Proverbs 30 - Spiritual Stubbornness

Introduction

A number of years ago, the US Government Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality put together an ad campaign targeted to get men to stop avoiding the doctor and to go and get the medical screening tests recommended each year: Cholesterol, diabetes, high blood pressure, cancer and so on. The main reason for the campaign was that a lot of men (more so, typically, than women) die of preventable illnesses because they drag their feet for so long about seeing a doctor. Along with some online ads and public service announcement commercials, the agency put up thousands of big red billboards with the slogan “This year, thousands of men will die from stubbornness” (at least one of which was spray-painted with the words, “No we won’t”!)

But that (presumably male) graffiti artist notwithstanding, it really is possible to die of stubbornness—you can ignore those chest pains, tell yourself that that lump isn’t growing, constantly “forget” to check your blood pressure—and wind up putting yourself in a pretty serious fix.

Here in Proverbs 30, the issue isn’t the kind of stubbornness that refuses to admit you have a health problem. This chapter is written to address the spiritual stubbornness that refuses to admit that you have a sin problem. The author of this chapter, a man named Agur, goes out of his way to demonstrate the difference between the right kind of stubborn and the wrong kind of stubborn. And what he is showing us in this chapter today (and what I want us to learn here) is that

Spiritual stubbornness is deadly, but submission to God brings blessing

The first couple of lines in the original Hebrew of this chapter are, frankly, very confusing—depending on how you break up the syllables it can read a couple of different ways. It can either read “Agur son of Jakeh the oracle” or “Agur son of Jakeh the man of Massa” (an Ishmaelite tribe from northern Arabia). And in the next line, either he is saying that he is weary, or he is addressing two other people, Ithiel and Ucal. So all that to say we really don’t know much for sure about Agur.

The one thing we do see about him is that he writes very differently from Solomon. For one thing, he is less likely to refer to God by His personal covenant Name (YHWH/LORD) than Solomon (elohim twice, yhwh once). The other thing you notice is the way these two men begin their teaching. See if you can spot the difference. Here’s Solomon writing in Chapter 4

Proverbs 4:1–4 ESV

Hear, O sons, a father’s instruction, and be attentive, that you may gain insight, for I give you good precepts; do not forsake my teaching. When I was a son with my father, tender, the only one in the sight of my mother, he taught me and said to me, “Let your heart hold fast my words; keep my commandments, and live.

Now read Agur’s opening words of Chapter 30:

Proverbs 30:1–3 ESV

The words of Agur son of Jakeh. The oracle. The man declares, I am weary, O God; I am weary, O God, and worn out. Surely I am too stupid to be a man. I have not the understanding of a man. I have not learned wisdom, nor have I knowledge of the Holy One.

Now, at first glance this just sounds like Agur has a problem with low self-esteem: Solomon says, “Son, my wisdom will save your life!” Agur says, “I’m almost too stupid to qualify as a human being!” But what Agur is doing here is not just being harshly self-critical, he is setting the stage for demonstrating

I. Faithful Stubbornness: Following God No Matter What (vv. 1-9)

Read on through verse 4:

Proverbs 30:4 ESV

Who has ascended to heaven and come down? Who has gathered the wind in his fists? Who has wrapped up the waters in a garment? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is his name, and what is his son’s name? Surely you know!

Agur isn’t tearing himself down, he is

Walking in humility before God (vv. 1-4)

The world around us rushes to hype itself up—everyone wants everyone else to know how smart, how capable, how independent and powerful they are. But Agur is having none of it—because he recognizes that real wisdom doesn’t come from how brilliant he is—it comes from how well he knows God! But notice what he says about God: In verse 3 he says, “I have no knowledge of the Holy One in and of myself—if I am going to understand anything about God, I need Him to come down to me—I need Him to take me up with Him! Agur stubbornly refuses to follow along with the rest of the world’s self-promotion and pride. If he were to hear the modern-day attacks on Biblical faith, like “Christianity is just a crutch”—he would say, “Well, it’s a good thing, because I’m a cripple!”

And in verses 5-6, he doubles down on his healthy spiritual stubbornness:

Proverbs 30:5–6 ESV

Every word of God proves true; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him. Do not add to his words, lest he rebuke you and you be found a liar.

