Clough Proverbs Lesson 76
DI #3: Sins of Deed
I’ll answer some
questions that have been handed in on the feedback cards. Last time we showed how the non-Christian and
the Christian are ideologically at war and so as usual we got the question,
(quote): What about the phrase in 1 Peter 3:15 (quote) “yet with gentleness and
reverence” in relation to making a defense to everyone who asks of the hope
that is within us. Obviously directed
toward my remarks that you shoot divine viewpoint at your target. Now the Word of God has certain definitions
and if you are new to the Word of God it behooves you to understand these
definitions. When the Bible says “give
an answer with gentleness and with reverence” you have to know how those words
are used and the context of the apostle’s preaching. If you want an illustration of “gentleness
and reverence” turn to Matthew 3.
The Word of God is
always gentle with an attitude that is in reflection of the person of whom
you’re talking. For example, you’ll find
people who are sincerely interested in truth, in which case fine; other times
you’ll find people who are just wasting your time with a lot of questions. You’ll find these people occupy pews every
once in a while and you’ll also find that they drift around from place to place
and they basically have never been interested in the Word of God; they are just
interested in finding some Christian group where the lonely hearts club meets
once a week or they’re interested in something else but they’re interested in,
obviously, something other than the Word of God. And these kinds of people have to be leveled
with and when you do it you answer your question in Matthew 3:7, when John the
Baptist “saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said
unto them, O generation of snakes [vipers], who has warned you t flee from the
wrath to come?” That is with all
“gentleness and reverence.”
If you turn to
Acts 7 I’ll show you another place where the Word of God is given with “gentleness
and reverence.” In Acts 7:51 one of the
deacons of the early church, Stephen, spoke to the Jewish leaders of his time,
and then in verse 51 he said, “You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and
ears, you do always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do
you.” And according to that answer is
also given in accordance with the principle of 1 Peter 3:15.
Now why? Why is it that these answers seem so rough
and yet 1 Peter
The reason you are
not used to this is because you have been used to Christians getting very
apologetic, being very defensive about what they believe and so on and as a
result this kind of behavior pattern has allowed evangelicals in America to
lose control of every major portion of the social scene by default, simply
because no Christian dares to stand up and make waves and no Christian dares to
articulate the Word of God. And of
course you have some young people and some businessmen here in our congregation
who have begun to do this quickly find the fact that this Satan’s world, and
you become a lightening rod and you attract many, many fiery bolts when you
stand up to the principles of the Word.
It will always be this way, but as Proverbs teaches, our job is to be
respected, not popular, and you never witness for Christ to become
popular. You witness for Christ because
of the truth and if people don’t like it, that’s their problem. And that is the attitude you have to
have. You cannot run around witnessing
for Jesus or something like this with this silly attitude that you’re going to
become popular by doing so. You’ll never
be popular in Satan’s world. So
“meekness and reverence” in 1 Peter
The other comment
was on Proverbs 20 and it’s more of a comment than it is a question. My mother, 20 years as a second grade school
teacher, has contended for those 20 years that “the board of education” (in
quotes) should be applied to the student (?) the problem. This is in reference to corporal
punishment.
Let’s turn to
Proverbs but before we get there we’d better go to Genesis 4 to retain a
principle that you will find repeatedly in the book of Proverbs in forming
social behavior. We are on that section
of Proverbs, those in Proverbs that deal with how the family is to train
children. Remember, we are again working
with the divine institutions; the divine institutions cover every area of life
and the third divine institution of family is ordained by God to communicate
one basic principle and that basic principle is authority, nothing else. That means that as far as the Word of God is
concerned, the primary lesson that children are to learn in the home is authority.
Everything else is
secondary; that means material provision, that means intellectual education;
that means everything. The basic concept
of the home in the Bible is authority. And
it’s because we have so many men who do not understand authority, who do not
pay attention to the Word of God and therefore are paralyzed when something
comes up they can’t exercise authority because they don’t know enough about
authority, that we have the decrepit produce of homes today. Young people who are in their college years,
who are becoming Christians on the campuses today, are in deep trouble
spiritually and the reason they are in deep trouble is they have never learned
authority, they haven’t learned authority toward anything: God, man, the state
or anything else, with the result that when they join, by regeneration, God’s
family, God intends they are going to learn authority and it’s going to be on
His terms. And this means that
immediately they are in deep, deep trouble.
And in my counseling with young people I will say that this is the
number one problem, ultimately, behind it all, is that they have no respect for
God and His Word at all in any areas.
And because of this disrespect then obviously we have the various things
that flow from it.
Authority goes
back to the home and this is where it is to be learned. Now what is the parent supposed to do as far
as training in various spheres of life.
We’ve studied four principles so far of family training. In other words, four areas where their
authority is invoked, where children are taught. The first principle, you recall, dealt with
the problem of the group and how the group is dependent upon individuals. It is not true that a group just has
character automatically; it is always true that the individual gives character
to any group. This goes for the nation,
this goes for a family, this goes for anything else. The conclusion and corollary to this thing is
therefore the most valuable possession a child can get from his home is
character, moral strength, spiritual strength and character. It’s that that he
is going to bring into the group.
Now what do we
mean by “character?” It’s a word that’s
thrown around so let’s define it. It
means that when you have a situation arise and the child is taught how to
respond to that situation by habit, over and over and over under the authority
of his parents he has picked up two things.
He has picked up a divine viewpoint which means that he is able to think
through all areas of basic Bible doctrine.
