midst of conspiracy theories.
It's what people think is the authority. That is very fascinating
to me. And without exception, every
single conspiracy theory I've heard, the basis for the conspiracy
theory is their own ability to reasonably think through the
situation. So they say, reasonably, I think this is true, therefore
it must be true. That's what they appeal to. They
appeal to their own reason. Their own reason, their own thinking
is the authority by which they then look at the world. And if
it doesn't make sense to their reasoning or to their thinking,
well then it's impossible. But if it makes sense to their
thinking, well then it is the truth and you need to think like
them. I find this pretty prevalent
in modern thinkers and in modern people, our striking arrogance. So many people around us, the
basis for what is right, what is wrong, how they think about
the world, how they gather information, how they gather knowledge, what
they think about metaphysics, what they think about epistemology,
what they think about the beginning, and what they think about the
end, starts and ends on the basis of the human mind being able
to reason and think. The human mind is the, pinnacle
it is the zenith of truth and determining truth that has led
to some really dangerous dangerous thoughts it is not a biblical
thought by the way it is absolutely antithetical to what we find
in the scriptures and this morning that's what we're going to look
at we're going to look at the extent of the human mind, the
extent of human knowledge, the extent of the human mind in theology,
and how small we are. We are very small. We don't know
what we think we know. We don't observe what we think
we observe. We don't have as much power as we think we do.
And in this world where we have this inflated ego of ourselves
and of the self-importance, Agor teaches us, son, you don't know
anything. You are nothing compared to God,
and you need to trust him and trust his word, and stop trying
to be so arrogant and self-important. That's what we're going to see,
so turn with me to Proverbs chapter 30. We're starting a new section
in the book of Proverbs. and Lord willing, we'll go through
the first six verses this morning. And I wanna point out three things
to you in this section of Proverbs 30, verses one through six. The first three verses, we're
gonna look at the limitation of our knowledge, the limitation
of what we know, the limitation of how we know what we know,
the limitation of our theology. Four, we're gonna see our limitation
within creation. That's where we're going to see
in verse four. He's going to ask a whole bunch
of questions that we have to say, I can't do that. I don't
know of anybody that can do that except for God alone. And the
point is to demonstrate our smallness and our limitation. And then
in five and six, we're going to see that salvation is from
God, but this is salvation from God that's revealed in his word,
and that I can't trust myself, what I think about reality, I
have to trust God. So, let's start in verse one. I will say this in dealing with
verse one. I don't know of a more debated
verse in all of the book of Proverbs and this, I believe that every
single word in verse one is debated. And if we all stood up and read
our translations, you will see how different these translations
are. And there's part of me that wants
to sit here and argue for why I interpret things the way I
interpret things. But I think sometimes we might
lose what Egor is actually saying. And I think that all of those
interpretations and all of those translations and all of the different
things of what we think he's saying all lends itself to one
major thing. And I think the major thing that
we have to see going into this is his questioning man and demonstrating
the limitation of man regardless of how you translate this that
is what you come to okay so let's start in verse one the words
of agor now we don't know who this guy is we don't know What
we do know is that this isn't a Jewish name. This is most likely
a Gentile name. So I like that, being a Gentile,
being non-Jewish. Here we finally have the Gentiles
represented in the book of Proverbs. Yeah, there we go. That's about
as much of applause as we need, right? Then it says, the son
of Jacob, once again, we don't know who this guy is, but it's
a Gentile name. It is very possible that this
guy was well known during the time of Solomon in 1 Kings, it
talks about all the wise people coming to learn and sit with
Solomon. We then get this next word, and
this is where the word starts to become debated. In the ESV
it says the oracle, some of your translations may have a particular
name calling him the Mazenite, which is an actual group of people
at the time. But it seems likely, and the
literal word literally means an utterance, a prophetic utterance,
that this person is a prophet. So here we have a Gentile prophet
in the Old Testament. That's significant. Let me tell
you why I think this is significant theologically. It demonstrates
that even though Israel is God's chosen people, God cares about
all people as well, right? That's what he does. He cares
about all people. He cares about us as Gentiles, right? If you're
