Our Old Testament reading, let us turn to the book of Proverbs chapter 14. Proverbs chapter 14, we shall read verses 1 to 18. The wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands The foolish one tears hers down. He whose walk is upright fears the Lord, but he whose ways are devious despises him. A fool's talk brings a rod to his back, but the lips of the wise protect them. Where there are no oxen, the manger is empty. but from the strength of an ox comes an abundant harvest. A truthful witness does not deceive, but a false witness pours out lies. The mocker sees wisdom and finds none, but knowledge comes easily to the discerning. Stay away from a foolish man, for you will not find knowledge on his lips. The wisdom of the prudent is to give thought to their ways, but the folly of fools is deception. Fools mock at making amends for sin, but goodwill is found among the upright. Each heart knows its own bitterness, and no one else can share its joy. The house of the wicked will be destroyed, but the tent of the upright will flourish. There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death. Even in laughter the heart may ache, and joy may end in grief. The faithless will be fully repaid for their ways, and the good man rewarded for his. A simple man believes anything, but a prudent man gives thought to his steps. A wise man fears the Lord and shuns evil, but a fool is hot-headed and reckless. A quick-tempered man does foolish things, and a crafty man is hated. The simple inherit folly, but the prudent are crowned with knowledge. So we end our reading from this part of the Holy Scriptures. Later this evening we shall be thinking together about this twelfth verse in this chapter. There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death. Gospel according to John chapter 19, we shall read from the beginning of the chapter to the middle of verse 16. Let us hear the word of God. Ben Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head. They clothed him in a purple robe and went up to him again and again, saying, Hail, King of the Jews. And they struck him in the face. Once more, Pilate came out and said to the Jews, Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no basis for a charge against him. When Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe, Pilate said to them, here is the man. As soon as the chief priests and their officials saw him, they shouted, crucify, crucify. But Pilate answered, you take him and crucify him. As for me, I find no basis for a charge against him. The Jews insisted, we have a law. And according to that law, he must die because he claimed to be the son of God. When Pilate heard this, he was even more afraid. And he went back inside the palace. Where do you come from? He asked Jesus. But Jesus gave him no answer. Do you refuse to speak to me? Pilate said, don't you realize I have power either to free you or to crucify you? Jesus answered, you would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above. Therefore, the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin. From then on, Pilate tried to set Jesus free. But the Jews kept shouting, if you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar. When Pilate heard this, he brought Jesus out and sat down in the judge's seat at a place known as the Stone Pavement, which in Aramaic is Gabbatha. It was the day of preparation of Passover week, about the sixth hour. Here is your king, Pilate said to the Jews. But they shouted, take him away, take him away, crucify him. Shall I crucify your king? Pilate asked. We have no king but Caesar. The chief priests answered. Finally, Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified. May God bless the reading and the preaching of his holy word to our hearts. on 20th century idols. 20th century idols. We have been looking and hope to look at some of the isms which are present in our Western world. Some of the false gods whom people worship and very often these are nearly always these idols are not literal idols of stone or wood or metal, but they are mental idols. Ideas, concepts, philosophies to which people give allegiance and which lead them astray. And the idol before us this evening is the idol of pragmatism. Pragmatism. And our theme text is Proverbs chapter 14 verse 12. There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death. Now what you may ask is pragmatism. You've heard the word and you've heard the word pragmatic and pragmatist. People say I'm a pragmatic person. What is a pragmatic person? What is pragmatism? Well, the Oxford Dictionary tells us that pragmatism is the philosophical doctrine that evaluates any statement solely by its practical consequences. It's the doctrine that evaluates anything, anything, solely by its practical consequences. The pragmatist does not ask, is this good or bad? He does not ask, is it true or false? He does not ask, is it noble or degrading? He does not ask, is it pure or is it ugly? He asks, does it work? Does it work? And if it works, I will adopt it and I will follow it. What are its practical consequences? And a person who is a thoroughgoing pragmatist is someone who believes that what works