He knows orthodoxy; he knows the names for the various categories of
doctrine. Now this is an accomplishment;
I’m not talking about all the advance stuff, Hebrews and so on, I’m not talking
about that at all. I mean the basic docs
of Christian faith, the doctrines of the soul, the doctrines of creation, the
doctrines of salvation, the doctrines of sanctification, those doctrines. Those are what we mean by basic things.
And even in this
congregation we have parents who chomp at the bit when they are given an assignment
or quiz in the area of basic doctrine.
And this simply goes back to a fundamental weakness that people go
through the motions of coming to hear the Word of God but when you get down to
it, where it’s really learned and be tested on it, then it’s a whole different
ball game. We have a lot of people in
our congregation who are new to the Word of God and therefore it’s expected
that they’ll have troubles but what amazes me is that people that have been in
the Word of God five and six years can’t answer simple questions. Actually in the recent exams we had in our
family training framework literature do you realize the fifth graders knew more
of the attributes of God than most of the other people. Now that is sad. Now that shows you something, doesn’t
it. That shows you why we haven’t had
teaching done, because we have no qualified teachers. When first and second graders can memorize
the names of the attributes and define those, and we have some high school kids
that have taken the same exam four times and still flunk, this shows you where
we stand. I figured this was going on
and the exams have simply confirmed my belief that we have had, even at Lubbock
Bible Church, a lot of people that are just goof-offs, that come in here and
sit down and occupy a pew for 55 minutes on Sunday morning and have no more
intention of listening to what I’m saying than the man in the moon.
Now if you think
you’re going to wear me down you’ve got another thought coming because I’m
going to make the next exam harder. If
it’s going to be a contest of who’s going to wear who down I’m going to win; I
don’t intend to lose. We are going to learn the Word of God if I have to cram
it down everyone’s throat and we are going to know the attributes of God. It is ridiculous that adults do not know how
to describe God. That is absolutely
asinine. Now that is an example; if
that’s going on in our congregation God knows what’s happening in the other congregations
because generally you’re far better taught here than you are elsewhere. And if the people in this congregation can’t
know the attributes of God there’s something wrong some place, radically wrong…
radically wrong.
We had a man who
came from a Christian bookstore in town and he was telling us those, by the
way, who did well on the exam are actually the ones he was talking about when
he said this, and I pass this on to compliment those of you who are doing your
job. He came and he told me, he said you
know, the people from your congregation have distinguished themselves as far as
our team and the store is concerned because number one we find they are one of
the few groups of people in the city of Lubbock that read. This is an average bookstore owner has found
that the reading rate in the American public is about 1.5-2%. That means that 1.5 or 2% of Americans read a
hardback book a year. Now that shows you
where we stand, they’re reading the funny books and the newspapers but when it
comes to serious reading, very few Americans do it. And he was saying it’s remarkable how many
people that you have read, and he also said, and I pass this on as a compliment
to you, he said not one person from Lubbock Bible Church, when we have not been
able to get books for you that you’ve ordered and so on, have ever thrown a
fit, ever been disagreeable, they’ve been fantastic.
So along with the
bad showing on some parts on the exam we have a very good showing by many of
you who have taken this thing seriously, have picked up the ball and really
begun to move. And although you may not
see the dividends right away, you’re going to.
This is one of those long-term investments where the dividends are going
to be fantastic when you keep up that fine attitude of placing the Word of God
first and having the determination to get this thing nailed down and learn
what God has told us, what God wants us to learn, and are now seriously
applying it areas of life. Now you’re
going to be blessed and that kind of blessing comes only with time. And that’s the kind of thing that develops
character. And that’s the kind of thing
where children are going to see that and they are going to start mimicking that
kind of mentality. That’s something that
isn’t even taught, it’s caught, when they begin to see you as parents learning
and going to the best of your ability to the Word of God to find answers,
making that out in front of them, in the public so to speak, in the openness of
the home, making the Word of God explicitly your final authority. That habit is going to catch on and that
habit is going go develop tremendous character in your children.
Again, you may not
see it in the short range but you are going to see it in the long range. This is something that goes on year after
year after year, and it’s that character that must be developed in the child
and it’s that character that makes him a profitable member of society and so
forth, in whatever group he belongs to.
And that character, incidentally, is not developed by a one-shot
experience. So if you’re the kind that
drifts around from this group to that, looking on for the laying of hands or
the Holy Ghost baptism or something else, you’re never going to get character,
because character doesn’t come that way.
You see, it took Israel forty years to develop character, out chewing
sand, and that’s how character is developed.
It’s developed by adversity, pressure, over a time interval; it’s no
snap thing. And all this charismatic
business that you see going on is just laziness. Now you can have a lot of theological terms
for it but it’s sheer laziness. People
are too lazy to read the Word of God; people are too lazy to take the
discipline that it takes to pray regularly, people are too lazy to think about
their problems in the light of the Word of God and therefore crave the one-shot
experience because that way it’s like everything else, we can get it tomorrow,
now.
Now the second
principle that’s tied with this business of getting character in children is
the principle that we discussed where the child is going to have to face it
that the group by its common conscience, not by popularity but by common
conscience, is going to constantly evaluate that child and this means that the
child as he always aims his behavior at what is right, what is true, he is
going to have respect and he will be free of depression, inferiority complex,
superiority complex, and all the rest of the complexes, (quote) “mental
illnesses” (end quote) that go around. Mental
illnesses are not mental illnesses.