non-Jewish, he cares about you. And at the time, when we read
sometimes in the Old Testament, we think, well, the only people
that knew God at the time had to be from Israel. That's not
necessarily true. Here, this demonstrates, here's
this guy who's a Gentile who's, writing at the time of Solomon
and writing in God's word and has and knows God. That's important. So notice,
it says, the man declares, I am weary, O God, I am weary, O God,
and worn out. Now, some of your translations
may have two guys' names here, and it's Ithil and Yukal. Your translation might say that,
that that's who he's talking to. And here's then where this
debate is. There's actually three ways of
interpreting this. It's either that Egor is talking to these
guys, and this is a discussion that he has with his pupils,
And then you would then take this as this man stands in as
God speaking to Israel, but still you would be left with the idea
that Israel is limited in their knowledge and understanding of
God. There's one that goes based off of the Aramaic, saying, okay,
if this guy's a Gentile, he's not necessarily writing in Hebrew,
he's maybe using an Aramaic term here, which says, I am not God,
I am not God, I should not prevail. that would make sense and still
follows. But the most likely one, and
the one that most of the Hebrew scholars agree with, is this
one, of the interpretation of taking the word literally, and
the word literally, ethel, and yukal, literally mean, I am weary,
oh God, I am weary, oh God, and worn out. One of the reasons
that they point to this is, one, the word by itself means, I am
weary, O God. So that's why they would say,
just take it. It doesn't have to be a proper
name. Just take it at face value. That's what he's saying. He mentions
that phrase twice, I am weary, O God, I am weary, O God. So
it seems a little strange to say the one pupil's name twice. It would seem more poetic and
just taking it literally that this is what he's saying, I am
weary, I am exhausted. This is how I take it, I take
it that that's what he's saying. And so it's kind of interesting,
you would say, well, why is this man weary? Why is he exhausted? Well, as we will come to find
out, When you come to God's word and your ego fights against God's
word, is it not exhausting? Is it not exhausting when you
think about the world around us and trying to figure everything
out? Don't you just get tired? Like,
don't you get tired? Don't you get tired being on
Facebook for hours, YouTube on hours, your news for hours, and
you still walk away going, I don't know what's going on. I have
no idea what's going on. I read all the newspapers. I
read the latest books. I spent all this time just trying
to figure out what happened yesterday. I'm behind, right? That is something
that is just draining. You just walk away going, I don't
know. I'm so tired of trying to figure this stuff out, right?
This is similar to what the preacher concludes in the book of Ecclesiastes,
his weariness, his weariness of looking at the world, trying
to figure out the world, trying to figure out how this all fits
together. And so here we see this man who,
under the weight of what he's about ready to say, realizes
the exhaustion of the human spirit. This demonstrates the first limitation,
right? We get tired. You wanna try to
think about God and instruct God and tell God how you think
things should happen? First thing you should know is
he doesn't get tired, you do. He can handle things, you can't.
He doesn't get worn out, he doesn't need sleep, you do. Every time
we take a nap, that's a demonstration of our limitation. It is, because
I need to re-energize. God doesn't have to do that,
you do. Even sleep, oh blessed sleep, is a demonstration of
your creatureliness and your dependence on God. Every time
you eat a meal because you're hungry and you're famished, that
demonstrates You're a creature. God doesn't need that. He's not
like us that requires food, right? He's not like us that he needs
water. We need water, we need food, we need rest. He doesn't
need clothes, he doesn't need shelter. We do. And as Agor thinks about theology,
he thinks about God, he thinks about all the things that he
sees, notice what he then says. He says, surely I am too stupid
to be a man I have not the understanding of man. As he thinks about the
complexity of God's word, he thinks about the complexity of
the world around him, as he thinks about everything that is to be
thought about, his overwhelming conclusion is, I am no better
than an animal. So as you drove in, you probably
saw the cows. What does a cow know? That's
pretty much what we know. That's the idea. We're no better. We all end up the same, right? Well, hopefully not. Maybe a
cow might become a burger. Hopefully you don't become a
burger. But we all die, right? End, finality, right? What do they know? What's the
urges that they follow? Do we not have some of the same
urges, right? And so the conclusion is, when
we study God's word, we come to the sense of, I don't... I
don't know. And then I listen to other people
and I go, man, there's some people out there that are really, really
smart. I'm not smart enough to even match them intellectually. What do I know? I know nothing.