is right and what does not work is wrong. A pragmatist is not interested in theories. not interested in principles or highfalutin ideas. Pragmatist is a practical, down-to-earth sort of person. I may be wrong, but I have often thought that the English, as a people, are a pragmatic people, and the Celts, as a people, are an extremely unpragmatic, or non-pragmatic people. The Englishman is concerned with what works, with life as it is, and that in a way has made them a great people and enabled them to find an empire that's stretched across much of the globe. Their sheer practicality, their down-to-earth common sense, a suspicion of airy-fairy theories and passionate debate The Celts seemed to sit in a sort of a romantic mist, arguing about things. G. K. Chesterton talked about the great Gaels of Ireland, the men whom God made mad, for all their wars are merry, and all their songs are sad. There's a lot of truth in that. And in some senses, today's world is quite a pragmatic world. So I want to look at this idol with you this evening under three headings. First of all, the value of pragmatism. Secondly, the weakness of pragmatism. And lastly, biblical pragmatism. First then, the value of pragmatism. As I was giving you the opening few paragraphs of my sermon and describing pragmatism and telling you what it was, It's possible that the thought may have crossed your mind, well what's wrong with that? What's objectionable about that? A pragmatist is someone who's interested in the practical consequences of things. A pragmatist is someone who's interested in what works. You may have said, well what's wrong with that? Is that not a good thing? be interesting to take a show of hands. Of course it's a good thing. Of course it's a good thing. There's no question about that. For what works is what corresponds to reality. And it works because it agrees with reality. It fits into reality and that is why it works. And we in the 20th century more perhaps than any other century, have seen the tragic results of ideologies and philosophies which don't work. I've been doing quite a bit of reading recently on the early history of the communist movement, and particularly of the Russian Revolution, and it's fascinating to read the sources and to discover that even in the very early days It was blindingly obvious that communism could not work, wasn't working, and never would work. And if you read Lenin's writings, you'll find that he knew that. And Trotsky knew that. And Stalin knew that. And yet for 70 years, communist leaders persisted in an insane human experiment. costing countless millions of lives and bringing untold misery to this planet when it was a system which was ramshackle and crazy from the very beginning and never even in one commune in Russia worked at all. And they were only able to keep it going by denying it. And it's a staggering fact that half the world, for over half a century, has been captured by a mad theory that bore little contact with human reality in any way, which was seen to be so, and proved to be so, a thousand times over. What the Communists needed, although they killed them all, was a courageous pragmatist who would say, brothers, comrades, this isn't working. This isn't working. Pragmatism is a good thing. If something is not working, it is better to say so, and to say so as soon as possible. I read recently that it is a characteristic of husbands You may be interested in this, those of you who are going on holiday, when they're driving the family car. Whenever they get lost, apparently nine out of ten are utterly unwilling either to stop and ask directions, or to look at the map, or to retrace their steps. But their response is to drive on. ever more quickly and angrily to try to find the right road. Now, I wouldn't know whether that's true or not, but I'm told that that is what happens. And the pragmatic wife is trying not to push him over the edge into a loss of temper, but she's saying, well, could we not just stop and ask somebody, or look at the map, or do something sensible? She's being a pragmatist. He is set on a course that is obviously not working. But he gets very angry if you tell him that it's not working. Now we should be clear on this as Christians, and I want to stress this at the beginning, that as Christians we are interested in what works. We are interested in the, to quote the dictionary, in the practical consequences of things. We are not dreamers. We are not idealists. We are not theorizers. We know that there is a God who is there, and he has a created reality, and whatever works fits in with his created reality. And we have no time whatever, I hope, for empty theorizing, for unreal dreaming, for sitting, spinning, fancy theological ideas that have nothing to do with real life. We should be, if we are biblical, a pragmatic people, a practical people. The Psalms are pragmatic, Proverbs is pragmatic, the Old Testament laws are pragmatic. Our Lord was pragmatic, interested in what works. So that is the value of pragmatism. It is good. It is good to be pragmatic. It is good to look at the practical consequences of things. It is good to be committed to what works. But pragmatism as