Mental illnesses are sinful behavior patterns. And children can be immune to these things;
you can immunize them like you can immunize them to chicken pox, measles and so
on, you go to the doctor and get a shot.
Well, you can immunize them against mental illness by building character
in them so that when they are around people they will realize that it’s the
issue of respect, not popularity that counts.
And they’ll be a lot more relaxed in their life. Then we dealt with how to handle sins of the
tongue, sins of the mind, sins of thought, and we dealt with sins of the
tongue.
Now today we’re
dealing with sins of deed and we go to Cain in Genesis 4 because of the
mechanics. This is the biblical
mentality and the way of thinking to explain to children over and over again
the mechanics. Now sooner or later in
every home with healthy sinners you’re going to have a problem that Johnnie’s
gone out and done something. And it’s going
to be bad news, and it’s going to be something that may be socially embarrassing
to you; it may be something that you would rather disown the kid than be
associated with him; you figure you’re in category three suffering, suffering
by association. So this kid has gone out
and really blown it. Let’s pick
something that would just be really embarrassing. Of course for many parents the most
embarrassing thing is for them to get on the Word of God, but we’ll reverse
that and we’ll say a person goes out, and we’ll say Sue gets pregnant and Johnnie’s
on drugs or something, and there’s some overt activity. And here is where you can say well, that’s
socially embarrassing, I’m just going to turn the other way and we’re going to
try to hide it something else, with the result you never deal with the problem
because the problem of Sue isn’t her pregnancy and the problem of Johnnie isn’t
his drugs. It goes back before that, and
the mechanics of what happened, what led up to that catastrophe, what led up to
that thing is explained in Genesis 4.
It’s explained in a very simple story, a story that you should be able to tell
your children over and over. Make it up,
jazz it up a little bit, make it contemporary or something, but get the content
of this story and tell it over and over and over again to your children until
it just sinks in by nature as to what follows what and it will explain a lot of
things. It will explain the behavior of
some of their friends; you may be a little worried about the wrong crowd that
they’re around; all right, you can teach them what’s going on with the wrong crowd
by the use of this story. Now let’s look
at the story and the sequence of events in the story and from there we can come
up to a basic understanding of the Bible’s mechanics of how sins of deed get
started.
It starts in
Genesis 4:2, “And she again bore his brother, Abel.” Now the first boy here was Cain which means
the established one. “Abel” is the
Hebrew word vanity, it’s used, “vanity” in the book of Ecclesiastes, it’s the
word for human viewpoint. And you say
well why did she name her son human viewpoint?
Because Abel was a disappointment to his mother; he was a
disappointment, not because of him personally but because she had hoped that
she would be the mother of Messiah, and by the time that she had Abel she knew
that she was now well immersed in a fallen world and that many of her children
would be victims of sin in this world.
Abel was not her second child; she probably had many, many more children
besides just Cain and Abel.
“And she again
bore his brother, Abel. And Abel was a
keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.” Now that’s the first situation you want to
notice. Let’s start a little list here
and I want you to notice the difference between these two men, and this will be
very, very useful. Again, it’s put in
the context of a simple story but this simple story is just loaded with
doctrine. So if you understand the
story, which is easy to remember, then you’ll have the framework for all the
doctrine that goes with it. So the first
thing is that you notice Abel and Cain have a different position in life. Why?
“Abel was a keeper of sheep,” so Abel, you might say, is a rancher. Cain is a farmer. So they have a different station in life,
different set of circumstances. That’s
important and that’s the first element of the story you immediately want to
notice because what that tells you is that whatever follows in this story is
going to follow because of what is common to both men and they are not going to
be able to blame God because they’re in different situations, one rich, the
other poor or something. One is a farmer
and the other is a rancher because of environment, therefore, I am fore doomed
to live in a certain style; because of my home therefore I am a homosexual; because
of my bad childhood, therefore I am an alcoholic; because of my bad early
situation therefore I have an aversion to Christianity. Not one of those environmental arguments
stands. The Bible condemns it as sin. There is no such thing as a disease of
alcoholism; there is no such thing as a disease of homosexuality. There is no such thing as a disease or
illness of any such thing, it is all flat-out rebellion behavior pattern called
by the word s-i-n in Scripture; no such thing as disease, that’s anti-biblical.
So both of these
men come from different situations; clear cut different situations, and the
environment has nothing to do with their problem. Later on, when Cain becomes a murderer he
can’t argue because I was a farmer, therefore that made me furious and
therefore I became a murderer. Nor can
Abel say because I was a rancher I was especially favored of God. Environmentalism does not work; there’s no
place for it. If you think
deterministically, if you think in terms of environment you’re thinking in
terms that Satan would think of rather than what God would think of.
Genesis 4:3, “And
in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the
ground an offering unto the LORD.” All
right, the second thing is that Cain offers production, offers what he has
done, his own production. Abel, on the
other hand, [4] “brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat
thereof.” They’re going to have an
offering. Now why, if it’s true that
Abel brings some of his production, actually it isn’t because life, which is true
only of animals, not of plants in Scripture, remember life or nephesh in the Bible is the result of a
spirit indwelling a body; plants are never said to be living in the biblical
sense of the word “living.” So Abel,
then, brings a living sacrifice. The
sacrifice is going to be a sacrifice, not of what he has done because he hasn’t
brought about life, he’s only superintended it. To show what has already happened by this
point we are face to face with negative volition. Here are two young men, we don’t know how old
they are, probably in their early 20s at this point and Cain is on negative
volition. Abel is on positive volition,
let’s see why and what the difference is.
