Grace Fellowship    08/17/08    Transparency    Proverbs 20

1 Wine is a mocker, Strong drink is a brawler, And whoever is led astray by it is not wise.
2 The wrath of a king is like the roaring of a lion; Whoever provokes him to anger sins against his own life.
3 It is honorable for a man to stop striving, Since any fool can start a quarrel.
4 The lazy man will not plow because of winter; He will beg during harvest and have nothing.
5 Counsel in the heart of man is like deep water, But a man of understanding will draw it out.
6 Most men will proclaim each his own goodness, But who can find a faithful man?
7 The righteous man walks in his integrity; His children are blessed after him.
8 A king who sits on the throne of judgment Scatters all evil with his eyes.
9 Who can say, "I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin"?
10 Diverse weights and diverse measures, They are both alike, an abomination to the LORD.
11 Even a child is known by his deeds, Whether what he does is pure and right.
12 The hearing ear and the seeing eye, The LORD has made them both.
13 Do not love sleep, lest you come to poverty; Open your eyes, and you will be satisfied with bread.
14 "It is good for nothing," cries the buyer; But when he has gone his way, then he boasts.
15 There is gold and a multitude of rubies, But the lips of knowledge are a precious jewel.
16 Take the garment of one who is surety for a stranger, And hold it as a pledge when it is for a seductress.
17 Bread gained by deceit is sweet to a man, But afterward his mouth will be filled with gravel.
18 Plans are established by counsel; By wise counsel wage war.
19 He who goes about as a talebearer reveals secrets; Therefore do not associate with one who flatters with his lips.
20 Whoever curses his father or his mother, His lamp will be put out in deep darkness.
21 An inheritance gained hastily at the beginning Will not be blessed at the end.
22 Do not say, "I will recompense evil"; Wait for the LORD, and He will save you.
23 Diverse weights are an abomination to the LORD, And dishonest scales are not good.
24 A man's steps are of the LORD; How then can a man understand his own way?
25 It is a snare for a man to devote rashly something as holy, And afterward to reconsider his vows.
26 A wise king sifts out the wicked, And brings the threshing wheel over them.
27 The spirit of a man is the lamp of the LORD, Searching all the inner depths of his heart.
28 Mercy and truth preserve the king, And by lovingkindness he upholds his throne.
29 The glory of young men is their strength, And the splendor of old men is their gray head.
30 Blows that hurt cleanse away evil, As do stripes the inner depths of the heart. (Proverbs 20:1-30, NKJV).

Today I want to lead you in thinking about several verses in this chapter, similar to how we’ve done in previous weeks, and I hope to tie them all together by addressing a common thread that seems to run through all of them.  However, I will warn you: what you are about to hear may be the worst sermon introduction you have ever heard.

I ran across a new word the other day as I was preparing for this message.  If you are familiar with the medical world, you may already know what a cannula is.  According to the Oxford Dictionary, a cannula is “a thin tube inserted into a vein or body cavity to administer medicine, drain off fluid, or insert a surgical instrument.”  In light of my recent medical history, that does not sound like much fun.  

However, several years ago, Ohio State began doing research on cows by studying how their stomachs digest food.  They decided to surgically install a cannula in the side of several cows which enabled them to observe in real time the inner workings of these cows’ stomachs.  According to the photos I saw, it looked like you could have reached your entire hand into the cow’s stomach to bring out whatever was being consumed.  Very, very strange.

In essence, the researchers created a window into the heart and soul, or more accurately, into the bowels of these cows.  Nothing these bovine specimens ate could be hidden from the eyes of the scientists.  Now they could actually see a stomach at work.  More specifically, they could see the cow’s rumen at work.  Animals that chew the cud have stomachs with several chambers.  In a cow, the first chamber is called the rumen.  That is where we get the word ruminate: to meditate or ponder, to think on something, to chew the cud, figuratively speaking.