Man knows nothing, right? We see this later, we see this
by other prophets. For example, Isaiah, when he
talks about God, he says, God's ways are higher than our ways
and his thoughts are higher than our thoughts. Paul discusses
this in 1 Corinthians where he says, where's the wise man of
this age? Is not the foolishness of God much smarter than the
wisdom of man? So at the sense, you start to
see that man is limited even in what I know. I'm limited in
what I understand. Let's say you're the smartest
human being that's ever walked the face of the planet. What
do you know? I mean, really, what do you know? What's your understanding? Now,
you might have more understanding of something than someone else,
but really, what do you know? In the whole grand scheme of
all things, maybe .001%? Well, that's not
a lot. That's not awesome, right? When we are confronted with God's
word and God's wisdom, the response has to be an overwhelming, I
don't know. I don't know. There's a lot of
things I don't know, and I can't figure it out. And then I'm not
in the understanding of a man. this type of self debasement
isn't something that he's just feigning humility. This is something
that happens when somebody's encountered with the glory of
God. Think of Isaiah, when Isaiah sees God in Isaiah 6. What does
he say? Woe am I! There's this complete
self-debasement. There's this understanding when
he sees the Lord, he realizes, I'm nothing compared to that. I don't know anything compared
to that. I'm nothing. I think every time that we see
an example of somebody who beholds the glory of God, walks away
with this overwhelming sense of awe, this overwhelming sense
of the bigness and transcendence of God and the overwhelming sense
of our own creatureliness and smallness and how little we actually
know. Now think of this just for a
moment. Think about our culture around us, where the human mind
is the pinnacle. If it's reasonable, therefore
it must be true. If I can prove it, logically,
it must be true. This is what the enlightenment
was built upon. The human mind and reason is
the zenith. Here, this passage goes, you
guys don't know anything. It's pooled ignorance at best.
At best, it's pooled ignorance. That's what it is. And then notice
what he goes on. He says, I've not learned wisdom. The more you know, the more you
realize I don't know, right? We spent how many years in the
book of Proverbs? I still stay up late over situations
praying, God, how do I navigate through this situation? I'll
preach over something, and then I'll go home, and then I'll have
to put it in practice, and I'm sitting there going, What was
I doing all week when I spent all that time studying the sermon?
I should be able to make a quick snap decision here, and I'm still
kind of struggling on how to work this stuff out. We're limited,
we're limited. And then he says, nor have I
the knowledge of the Holy One. You think you know God? You think
you know theology? You think you know these things?
You know a couple big words? You know, a couple big theological
words. You know the meaning of anti-Douvlian? Great. You know what hypostatic union
means? Okay. So what? You don't really know
God the way you think you know God. When we think about how
big God is, how transcendent he is, how infinite he is, how
arrogant is it for us as mere humans, to say, I really, really
know a lot and everything about him. Yeah, right. I mean, I have
a tough time describing the ocean to people who've never seen the
ocean, let alone God. Now this doesn't mean that God
is not knowable. We can know God. We can know
him in a real way. We can have a relationship with
him and we can know things about him. And we're gonna see how
we can do that. But realize this, that man apart
from God revealing himself to us cannot know God. Meaning this, I can't tell you,
go out and look at a tree, and you'll look at a tree and go,
oh, yeah, as I look at the bark, God's trinity. Yeah, Jesus came
and died on the cross for my sins. You see that in the leaf
right there. And you see the sinfulness of man on that, the
way the branch loops over the water. No. At best, all you know is somebody
designed it. Somebody put it here. You might
come up with some things that sound somewhat biblical in your
theism, but do you know him? Can you know him from just your
mind? So you see the limitation of
the human mind? The human mind is incredibly limited. Here's
the problem. I don't think of my mind as being
limited. I don't. And I probably, I'm
gonna go out on a limb here. I know I just used a tree illustration.
I'm gonna continue on that tree. I'm gonna go out on the limb
that's hanging over the river. You probably don't think of your
own knowledge as being limited either. In fact, I'm gonna go
even further out on the limb, right? So now I'm on the little
twig now. We probably think it sounds reasonable to me, therefore
it's probably true. We probably all have that. It
sounds reasonable to me, therefore it's true. Because it's me, right? It's me. I know me. I wouldn't
lie to me. I wouldn't deceive me. I know
more than the other guy. I might feign humility, but deep
down in the recesses of my soul, I go, yeah, but I know. I know. I know, I'm right, because I
am. This verse is like popping the balloon of our own pride. We don't know what we think we
know. We don't have as much wisdom as we think we have. We are incredibly,
incredibly limited, and the human mind by itself cannot come to
wisdom and cannot come to know God. Now, some of you are pretty
smart and you're thinking of Romans chapter two, saying, well,
doesn't that passage talk about the law that's inscribed in somebody's
heart and people doing things instinctively of the law? I want
you to table that for a moment, because we're going to get to
that in verse five. Because the point is, God was
the one that revealed that to their heart. God put that in
their heart. It wasn't that they determined
that by themselves independent of God's creation and revelation. That's the point that this author
is making. That apart from God, you know
nothing. Apart from God, you don't know
him. Now some of us might think we're pretty big stuff in the
whole grand scheme of things when it comes to the cosmos.