Turn to Hebrews
11:4, again, both came from the same family; both came from the same
environment basically, except for the fact that one turned into a farmer and
the other a rancher. But in Hebrews
11:4, the Word of God comments on Genesis 4, and those of you who do not
believe in a literal Genesis please notice Hebrews 11:4; the author of Hebrews
believed in a literal Genesis so either you believe in a literal Genesis or
take a razor blade and cut out the book of Hebrews from the New Testament, and
while you’re doing it you might as well
cut out the rest of the books of the New Testament because they all believe in
a literal Genesis too.
In Hebrews 11:4 it
says, “By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain,”
now how did Abel offer a more excellent sacrifice? Abel had been instructed by God in certain
rules of worship. How do we know
this? Because in Genesis 3 God had
already spoken to them about the problem of the promised gospel and apparently
Abel, being on positive volition, heard the Word of God and obeyed it. The Word of God said by blood, or by the
giving of life and only the giving of life is there forgiveness of sin; that’s
the only way. In other words, here we
are face to face with the most offensive part of Christianity I know. In discussions I have with people the most
offensive thing in the Christian faith is this, that it is the only answer,
period.
There are no other
answers; there are no other ways of salvation.
Christians have that trait about them, those that believe the Word of
God, those that are humble before God, always have that trait that so directly
antagonizes the world, is that we have a confidence that we’re right and
everybody’s wrong. And there’s nothing
that is more aggravating and infuriating to the world than that attitude. The attitude the world would say is bigotry. Yes it is, by their standards; not according
to ours, we think it’s very humble to say we’re the only ones that know what’s
right. And the reason is is that’s what
God has said, so it’s an act of humility to say that we alone possess the truth
and everyone else does not simply because when we accept God’s standard as the
truth, we confess that His words must be right.
The only unpardonable sin in human viewpoint environment, the only
unpardonable sin in the classroom, the only unpardonable sin in your business
is to possibly suggest that God might know what He’s doing, and therefore His
Word is the authority in that area of life.
To do this is to commit the definitely unpardonable sin of religious
bigotry, because God, after all, shouldn’t know what He knows and He shouldn’t
be the final authority, according to human viewpoint.
But this is what
Abel is doing. When it says that “Abel
offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice,” it means that Abel has confessed
that the Word of God is the final authority; that this is the only way, that
man cannot invent, modify, or create religion and so he claims, Abel would, he
would be the bigot; Abel would be the man who says I am right all other ways
are wrong. And it is Cain, Cain who does
not offer the more excellent sacrifice, that invents his own, it’s Cain who
would receive the acclaim of every social group today, because Cain is more
liberal, more open minded. Why can’t we
just have many ways to come to God; why must it be by this bloody mess of a
sacrifice; why can’t it be through the fruit, certainly God will be pleased,
after all, I’m sincere and sincerity means that I am automatically acceptable
with God. Cain, then, is a man who is
the human viewpoint paradigm; he’s the model by which all further human
viewpoint is followed. By the way, this
is why apostate religion in the book of Jude says it’s modeled after the way of
Cain… modeled after the way of Cain.
What does that mean? It means
it’s made up by man, where man becomes his standard, man says this is right
rather than what God says.
And then it says
in Hebrews 11:4, “a more excellent sacrifice … by which he obtained witness
that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts; and by it he being dead yet
speaks.” This is talking about the text
of Genesis. But I want you to notice the
phrase, “by which he obtained witness that he was righteous.” Now this means that this bigot called Abel
actually was right, it turned out what he said, I’m right, and it’s only by my
way, Cain, that we are going to be acceptable with God, and God gave empirical
evidence that Abel was correct.
Now if you look up at the first characteristic, you’ll notice a peculiar thing
that’s happened here. You could argue,
say look, Abel was a rancher, he had the things already under his (?) as a
rancher, as a sheep rancher, he already had the sheep that he could sacrifice
but Cain was a farmer, he didn’t have this and it meant that Cain had to come
to Abel. That’s right; and Cain was the
firstborn, it would be humiliating for a firstborn son to come to a second born
son and obtain something. Now don’t you
see the pattern of God’s Word right here?
God forced Cain to accept one and only one way of salvation and if this
meant at the price of his own pride he had to give up his autonomy and go to
his younger brother, which was an act of humility, go to his younger brother
and get the sheep that was necessary for the sacrifice. This, you see, put Cain against it, Cain
could argue with God and say well God, if you wanted the religion to go this
way then why didn’t you make me a rancher; why do I have to go to my younger
brother? God says because that’s the way
of salvation, you have to do this.
It’s much like
today if you aren’t empathic with the situation here, it’d be much like today
where one would say why God do I have to associate myself with those
fundamentalist believers in order to grow spiritually? Why is it that I have to be around them? Why is it that I can’t do it all by myself as
the Lone Ranger? Why is it that I can’t
function autonomously? Why must I lower
my social status to be seen with these bigots who believe that only the Word of
God is the final authority, with these people that have the audacity to say
whether you’re in biology, geology, law or religion it’s the Word of God that’s
the final authority. Those people are
always making those waves, they’re always butting into conversations. Why do I have to risk my social and business
reputation by associating with those people?
Because like Cain, you don’t have the goods, they do. Abel was the one who had the sheep and Cain
did not. Conclusion: whether you like it
or not you associate with Abel.