a God has a terrible, fatal weakness. So we come secondly to the weakness of pragmatism. And the weakness of pragmatism could hardly be more serious, and it has occurred I'm sure to most of you, that often we don't know what works. We don't know by our own unaided wisdom and knowledge, we don't know what works. It's all very well to say I'm going to guide my life by what works, but if I don't know what works, I've got a very unreliable guide. For example, people think something is working when it isn't. People think something is working when it isn't. The parents of a young child spoil that child. And by spoiling the child, they get peace and quiet. The child doesn't cry, the child doesn't throw a tantrum. They give in. They give the child whatever the child wants, and they obtain peace, and they say our method is working. But it isn't working, as they will eventually find out. Someone goes to the doctor unable to sleep, and the doctor prescribes sleeping pills. And they say the problem is solved, and for the rest of their life they use sleeping pills to get to sleep. And they say, that has worked, that's the pragmatic approach. I needed to get to sleep, now I can get to sleep. But they haven't faced up to the basic problem. Why is it that you weren't able to sleep? We think something is working, and all the time it isn't working. It's storing up trouble for the future. Or sometimes we think something isn't working, When it is working, we think something isn't working when it is working, to go back to the parents of young children again. Another set of parents try to discipline their children and train their children, and for a long time it doesn't seem to be working. They're tempted to give up and say this isn't working, this is hopeless. But they'll find out that if they continue What doesn't seem to be working is working. And we try to do some work for God, and nothing seems to be happening very much, and we say it isn't working. This preaching isn't working. This witnessing isn't working. This teaching people the gospel isn't working. This outreach isn't working. It's not working. Forget it. Perhaps it is working. We don't know. Or sometimes we think that because it works for us, therefore it's working for everyone. Our Western nations are finding out that now. For at least a hundred years we have been using far more than our fair share of this Earth's natural resources. And in the short term that has worked. It has worked because we have a marvellous standard of living But now we're starting to understand that it's not working. For the second and third world are arising and they're saying, well, what about us? What about the environmental crisis we face, the pollution of the atmosphere, the seas, the ruining of the earth, the destruction of natural resources and so on? It has worked for us for a short time, but it hasn't worked for everyone. Instead of solving problems Man is making them far worse. As I'm driving along in my car, a red light starts flashing on the dashboard. Now I don't know much about cars, but I could fix that. It's just a matter of taking a pair of pliers and reaching onto the dashboard and snipping the wire. And you don't have a red light anymore. Problem solved. Problem solved. That's the pragmatic approach. I had a red light. It was worrying me. No, I don't have a red light. I have nothing to worry about. Well, I'll drive on a few miles or a few yards and you'll see what you have to worry about. The pragmatic solution seemed to have worked. It seems to work, but in fact It doesn't work. It makes the problem far, far worse. And to compound the problem, man thinks that he does know what works. There is a way that seems right to a man. Man is so arrogant. Man is so proud of his tiny little mind. and his insignificant brain, that he thinks he knows how to run his life, and how to manage this earth, and he blunders on, and he makes a god of pragmatism, and everything else must bow down to this god of what works. So, my friends, as we see, and we could multiply reasons in our own society today, pragmatism often reigns and principle is surrendered. People are not interested in principle. They're not interested in justice or truth or mercy or what is right or what is wrong. They're interested in what is convenient, what is practically useful. A young girl becomes pregnant and she doesn't want to be. What's the pragmatic thing to do? Well, the pragmatic thing is to have an abortion. And that works. You've got relations who are demanding and difficult. What's the pragmatic thing to do with them? Get rid of them. Forget about them. Pay them no attention. You've got people in society who need special care or attention. Sweep them to one side. One of the characteristics of what is called Thatcherism is that it is an intensely pragmatic philosophy, a cold philosophy, in many ways a cruel philosophy. What works? What works? The bottom line. And everyone else goes to the wall. If you're weak, if you're young, if you're old, if you're sick, if you're poor, if you can't contribute, too bad. Pontius Pilate was a pragmatist. He knew that Jesus of Nazareth was an innocent man. He examined him on several