Notice verse four of our limitation even within creation. This is
very, this rapid fire questions that Egor uses here. Man, we could spend a lot of
time in each one of these questions, but I find that going through
them quickly is probably better. And let me just tell you, your
answer to each of these has to be, I don't know anybody that's
done that, or that can do that, except for God. Only God can
do that. I can't do that, you can't do
that, I don't know anybody that can do that, but God can. So
just notice the first one. Who has ascended to heaven and
come down? Anybody? Anybody here? Wanna
raise your hands? Anybody ascended and come back
down? I've been in a plane. Does that count? No. When he's
talking about heaven here, he's talking about what? The abode,
God's abode. Who's gone up there and come
back down? Only Jesus, right? Only God. Only God has done that.
Nobody does that. So anytime that man, apart from
God's revelation, says, oh, I know, I know, No, you don't. You haven't been there. You haven't
been there and come back down. Who do you think you are? Then
notice the next one. Who has gathered the wind in
his fists? I have trouble flying a kite
on the beach, let alone trying to catch the wind in my hand.
Who does that? Who can hold the wind in his
fists? Who does that? Do you know anybody?
Any takers, anybody think you have that power? The power of
wind? I know a story is pretty windy.
I come from Wyoming. That place is super windy, super,
super windy. I wish I had the power of wind.
That would have been awesome, especially when I was playing
baseball. There was a couple balls that floated into the foul
line because of the wind. Every time that you see the ball
going over to the foul line, what does everybody do? You pray for the power of wind
in those times. We don't have it. We don't have it. Nobody
has. Only God possesses the power of the wind. Now notice the next
one. Who has wrapped up the waters in a garment? Who here wears water? Who can control water to that
extent? Anybody? Anybody? Who here can go out to the ocean
and say, stop, go over there? I'm sure Sam would love that
power, right? The control of water, that would
make being a Coast Guard a lot easier, right? Notice the next
one. Who's established all the ends
of the earth? Who's established boundaries?
Boundaries, this goes here, that goes here, that goes over here,
waters, you stay here, you people stay here, this stays here, this
stays here. Who does that? Who has the power? Now, we like to think that as
Americans, our government has the power to do some of those
things. No. God's the one who does this, right? So the answer
always has to be the same. And so as he's thinking, he then
poses this question to us as a reader, what's his name? Name
the person, name it, what's his name? And then here, Egor says
something that is prophetic, because it's an oracle, it's
a prophecy. And sometimes in prophecies,
somebody can ask a question, and later on, because we have
more revelation, we can then answer the question with great
clarity. But the question is, what man
can do this? Does he have a son that can do this? It's kind of
a weird thing to put in, right? A weird thing to say. But we
as believers, looking back at this, we say, well, who's the
one that does this? God. And what's his son name? Jesus.