Now let’s go back
to Genesis 4 and see another feature of the story. After they were rejected, after he had his
human viewpoint religion, made up by himself… somebody hung the manifesto of
the second international of the humanist, the worldwide humanist on the
bulletin board over there, if you want an example of the way of Cain go over
and read it after the service. Genesis
4:5, here’s what happened to the man of negative volition. “But unto Cain and to his offering God did
not have respect. And Cain was very
angry, and his countenance fell.” We
pointed out in the family training framework, literature, notice the two
phrases in verse 5, exactly parallel.
This is always true in the Bible and this should help you with children,
and that is that you have mental attitude sin and you have facial expressions. Ever notice it? You can read their attitude by looking at
their face, and here God looks at Cain’s face.
It’s a very simple story, “why are you angry,” mental attitude sin; he’s
angry because he does not like to bow his knee to the one way that God has set
up. Why can’t it be some other way? Why does it have to be this way? Because God said so. And so this makes him angry and his
countenance falls.
Now in Genesis 4:7
we have a principle that ought to be taught to every single child. Here is the principle that if applied
consistently will keep them from going into these sins of deed; they may have
sins of thought and sins of tongue or sins of the word but if they will
consistently be warned by this principle at least it will keep them away from
the worst deeds. In verse 7 God counsels
Cain and He gives him a warning. This
warning ought to be memorized. “If you
do well,” won’t you be accepted? The
question is a strong affirmative. In
other words, “If you do well Cain, you’re going to be accepted.” What does that mean? If you are on positive volition you are going
to be accepted. Now what does this
mean? Let’s look at the inside of the
soul. Here’s the mind, here’s the
conscience. When a person is on positive
volition and has divine viewpoint in his mind, when that is true then the
divine viewpoint when operated upon in experience… notice it doesn’t say in
verse 7 “if you think well,” and it doesn’t say in verse 7 “if you speak
well.” It does say in verse 7, “if you
do well,” it’s talking about overt behavior.
“If you do well, then you will be accepted.” Now this is not salvation by works; this is
something different.
What it’s saying
is that when divine viewpoint is acted on you begin to have a tremendous
acceptance that starts right here in the conscience. Now that’s the first and primary acceptance,
that every man must have… you have to have that. If you don’t you will be radically weakened,
mentally and spiritually. There’ll be a
war going on in your soul between you conscience and your mind and every mental
illness that is not organic comes from this war between the mind and
conscience. So your first concern,
always, is to have a unity between mind and conscience in your soul, the
conscience being fortified with God-consciousness and divine viewpoint of
course. So the mind, then, is accepted
to the conscience. But there’s more to
this acceptance in verse 7; you will be accepted not only in your conscience,
you will be accepted to God; God is the one who informs your conscience. So your second level of acceptance,
temporally, is acceptability with God which gives great confidence before man
as the quote last week showed from the Puritans. And obviously the acceptance extends in the
book of Proverbs to the consciences of the group, so you will have respectability. They may not like you, in fact, they may hate
you; they may detest you but they’ll respect you. You always have to realize there’s a
difference biblically between respect and popularity. “If you do well, you will be accepted.”
Now the
warning. “But if you do not well,” and
notice again, the verb is asah, which
means to do, to act, it isn’t to think and it isn’t to talk; this is an overt
thing. Now why is it overt? It goes back to this problem again. What is the child supposed to do? Face a situation, respond to it righteously
and biblically. This requires divine
viewpoint framework which is in his thought pattern. But divine viewpoint framework in his thought
pattern isn’t enough. What is also
needed for spirituality and maturity is +R learned behavior patterns, righteous
learned behavior patterns, which come about by practice and practice and
practice and practice and practice, day after day after day after day after
day, week after week, month after month and year after year learned behavior
patterns are developed.
Now some learned
behavior patterns are developed that are going to be righteous or they’re going
to be unrighteous, depending on your home situation, but right now children in
your home are learning; it’s just what they are learning, not if they’re
learning. So the doing, the verb asah, which means doing, God is talking
about these learned behavior patterns, He’s saying if you do these things you
are going to be acceptable, constantly, over and over and over. See, that’s character development. But “if you do not” do these things, then…
and here is a chilling warning, “sin lies at the door.” Now what does the word “lie” mean? The word “sin” can either mean sin or sin
offering, as the Scofield note implies, but we don’t take it the way Scofield
does, we take it the way sin means sin here.
And it means “lies” or it crouches at the door like an animal, ready to
spring. The verb, “lie,” then means that
the sin nature of the child, the old sin nature, has a restraint on it that from
childhood God the Holy Spirit… now this is common grace and it’s also
efficacious grace, the Holy Spirit is putting restraints on your child’s sin
nature, and you want to see this and how this works. This is why this verse is the key to the
whole thing.
The sin nature of
the child is constantly held in check.
Now what are the means that the Holy Spirit uses to hold in check the
sin nature of the child? Well, first,
for one thing, the parent’s discipline, and that … [tape turns] mean being
dictators, it means being biblically consistent in discipline. That’s one restraint. What’s another restraint? The four divine institutions; those are means
that God uses to restraint. But there
are other means, there are means physically God has that we don’t know of;
there are means spiritually that God has that we don’t know of; there are all
sorts of means that God uses. In fact,
there’s God-consciousness, that itself is a restraint on the sin nature. Now what God is saying is that Cain, if you
habitually do what you’re doing, if you go on and you develop these –R learned
behavior patterns, then watch out because “sin lies at the door,” in other
words, what God is saying, I’m going to remove these restraints and there’s
going to be an explosion and your sin nature is going to blow apart if you
violate social overt deeds. That is the
origin for the violence; that is the origin of perversion; that is the origin
for all the things that you see that are gross.