occasions. He said to the people repeatedly, there is no reason for me to charge this man, never mind bring punishment upon him. But the high priest said, if you don't punish him, we will complain to headquarters, we will say that you are not Caesar's friend, and we will get you into trouble. And so he committed a massive injustice because it was easier, because it was simpler, because he would not stand on principle. Principle didn't matter. Principle is too expensive. principle is too inconvenient. What matters is what works. Sweep everything else out of the way. And I'm sure you've your own examples, from your own lives, from your work, from your friends, from the media, what works. But the point is, we don't know what works. And yet we think we do. And as a result, human life is degraded and selfish and cruel. It becomes chaotic and meaningless. The weakness of pragmatism. And that brings us lastly to what I've called biblical pragmatism. As human beings, we're interested in the practical consequences of things, and particularly we're interested in ourselves and our lives. And if you're an intelligent, rational human being, I presume that you all are, you want to live your life on this earth in the best possible way. Be very foolish if you didn't. Now, what's the first thing you should do? Well, if you buy something in a shop, if you buy some new implement, some kitchen implement, some household implement, you will receive a set of instructions from the maker. If you want to learn how to operate that implement properly, What you have to do is to take out the maker's instructions and read them and follow them. This is the company that made the vacuum cleaner or the refrigerator or whatever it is. This is the maker. This is the person who put the whole thing together, who knows how it works and he's given you a set of instructions to follow. And anyone, any intelligent person who's interested in really being pragmatic, should begin by going to our Maker and getting from him his instructions. And they're found in the Bible. And anyone who doesn't consult the Bible is not being pragmatic. They're not being practical. They're a foolish, empty dreamer. They're ignoring the Maker's instructions. And once we get the Maker's instructions, what should we do? We should read them. We should assemble the relevant facts. We, all of us, whether we are believers or not, are made in God's image. We have been made not only with bodies, but also with souls. an eternal, immortal part of each of us. And every one of you here has a body and a soul. Now that is a fact. That is reality. Anyone not recognizing that is living in an unreal, impractical world. And we are also told that we are accountable to the God who has made us. And one day every one of us will have to stand before that God and you and I will have to explain to Him why we have lived the way we do, why we have done the things we do, why we behave the way we do, why we think the way we do. We will have to give a detailed account to our Maker of how we have lived and he will hold us, you and me, he will hold us responsible for our actions. We can't say it was someone else's fault. No, we are responsible, we are accountable as living creatures with body and soul to the God who has made us. And the Bible also tells us that we terribly, tragically are sinners. That there is something deeply wrong with us, inside us. We are damaged. We are depraved. We are not as we were made to be. And that something inside us is called sin, which is anti-God. A bias in us, a bias in you, a bias in me against God and against God's truth. a rebellious spirit that makes us want to disobey, that makes us want to strike out on our own, and not to submit, and not to yield. And every one of us is affected by this terrible thing, and if we're going to be pragmatic, we've got to realise that. There's no point going about in a dream world and saying this isn't true. It is true! It is true. If you want to be drugged on your own ideas and live in a fantasy world, we can't help you, but that is true. And the Bible tells us that to deal with this terrible deformation in us, God has sent his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who has lived a perfect life and died a sacrificial death on the cross, so that if we will come to Him in faith, and ask Him to save us, and ask Him to be our Lord and our Master, and give ourselves into His hands, then we will be forgiven. And He will start to set us right, slowly and steadily, He will make us into the men and women we were meant to be. And the Bible tells us also that this world is only a little room leading into the great mansion of the life to come. This life is only a moment. There's a life to come which is everlasting either in heaven or in hell. and to anyone who wants to know how to live, to anyone who wants to know how to be a fulfilled human being, to anyone who professes to be living in the real world and in touch with the real world, who is interested in the practical consequences of things, these are facts that you must take into account. You were made by God. You have a body and a soul. You're accountable to God. You're a sinner