Jesus does this. In fact, it's interesting. You
look at each of these questions. Has not Jesus done each of these
things? Who's ascended to heaven and
come down? Jesus. In fact, Jesus even talks
about that in John numerously. He's like, I'm the one that's
been up there. I know the Father. Who's the
one that holds the winds in his fists? He's sitting on a boat,
tells the waters and the wind to stop, and it stops. Who controls
weather like that? Jesus does. Who's established
the ends of the earth? Jesus. Now notice what he says,
because he says something that's really important, because it's
implying that we all come to the same answer. Who's done this? No one. But then he says, surely
you know, You know, meaning we all know the answer. The rhetorical
question is so obvious at the answer. Who alone has this power? No human alive has this power. Only God has this power. So what
does that mean? That means God's really big,
and that means we're really small. That's what that means. He's
really mighty, and we're really weak. He's independent and self-existent,
and we're required upon him. We are completely, totally dependent. What do you have that can overcome
these limitations? Humanly speaking, absolutely
nothing. It's amazing how throughout the
week all the different studies that you become a part of when
you do multiple Bible studies and how some of these things
just compound upon themselves as you study. And we're going
through the book of Exodus and we're looking at all the prayers
in the book of Exodus on Wednesday afternoon. And the evidence of man's human
limitation is so obvious. Here you have the Israelites,
they're released, they go out into the desert, God leads them
to this place where there is nowhere to go. You got the Red
Sea behind ya, mountains all the way, and then there's this
one place, and guess what happens? The Lord moves in the hearts
of Pharaoh and his army, and guess what they do? They come
to get ya. And what do the people say? Moses, why did you lead
us here? Was it not good enough for us
to be slaves in Egypt that you would lead us to the desert to
be slaughtered? We have no way out, no way out. We can't fight
them, we can't overpower them, can't swim it, can't climb the
mountains, we're done. And what does God do? He protects
them and then he parts the sea and they walk across on dry land.
And then when Moses looks back at that event, that whole event,
the whole, leaving Egypt and then God defeating Pharaoh. What is his conclusion? His conclusion
is to use these words that speak of the grandeur of God. He's
majestic in holiness. He's majestic in his greatness.
And we've made the comment several times as we discuss this text.
Moses is at a loss for words. He uses the word greatness over
and over again, because that's the only word he could think
of. God's so great. This is the basis for how a Christian
mind, this is what a Christian mind should look like. This is
the default position of the Christian mind. God is really big, and
he is really powerful, and I'm really small, and I'm really
limited, and I really absolutely need him for everything. There's this hopelessness of
the human limitation. But notice this hope and this
warning that comes, this advice that comes and the salvation
that comes, but it comes with a warning in verse five and six.
Notice the salvation. Notice the salvation that's from
God. And notice what he says, every word of God proves true. It's true, it's right, it's pure,
there's nothing wrong in it. Every single word, every single
word is right, it's infallible, there's no error, it's proven
true. It's true at the time when he
writes it and it's true past the time that he writes it. The
word of the Lord endures forever. It's perfect. It restores the
soul. This is what it does. It's right. So you say, why does he say it
like this? It's so obvious. The first four
verses demonstrate the limitation of man to know anything, to understand
anything about God, to understand anything about the word or the
world. But God has revealed stuff to
man. And those things that God reveals
are so concrete, so pure, so axiomatic, that it can't even
be questioned on its veracity. It is so true. In the confusion and limitation
of everything apart from God, here God's word stands as this
peer, this anchor. Every word proves true. You do realize that every single
word of the Bible is true. The whole thing is true. These
come from God's word, as God moved in the hearts of men to
write. And so we can easily say that
these are the words of man that God uses in their circumstances,
but he's so moved in such a way that the very words that the
human author wrote are the very words that God wanted written.
I know that it's in vogue right now for people to deconstruct
their faith and then write books about it and have video series
on YouTube and try to convince other people that the Bible's
not true. And they come up with all of these cleverly devised
arguments. Many of them are not new arguments,
they're old arguments. Many of them are not well-researched.
Many of them are based off of wrong ideas. And some of them
are just simply based on the idea that if my human mind can't
reasonably understand it, therefore it can't be true. Let me tell
you this one thing, friends. I believe in a global flood.
I believe that there was a little boat that Noah was on. Even if
I never see that boat, it's true. I don't need somebody pretending
to be Indiana Jones to find it for me to go, well, now the Bible's
true. God's word is true, and I trust God. I might not be able
to understand how everything fits together. Oftentimes I don't,
because I'm a lot like the author here. I'm too stupid to be a
man. But I do know the author. And I do know that he tells the
truth. I know him. Notice then what he then says
next. Because this is so important. It's so important, so simple,
that sometimes it's easy to forget. Because notice what he says.
He says, he is a shield to those who take refuge in him. Well,
I thought we were talking about God's word. Why now all of a
sudden start talking about the character of God? Because that's
what the Bible reveals. It reveals the character of God.
And it reveals not only the character of God, but it then encourages
us to what? Trust him. Notice the description
here. He's a shield. What's a shield
do? Protects. Protects from problems.