It come about because God has said all right, you have chosen to develop
–R learned behavior patterns so the way I’m going to handle this thing is I’m
just going to back off and I’m just going to let the sin nature take over: “sin
crouches at the door.”
And then it says
at the last part, “And unto thee shall be its desire,” “his” can be either
masculine or neuter, “unto thee shall be its desire,” in other words, the sin
nature is pictured as an animal ready to spring; it wants to get control, and
the only thing that holds your sin nature down and the only thing that holds a
child’s sin nature down is God. Now get
that because this is the difference between what we’re teaching here and what
Arminians teach; this sanctification by works, operation bootstrap, I’m doing
it and all the rest of it. No, look at
this chart and see that it is God that is doing the restraining. But if God chose not to restrain the sin
nature you could exercise all you wanted to and you’d have no control over
yourself. Ask a person that’s involved
in drugs; ask a person that’s involved in homosexuality; ask a person that’s
involved in alcoholism; ask them, can’t you control your desires? Answer: no!
Why? Because God has removed His
restraint. Earlier in life they asked
for it by learning behavior patterns of rebellion toward God and God says okay,
we’ll back off and let ‘er blow. That’s
what it means; sin’s desire shall be for you.
Now when you see
somebody like this, instead of just getting on your hobby horse and condemning
them, you just think a minute. If God
did not restrain your sin nature and God did not restrain mine we would be in
the same boat. It is because of God’s
sovereign restraining grace that we are not all perverts. That is the natural inclination of the sin
nature. So this ends self-righteousness,
right here, if you just recall this principle you should not…
self-righteousness should be right out the window, right here. Self-righteousness means I have obtained
control over myself, it is me, everything centers on me. No-no, not this way. God is the one who is restrained.
Now furthermore
the last part of Genesis 4:7 says, “you shall rule over it,” now actually this
should read “you must rule over it.” In
other words, it is normal, God wants us to rule over the sin nature, but the
only way we can rule over the sin nature is when He undertakes His work to
restrain it and if He doesn’t undertake His work to restrain it we can’t rule
over it. You have no control over
yourself. This is confirmed by the
famous passage in the New Testament that I want you to see, Romans 1. The same principle, it doesn’t vary in the
least from Genesis 4:7.
We’ve gone over
this and gone over it but having seen the exams I don’t apologize for it any
more. We can’t go over the Word of God
enough. Because it says in Romans 1:20,
“They are without excuse,” why, because verse 21, “They knew God, they
glorified him not as God, neither were thankful,” there is your breaking down
of apostasy, there’s your negative volition, there’s the erection of –R learned
behavior patterns. Now does it say in
the next verses that you read, does it say, and therefore they lost control,
therefore is all of them? No it doesn’t,
because if you look in verse 24, who is the subject of the verb, the person,
the apostate or God? God is the subject,
not the person on negative volition.
That’s the interesting thing about Romans 1. Do you see that subject again, that’s God,
not the person. So what does it
mean? “God gave them up to uncleanness,”
this means there was a divine judgment, pulling back of grace and it was God
that cause the corruption in the immediate sense. Now the responsibility is not on God’s
shoulders; “God gave them up to uncleanness.”
Notice verse 26,
“God gave them up to vile affections,” what does it mean give them up to “vile
affections.” Well, before God gave them
up you have the old sin nature here, you have these affections under
control. And probably this particularly
person, let’s take a cross section of what he was thinking: he was saying huh,
I can engage in this sin, I can engage in this sin, in this sin, in this sin,
in this sin, this sin but I still have control.
No problem, until all of a sudden, perhaps without noticing it he begins
to notice, hey, I don’t have control any more, I can’t conquer these tremendous
desires any more. What’s happened,
something’s changed. This is what’s
happened. God has given them up to vile
affections. The restraints of God have
been taken off; the sin nature breaks out.
And finally in
verse 28 the same thing, “they did not like to retain God in their knowledge,”
so “God gave them over to a reprobate mind,” now you tell me who’s in
charge? God or man? Obviously God. Obviously you can’t do anything without God.
Turn back to
Genesis 4:8 for a minute and see the result, the sin of deed. “And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and
it came to pass, that when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against
Abel, his brother, and slew him.” Now if
we can be a little imaginative in our reconstruction of what happened here,
make it a little more meaningful, let’s look at Cain’s sin nature. Here’s Cain’s sin nature; his sin nature has
a hatred for God, –R, he hates +R, he hates anything that reminds him of God’s
righteousness. He hates the Word of God,
though he listens to it, Adam probably taught it to him every day;
nevertheless, he can’t wait to get out from under, for Adam to stop talking so
he can get out and do something else. He
despises the Word of God. Now, because
of God’s restraints on his sin nature this never shows too much. Oh, it shows in the sacrifice, but it only
shows overtly in his face. The mental
attitude has only broken forth into a facial change; his countenance falls, the
Bible says; that’s all overt, empirical evidence you have that something’s
wrong.
And then one day,
he was out in the field many days with Abel, they talked many days, why is it
this day everything went crazy; if he was in the modern court he’d plead
temporary insanity, I don’t know what happened to me, I just lost control and I
killed him. Unfortunately for Cain God
did not accept the plea of temporary insanity.
God prosecuted anyway because biblically there’s no such thing as
temporary insanity either. Temporary
insanity is an excuse for a sin nature that’s out of control. And here we have a sin nature that’s out of
control and it happened that day in the field.