before God. The only way you could be forgiven is through Jesus Christ. And after 70 years on this earth, you will go to heaven or you will go to hell forever. Those are the facts. We as Christians are simply saying, to the dreamers around us. Wake up. Wake up to the facts, to the reality. Go to your maker and read his instructions. And then when we've done that, we must make our decisions in the light of the facts. Trust the instruction manual. no matter how foolish it may seem. Some of you may not know that for two years I lived in the ministry on my own as a bachelor and looked after myself completely and totally. I didn't have a wife to care for me, I had to do everything myself, I had to clean, I had to cook, I had to look after myself altogether. And after some time the lady who was going to be my mother-in-law I think felt some pity at the pathetic monotony of my diet and gave me some simple recipes that might help me to have a more varied diet. Now one of the things she told me how to make was cauliflower and white sauce. She said, that's a good, simple, nourishing dish that you'll be able to make yourself, not difficult, and you'll enjoy making. So I one day decided I would have a go at this. Boiled the cauliflower, that wasn't too difficult. And then I had a set of instructions as to how to make the white sauce. I can't remember it exactly, it was complicated. But it involved flour, and water, and melted butter. And I put in the amounts on the manual. And of course, as soon as I put it in, I realised that a mistake had been made because it was far too thin. Lamentably thin. You couldn't have poured it over cauliflower at all. It was just like water. So I realised my mother-in-law-to-be had made a mistake. And I put in four or five times as much flour as she said. And then the mixture started to heat. And as it started to heat, it started to thicken. And it got thicker and thicker, and I put in more milk, and more milk, and more milk. It was like that story about the gingerbread boy. I had this monster, this increasing pot of white sauce, which just wouldn't stop increasing. And I kept stirring and adding more milk, and it was getting thicker and thicker. I ended up with a gigantic, a gigantic amount of thick white sauce. And my mistake was, I hadn't trusted the instructions. Instructions were right, and yet there was a moment when it looked to me as if the instructions were wrong, and I abandoned the instructions. And that was the rock on which I perished. Now friends, I'm saying this humorously, but I'm making a serious point. There are many times in our lives as Christians when we are tempted to believe that the instructions must be mistaken. When God calls us to do things which are hard, painful, and most unwelcome. And at that moment it's easy to doubt the instructions and to take our own way, to follow our own course. A course that seems to us more sensible, more obvious, more worthwhile, and as our text says, whenever we do that, we always end up in disaster. Now there may be some here this evening who are still unconverted. And you may think you know how to run your life. Or you may think that you will be able to discover how to run your life apart from God. And I want tonight to warn you with all the love and yet all the force at my command that that is a delusion. That is a delusion. I say that to you young people. Life looks bright, life looks open, the opportunities look expansive. And the way of God looks very narrow and restricting. I know that. But be warned by scripture, be warned by the experience of others. There is only one way to live, and that is in touch with reality. The reality is God and the life to come. The only way is through His Word. Don't go off on an arrogant, ruinous dream of your own. You'll either come back scarred, with years wasted, or you'll never come back, and you'll be lost. And that would grieve us. And could I say to those who are believers, who at this moment perhaps are finding it hard, I would encourage you to trust God, to trust His Word. You know in your heart of hearts that God is true and his way is perfect and his commandments are life and health. We're surrounded by a collapsing society of know-alls who are showing that they know nothing. They know nothing. And we don't know much more, but by God's grace, we know God. And we know that in his way is reality and truth. Don't make pragmatism your God. Make God your God. But all God's people are biblical pragmatists. Amen. Let us bow in prayer. We desire, O God, to know in our lives the rough, exciting, rich grain of reality. To know that we are authentic human beings. To know that we are living that life which is life indeed. that we are not wasting our years in dreams and vapors of unreality and falsehood, a miserable, shadowy half-life, ending with sorrow for what could have been and what was thrown away. O Lord, bring us in touch again with the eternal reality of yourself and our relationship to you, and help us truly to consider the practical consequences of all our decisions and each day of our living. And so bring us to Christ, who is the way, the truth, and the life. For in his name we pray. Amen.