Protects from attacks. It offers safety. He is that
safety. He's that safety shield. He's
that riot shield in the midst of the confusion. And notice
that if you take refuge, you trust in him. Now, us in the
New Testament, looking back at this, we would say, yeah, you
trust in God by trusting in the person and work of Jesus Christ
alone for your salvation. You do that, which is, by the
way, revealed in God's word. The only place that you could
find about that salvation is found in God's word. When you
believe that and you take refuge in him, notice what happens.
There's safety. There's salvation. Salvation
is from him. So the implication is you cannot
save yourself. Your mind cannot save you. Your
power cannot save you. The only hope you have is to
run as fast as you can to God's word and trust in him. That is
all you got. That is it. That's all you have. You run as fast and hard as you
can. And the moment you start to veer from that, realize, oh,
it's scary dangerous out there. The only place I have is God
and his word. Now, we will find this to be
true throughout chapter 30. Agor has a very interesting way
of talking. And what he'll do is he actually addresses three
major issues later on in this chapter. And the first one that
he deals with is human ignorance. He'll deal with humility. He'll
deal with greed. And what he'll do is he'll give
these sayings that you have to sit there and think through of
that demonstrate what he's trying to say. So here he demonstrated
the, ignorance of man. Later on he'll demonstrate the
greed of man. He'll demonstrate man's rebelliousness. So he'll give that, then he'll
give a piece of advice. So here the piece of advice is
to go to God's word. Next week we're going to see
the piece of advice is prayer from God for content and peace. And then later on what we're
going to see is that the answer is repentance. And with each
of those there is a Advice, but then there's a warning. If you
don't heed this advice, something bad will happen. Something bad
will happen. So there's this warning. Some of the warnings are pretty
graphic, by the way. I'll let you look through chapter 30 throughout
the week, and you'll see what I mean. There's a thing about
vultures eating the eyes of people. But we'll get to that next week.
I know that we're all excited about that. But notice what he
says in verse six. Because this is what the human
ignorance and limitation does, and we do this very easily And here's the warning, do not
add to his words. Now, some of you go, well, I've
never done that. I've never taken to a piece of paper and said,
now I'm writing 2nd Isaiah and selling 2nd Isaiah. Here you
go. Here's 2nd Isaiah, new book of the Bible. We go, as long
as I'm not doing that, I'm not adding to God's word, right? I mean, we don't add to God's
word, do we? Of course we do. You know how
easy it is? You know how easy it is to have
an interpretation, to say this is what the interpretation is?
When you read the text, you don't even think about the text, you
go, that's the interpretation. What if the Bible doesn't mean
that? Doesn't matter, that's what the interpretation says.
I know certain people that have certain study Bibles from certain
people, I'm not gonna mention those certain study Bibles that
people have, but they'll go, they'll read the text, and then
they'll immediately, without thinking about it, without doing
due diligence in Bible study, will go immediately right down
to the comment and go, well, the commentator says, blah, blah,
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, that's what it means. It may
mean that, it may not mean that. That may be helpful. I have studied
Bibles. What I'm doing right now is I'm
teaching. Oh, but is it possible for me to add implications that
are not there? Yep. To cause you to think about
the text in a certain way that's not necessarily correct? Yep. Add ideas that are foreign to
the text? Of course. There's a technical
term for this, by the way. It's called eisegesis. That's
taking an idea or a thought or a cultural thing that you have
and bringing that into the reading of the text and not allowing
the text to speak for itself. So be careful, be careful about
interpretation. This isn't a nerf fight. These
are real bullets. There's real consequences to
interpretation of God's word. And it's easy for us not to study
God's word the way that we should. But there's something bad that
happens. By the way, let me just say this,
it is also, we also live in a time where there are so many people,
so many Christians that claim, God told me something, they write
it in a book, and then they hand it to people, which is essentially
inspiration, and they're saying it's scriptural, and it's not,
and they're adding things to God's word. They do this all
the time. People see visions, and they
add things. They're false teachers. They add to God's word. There's
a whole sect in Utah that wrote a whole bunch of other books
saying this is from God. Not a good thing. In fact, it's
also interesting with this adding of things. You know that as God
has revealed his word, he's done this in stages. And at the end
of each stage, it's kind of interesting, there's always a statement that
says, don't add, don't add. There's one with Moses in Deuteronomy. Here, you have one. in the hakmah,
the wisdom literature. You have one in numerous places
in the prophets that say don't add. You have within the New
Testament, the very last words of the book of Revelation, which
is speaking about the book of Revelation, but applies to the
whole book, don't add, because if you add, God'll add tribulation
to your life. If you take away, God's gonna
remove blessings from your life. But we as humans are so ignorant,
so stupid, so arrogant, so egotistical, that we think we can correct
God's theology and tell him what we think he should mean instead
of going to say, what does he say? What happens? Notice what happens. Don't do
this, because what'll happen? lest he rebuke you. That ain't
a good thing. It's not a good thing to be rebuked,
to be told off by God. That's not good. No believer
should ever want that. No follower of Jesus should ever
want to have a rebuke. And then notice the next thing.