Maybe it was Wednesday morning; let’s say Monday morning he was out in
the field with Abel, no problem, he despised his brother, couldn’t stand him,
but at least he could control himself.
Maybe Abel even made a smart remark, hey Cain, when do you get smart and
offer a good sacrifice, and Cain would be just about ready to pick up a rock or
pick up a knife to kill his brother, but there’s always the restraint. And then Tuesday he went out in the field
again, and maybe Abel made another smart remark, and Cain again almost did it,
and then Wednesday, boom, it exploded.
What
happened? Because finally God had had
enough and He backed off. Had God given
Cain a warning? Sure He did, verse 7
precedes verse 8. God had already warned
him that this was going to happen, that lies, crouching at the door. But he didn’t listen.
Let’s go in
conclusion some of the verses in Proverbs that teach the same thing. It’s not necessary to exegete all these
verses because you get the idea of Genesis 4 you can certainly see it reappear
in these verses. The first one will be
Proverbs 17:12. This is talking directly
to this same problem of Genesis 4. “Let
a bear robbed of her young meet a man, rather than a fool meet his folly,”
literally. In other words, it is better
to face a wild animal that is vicious, that is enraged than meet a sin nature
that has had its restraints taken off.
And the horror of this particular verse is that it is safer for the
individual to face a wild animal intent on destruction, physical destruction,
than it is for a man to meet his own sin nature when that sin nature has had
its restraints taken off. It is worse to
meet an unrestrained sin nature in your own soul. [can’t understand phrase] do you see why the
Bible insists on instructing children of the consequences of habitual sin, the
consequences, they can get away with it because of the restraint for a while,
but someday it’s going to catch up and it’s going to surprise them, it’s going
to sadden them, and it’s going to infuriate them and it’s going to just
completely shock them, but they will not even know… you’ve read stories in the
paper where people have gone and (?), parents have taken kids and thrown them
in boiling water, slapped them so hard that they’ve killed their own children,
scalded them, thrown them in the fire, and then afterwards they say I did
that? That’s happened thousands of times
in America. Ask anybody that works in an
emergency ward in a hospital; ask any of the nurses that take in bruised
children. Ask them what they think. What have the parents been doing to this kid,
and the parent will say, oh, I can’t believe I did that. That’s right because at that point the net
sum total effect of a life lived in a non-biblical way, probably up in the
mind, paid off in one giant explosion that occurred. “Sin lies crouched at the door.”
Proverbs 17:13,
“Whoso habitually,” this is a participle, this is part of the character, “Whoso
habitually rewards evil for good, evil will never depart from his family.” This is talking about the turmoil that is
caused inside the third divine institution when you have children that learn to
behave unbiblically; they will always be a source of upset to that house; that
household will never have peace because of the character of its children. Earlier we said that the criteria of success
in Scripture as far as a family is not how much you provide for your children;
the criteria for success is the character that your children have after they’ve
been under your training. That’s the
criteria. And this verse goes further,
that if the child doesn’t have the proper character, if he has instead an unrighteous
character, then that house is not only condemned as a failure but it’s doomed
to continual suffering; this is category three suffering, suffering by
association.
Proverbs 17:14,
again, the same principle of Genesis 4:7 “The beginning of strife is as one
that lets out water; therefore, leave off contention, before it be meddled
with.” Now we have to correct the King
James; actually the translation is good except the English is outmoded. “The beginning of strife,” this is just going
into… it could also refer to lawsuit here, the idea is you have two people
involved in a controversy. “The
beginning of strife,” the word “strife” connotes the fact that they are not
solving their problems via Matthew 5 or Matthew 18, instead of doing it those
ways they are taking a hardnosed position against each other. The word “strife” means to sue, so court
action is being initiated. “The
beginning of court action is like,” not when, “is like one that lets out
water,” this is a picture in the agrarian economy of Israel they have these
irrigation ditches, and it’s a picture of a leaking irrigation ditch is what it
is, “it’s like a leaking irrigation ditch,” so “leave off contention before it
erupts,” the word “meddled with” means erupts.
In other words, this kind of thing, this strife is a picture, again in a
group situation, of Genesis 4:7, –R learned behavior patterns that seem to get
along all right up to a point, but there is coming a time when God’s restraints
will be taken off and you will explode and a second later you’ll realize what’s
happened, only too late. Violence has
been done, an act has been committed and you stand there shocked that you did
it. That’s God’s hand of restraint taken
off.
Proverbs 20:3,
again thinking in terms of instructing children, it is the principle solve the
problem, don’t let it simmer. “It is an
honor for a man to cease from strife,” methods, Matthew 5, Matthew 18 again,
“but every fool will be erupting,” in other words, it’s habitual for him to get
into a situation where he’s just going to blow off.
Proverbs 22:10,
this is how you deal with that kind of a person, biblical way. And may I suggest that this is done in
gentleness and reverence. “Cast out the
scorner, and contention shall go out,” that means throw them out, get rid of
them, now that is the only way once things have proceeded to this point, when
you have a person… we call that a person implacable, when you have a person
in your home that is implacable, a
person or child who has just simply learned they are not going to submit to authority,
period, come hell or high water or anything else that you can threaten them
with, that’s nothing; they are at this point implacable. (?) solution, throw them out, get rid of
them, because you’ve got to protect the institution, the third divine institution
has to be protected and if they’re not going to knuckle under and go with the
thing, then just get rid of them, just get them out of there: “throw out the
scorner and strife and reproach shall cease.”