Researchers can see what cows ruminate, providing they install a cannula into the cow’s side.  God, on the other hand, does not need such crude devices in order to see what’s cooking inside of cows, or anything else, including us.  You may have noticed in our text today that verses 27 and 30 speak of the inner depths of the heart.  The common thread that runs through our text today has to do with transparency and God’s ability to see within our hearts and minds.  

What goes on in the inner depths of the heart?  How can we tell what a man is thinking in the depths, in the inner depths, in his core?  According to verse 5, it is sometimes possible to draw out of a man the plans of his heart.  Counsel in the heart of man is like deep water, But a man of understanding will draw it out.  It takes skill, wisdom and understanding to do so.  Not everyone is able to draw those thoughts out of another person.

But to God, every man is transparent.  Look with me at verse 9.  Who can say, "I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin"?  Answer that question for me.  Who can say such a thing?  I have known people who have claimed to have lived a sinless life for years.  They seem to either not understand the nature of sin, or the nature of their own hearts, or both.  Because of that, they are self-deceived.  

For the rest of us, none of us would dare say, “I have made my heart clean.  I am pure from my sin.” Why?  Because of this little problem of transparency that we see in verse 27: The spirit of a man is the lamp of the LORD, Searching all the inner depths of his heart.  God searches through the heart of a man.  Somehow, according to this verse, God works through our spirit, or He works by means of our spiritual nature in order to shine a light in every corner of our hearts, souls and minds.  We are spiritual beings, in some sense, as God is.  God’s thorough knowledge of us is by means of that spiritual nature.

So, one reason why we cannot say with any real conviction, “I have made my heart clean” is because we know God sees it.  God knows the condition of my life, the motives of my mind, the purposes in my heart behind the things I do.  And He knows they are not always pure.  Verse 12 seems to tie in to this issue of God’s knowledge of us and our transparency before Him.  “The hearing ear and the seeing eye, The LORD has made them both.”

The implied purpose of that verse can be clearly seen from another text: Psalm 94:1-7.
O LORD God, to whom vengeance belongs--O God, to whom vengeance belongs, shine forth! 2 Rise up, O Judge of the earth; Render punishment to the proud. 3 LORD, how long will the wicked, How long will the wicked triumph? 4 They utter speech, and speak insolent things; All the workers of iniquity boast in themselves. 5 They break in pieces Your people, O LORD, And afflict Your heritage. 6 They slay the widow and the stranger, And murder the fatherless. 7 Yet they say, "The LORD does not see, Nor does the God of Jacob understand." (Psalms 94:1-7, NKJV).

The wicked are under the mistaken impression that because God is not instantaneously responding to their wicked deeds with vengeance and retribution, it must be because He is blind to it and just doesn’t understand what is going on.  That is not the case.  God invented hearing and seeing.  Therefore it is a pretty safe bet that He can, and does hear and see everything.  He even sees what others cannot see, those inward things which do not always manifest themselves, those things in the inner depths of the  heart.  

When God sent Samuel to Bethlehem in order to anoint David as the new king of Israel, listen to what He says to Samuel when Jesse’s sons arrive:

So it was, when they came, that he looked at Eliab and said, "Surely the LORD'S anointed is before Him."  But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have refused him. For the LORD does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart." (1 Samuel 16:6-7, NKJV).  

We are more concerned with the exterior of a man than the interior.  God looks at the heart.  He sees the heart as easily as we see the man.  If God has made hearing and seeing, and granted us the capacity to do both, does it not follow that He would be able to see and hear better than we do?  And to see and hear things we cannot comprehend?

Verse 22 - Do not say, "I will recompense evil"; Wait for the LORD, and He will save you.  What assurance do we have that God will recompense those who have sinned against us; those who deserve to be punished for their wrong-doing?  We can be sure God will repay evil with justice because He is first of all a just God, and secondly because He never misses a thing.  There is no such thing as “instant replay” in the courts of Heaven.  God doesn’t need another look at the tape so He can determine whether or not someone actually committed a sin.  Nor is He in need of some kind of celestial X-ray device to see inside a man to test his motives.  God really and truly sees all and knows all, everything, in every dark corner of every man’s heart.  It must be a terrible sight indeed.  But the Lord DOES see, He DOES understand.  God looks at the heart.  Trust Him to do what is right in light of what He sees.