You'll be found a liar. Why? Because you're taking the
truth and changing the truth. You're changing reality. That's
what you're doing. When you change God's perfect
word with our own perversions, that's changing reality. That's
a lie. It's changing the way that people
think about reality. That's a lie. That's false. It
makes sense. God knows he's perfect. He writes
a book. Don't goof with it. Take it,
accept it, trust him. There's a lot of commentary we
could talk about about today's church, so we're gonna have cookies,
and then we're gonna come back, and I'm gonna talk about all
of the ways that this has happened. I'm joking. Be careful, friends. Brothers and sisters, please
be careful. This past week, I've heard so many videos, just doing
the research of the sermon, and looked at so many things, and
I've heard so many people who at one time used to be Christians,
and they talked about their deconversion. And every single one of them,
the one common denominator was, I trust my mind more than I trust
God. More than I trust God's word.
My mind is the ultimate authority, and I know. I know. I know what
happened in the past, because I know what happens right now,
and I know the things in the past couldn't have been anything different
than how it is right now. My mind is right. There's no
evidence for these things. My mind is right. And Christians
foolishly buy into this, all right, you need evidence, let's
have an evidence battle. And we stack up evidence against
their lack of evidence, and then we say charge, and we have an
old medieval war. Evidence versus evidence, clash
versus clash. And sometimes what happens is
we even can become allured away from the simple following of
Jesus, thinking that I gotta somehow be credentialed by the
world in order to have a voice in the world to talk about God's
word, or I have to have this mind that has the answers for
every single person. Now, I'm not against apologetics,
I'm not against amassing evidence, I'm not against pointing things
out and using reasonable, winsome arguments, but friends, we have
to realize that the reason why people believe in Jesus is not
because of our arguments or our ability to communicate those
arguments. People come to know Jesus because the Spirit of God
works in their heart. And sometimes praying for them
is far more beneficial than sitting there trying to argue with them
over Facebook. Sometimes, we just need to have
that holy stubbornness and say, God's word is right, regardless
of how my mind thinks about it. This is true. Stay faithful to Jesus. Stay
faithful to the word. This is true. Everything else
out there is confusing. You can't trust your own mind
to think through these things. But thanks be to God that he
loved us so much that he revealed himself and the truth through
his son and through his word. I'm very thankful that he even
comes down to our level to even validify some of those revelations
to us. Much more could be said, but
let's leave it at that. Trust God, trust Jesus, stay
faithful, trust the word, run as fast as you can to the word,
and don't leave it. Because everything else outside is shaky ground.
May the Lord give us both the will and the ability to do all
that we heard, and let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for this
text. We thank you so much for the
things that are said here. We're so thankful that You are concrete
and true and trustworthy and help us, help us in our own sinfulness,
in our own sinful state to not be so arrogant in our own mind
and in the way that we think, but to submit ourselves to You,
to fear You, to trust You, and to truly trust You, even with
our minds, even with our limitations, that we may have this salvation
despite our limitations, because salvation is from You, from Your
Son, and that is revealed in Your Word, and we're very thankful
for that. We thank you for everything that you've blessed us with,
and we just ask for your blessings on the rest of the day. We say
this in your son's name, amen.
salvation from God Despite Our Limitations
Series Proverbs
In this sermon, we will examine Proverbs 30:1-6 which urges us to acknowledge our human limitations and submit to God's all-knowing wisdom. Through exploring Agur's humble introduction and his thought-provoking questions about God's transcendence, we are encouraged to trust in the Divine and hold His Word in high regard. Despite our limited understanding and the vastness of creation, we can find solace in God and His infallible truth.
| Sermon ID | 73023173621977 |
| Duration | 47:39 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Proverbs 30:1-6 |
| Language | English |
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