That is a biblical gentle solution to the problem of the scorner.
Now there are a few
other verses that I want to show you in contrast to these. We’ve dealt so far with this problem, the
sins of deed. We’ve shown and should
show to our children that –R learned behavior patterns you can get away with up
to a point, and after that point, explosion.
Why? God takes off His restraint
and “sin lies crouching at the door.”
Now that is a
picture of somebody out of control, completely out of control. Now at this point, and I’ve waited until this
point to bring you to the verses in Proverbs that show the nature of a
friend. Again, children should learn how
do you find a true friend; what are the characteristics biblically of a person
that you want to be your friend. Is it
the clothes they wear; the smile on their face, the education they have, money
in the pocket, what is the character of a biblical friend? Let’s look at some of these verses. There are three of them I want to show you.
Proverbs 17:17,
this is the exact opposite of a person who is at the point where his sin nature
is going to explode. Now watch the
principle; on the one hand you have a principle whose old sin nature is now not
well restrained and it’s going to explode out.
In other words, this person is not in control of himself. He is not.
The opposite is the friend; now friends have old sin natures, this side
of Eden all men have sin natures. So the
fact is, well, I’m going to run around and the only friend I’m going to have is
somebody that’s perfectly good. Well,
good luck. So obviously the biblical
criteria is not some sinless robot that trots around. A person who is your friend is going to have
the sin nature; that can’t be the difference, the sin nature. What is the difference then? The difference is the restraint on the sin
nature, particularly restraint on the sin nature in certain areas.
Let’s look at those certain areas.
Proverbs 17:17, “A friend loves at all times,” now lest we degenerate
into sentimentality at verse 17 let me hasten to add what that love means. That love, in verse 17, refers to biblical
love which means seeking God’s will for the other person above all else; that’s
what a friend is, a friend who has concern for you biblically. In other words, doctrine; when it comes to
choosing between your immediate pleasure and the Word of God, your best friend
will choose the Word of God for you.
That’s the mark of a friend; a true friend biblically is one that will
not be moved by his personal pleasure at the moment and your personal pleasure
at the moment. A true biblical friend
will be moved only by the foundation of the Word of God. In other words, if you say well if you loved
me then you’d do this. The best friend
will say then go to hell; I will not buy that kind of blackmail. See, that kind of … if you loved me then
you’d do this, that is just blackmail and a good friend will never buy it. You can test your friends; see, “if you loved
me then you’d do this,” and if they do it then they’re not your friend,
biblically. That’s a good test, because
what this verse… “A good friend loves at
all times,” all times, not some of
the time and the word “times” is seasons, which means times in this case times
of pressure. And the times of pressure
are when you put the pressure on your friend with your blackmail, “if you loved
me you’d give in.” That’s when a friend
who loves you, scripturally, will say huh-un, Word of God of God is this,
period. That is the mark of a true
friend. “…and a brother is born for
adversity,” the word “adversity” means extreme pressure. And the mark of a friend that he is most
useful in times of distress. That’s
another way on your check list now, checking out for friends, ask yourself,
when you are most under pressure, who would you rather be around. You answer that question and you’ve got a
pretty good idea of what your true friend is biblically.
Let’s look at Proverbs 18:24 for more criteria
of true friends. This one is all fouled
up in the King James, I’ve heard people use this, in fact, the principle is
right, it’s just the translation is wrong.
This is one of these cases where you can get a right answer for a wrong
reason. “A man that has friends must
show himself friendly;” well, that’s a true principle but unfortunately that’s
not what the Hebrew says. It says,
“Friends who chatter” or “who pretend to be friends,” in other words, there’s
one kind of person that yak, yak, yak, yak, yak, yak, oh, I’m your friend, this
kind of thing, who pretends, puts up a façade, and then there is another who
“sticks closer than a brother.” Now the
difference is the mouth versus the action.
The first part of verse 24 in the original, “there is one who chatters,”
or pretends to be your friend, that’s mouth; the second part of verse 24 is one
who actually does the sticking, the overt activity. So another criterion of friend is that. And this works across the sex lines too, for
those single people that are looking around for a girlfriend or boyfriend, it
works the same way. Watch it. Instead of looking at everything at the cover
look what’s in the book.
Proverbs 20:6, a
final warning on friendship. And this is
a very true principle and don’t ever forget it.
“Most men will proclaim every one his own goodness; but a faithful man,
who can find?” Now the emphasis of verse
6 is on the rarity of friends but there’s emphasis in the original upon
something else. The word “proclaim every
one his goodness,” means that he’s putting forth a character that he doesn’t
have. The word “faithful” before the
word “man” in the text is the word amen,
and it means one who is reliable, and so the point of verse 6 is the difference
between those who would pretend to have character and those who have character,
which all goes back, finally in the last analysis to what is it that the child
is to be taught in the home?
Character. What is he to be
taught about over social wrongs? That
there are long-term results of habitual negative behavior pattern. How do you stop children from getting
involved in the big things of life?
Years before cut off those bad mental attitudes. If you see your kid pout, see him throw
tantrums, you should be as concerned with your children pouting and throwing
tantrums as you are concerned about later on somebody getting pregnant,
somebody getting on drugs, somebody winding up as a homo. You should be far more concerned, back when
it can be stopped at the level of a simple tantrum, at the level of a simple
pouting, at the level of a simple fit.
That’s where to stop it the Bible says because if you don’t, “sin lies
crouched at the door.”