Do you remember Hebrews 4:12-13?
For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.  And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account. (NKJV)

Other versions say all things are “open and laid bare” (NASB), or “naked and exposed” (HCSB) to the eyes of God, to whom all of us must give an account.  No one is hidden from His gaze, and no heart is exempt from being weighed accurately by the One to whom we must eventually answer.  It is inevitable, it is certain, it is inescapable, and it is universal.  God’s eye searches out ALL the innermost parts of every person, and every person will give an accounting to God for what God finds there.  

Thankfully, (Thankfully!) that day of final judgment need not worry the person whose faith is in Christ.  Even though our hearts are not clean because of any cleansing we have done, the work of Christ has cleansed our hearts from all unrighteousness.  He has granted us a clean heart.  We have been granted His own perfect righteousness.

However, He also works in us to cleanse us in a practical sense.  We not only stand before God in a legal sense as having had our sins removed as far as the east is from the west.  He also works in us in a practical sense.  Look at verse 30.

Blows that hurt cleanse away evil, As do stripes the inner depths of the heart.

No doubt this is speaking of temporal, physical punishment of evil people.  It is also a reference to how children are to be disciplined.  Pain tends to discourage bad behavior.  Inflicting pain on someone, whether a child or an adult, is a means of changing undesirable attitudes and behaviors, even those that reside deep within, in the inner depths.  Stripes and strokes that hurt affect even the most stubborn of sinful hearts, reaching to the very bottom of the depths of the soul.

But, we also remember this is how God deals with His own children on some occasions.  Hebrews 12 tells us that God chastens, and rebukes, and scourges every child of His in order to affect change in the heart.  The purpose of those stripes is, according to Proverbs 20:30, to cleanse away evil.  The NIV says it this way: “Blows and wounds cleanse away evil, and beatings purge the inmost being.”  It is by these kinds of stripes that we are miraculously and painfully healed from the resident evil within.  

God sees exactly what needs to change in us, even when we cannot.  We have a pretty good handle on assessing the outside of the cup.  But often, the inside of the cup is pretty nasty.  The heart is deceitful.  Who can really know it?  God.  That is why it is right for the believer to pray with the Psalmist, “Search me, O God, and know my heart;  Try me, and know my anxieties; And see if there is any wicked way in me, And lead me in the way everlasting.” (Psalm 139:23-24, NKJV).  Even though it may be painful, the searching of God and the disciplining of God produces in us the peaceable fruit of righteousness.  Our hearts are transparent to Him.  He knows exactly what we need.

For the ungodly, the transparency of the heart is cause for great fear.  Transparency terrorizes the unrepentant man or woman, knowing his rebellious life is laid bare before a holy God.  The first reaction for the sinner in the presence of God is the same as Adam’s: Cover up, run, and hide.  That is exactly what will happen on the great day of God’s judgment upon the world.  What happened in Genesis will also happen on the last day:

 Revelation 6 (ESV)
14 The sky vanished like a scroll that is being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place. 15 Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, 16 calling to the mountains and rocks, "Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, 17 for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?"

On that day in particular, who can say "I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin"?  Many may try.  But God sees the heart and reads its motives like a book, seeing every letter and every word of every line on every page, from beginning to end.  On that great and terrible day, the justified in Christ will rejoice while the ungodly will be terrorized by the nakedness of their hearts before the Judge of all the earth.  

If you belong to the Lord Jesus, you know He already knows your heart.  Praise Him for His willingness to save you anyway.  If you do not belong to Christ, do not be deceived.  He already knows your heart and He is willing to save you from the condemnation of the sin and rebellion that reside there.  Call upon Him.  Give Him your heart.  Ask Him to cleanse what you cannot.  

Malachi 3:2
“ But who can endure the day of His coming?
      And who can stand when He appears?
      For He is like a refiner’s fire
      And like launderers’ soap.”