Not only is Agur committing to walking in humility before God, he is

Submitting wholly to God’s Law (vv. 5-6)

If he heard our modern critics say that the Bible is outdated, and that people who hold to it are “on the wrong side of history”, Agur’s response would probably be something along the lines of “Well, I’d rather be on the wrong side of history than on the wrong side of eternity!” Agur is stubborn about submitting to God’s Word, isn’t he? And that’s what we need to learn—we must be “people of the Book”, knowing it top to bottom, front to back. And once we have done our homework and honestly interpreted and understood a particular passage of Scripture, we must stubbornly refuse to back down from it! “There’s your verse, what’s your problem??” That’s the right kind of stubborn—following God’s Word no matter what anyone else has to say about it!

And remember, when the world around us hears our faithful stubbornness: “There’s your verse, what’s your problem?”, the first accusation they will hurl against us is that we are being arrogant. But which is more arrogant? Submitting to what God’s Word says, or arguing with what God’s Word says? Agur makes his position clear: “Do not add to his words, lest he rebuke you and you be found a liar.”

Faithful stubbornness means walking in humility before God, submitting wholly to God’s Word, and it means

Glorifying God with honest contentment (vv. 7-9)

Look at verses 7-9:

Proverbs 30:7–9 ESV

Two things I ask of you; deny them not to me before I die: Remove far from me falsehood and lying; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me, lest I be full and deny you and say, “Who is the Lord?” or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God.

The world around us is obsessed with “newer, better, bigger, faster”—never satisfied, always have to have more (in fact, Agur targets that very obsession later in this chapter). But here again, Agur isn’t having any of it, is he? In fact, he says something here that preachers like Joel Osteen wouldn’t say in a million years: “God, whatever You do, please don’t let me become rich!” Because if he becomes rich, he says, he will “be full and deny you”. Nor does he want to be poverty-stricken, for fear that he will be tempted to steal and “profane the name of my God”.

How often have you found yourself thinking, “You know, we’re getting by financially—our bills are paid, we have food on the table, but it’s always like we’re just making it. It sure would be great if we had a few more thousand dollars cushion in our finances...” Think about it—if that’s you, then you’re right in the place where Agur prayed to be! Just enough, not too much! Don’t let discontentment creep into your life because you want “just a little bit more”—recognize how God has put you right where you need to be, so that you glorify God by showing your dependence on Him, and he glorifies Himself by caring for your needs!

From his demonstration of faithful stubbornness in the first nine verses of this chapter, Agur then goes on through verse 23 to show us the characteristics of

II. Fatal Stubbornness: Denying the Consequences of Sin (vv. 10-23)

Look at his description of the world around us in verses 10-14:

Proverbs 30:10–14 ESV

Do not slander a servant to his master, lest he curse you, and you be held guilty. There are those who curse their fathers and do not bless their mothers. There are those who are clean in their own eyes but are not washed of their filth. There are those—how lofty are their eyes, how high their eyelids lift! There are those whose teeth are swords, whose fangs are knives, to devour the poor from off the earth, the needy from among mankind.

Agur makes a striking contrast between the faithful stubbornness that insists on walking humbly before God and the

Selfish arrogance (vv. 10-14)

of those who deny God. They pour hatred and contempt on their parents, they are filthy in their degradation (the word “filth” literally means dung or manure)—their clothes are covered in dog crap, but they insist they’re clean! They are arrogant and haughty, looking down on everyone around them, and instead of reaching out to help people who are poor and needy, they prey on them and devour them for their own enrichment. Everything they do is about themselves, and they have no concern for anyone else—unless they can use them to their own advantage!

That fatal stubbornness—refusing to admit that you have a sin problem, denying its consequences—shows up in their selfish arrogance, and also in their

Insatiable greed (vv. 15-17)

Look at verses 15-17:

Proverbs 30:15–17 ESV

The leech has two daughters: Give and Give. Three things are never satisfied; four never say, “Enough”: Sheol, the barren womb, the land never satisfied with water, and the fire that never says, “Enough.” The eye that mocks a father and scorns to obey a mother will be picked out by the ravens of the valley and eaten by the vultures.

This is the first of five “riddles” that Agur poses in this chapter—you can recognize them by the way they are set off by numbers: “two daughters… Three things… four...” The examples that he gives here all have one thing in common: They are never satisfied. A leech has two suckers on its body, but no way to give anything back. Sheol (the grave) is never full—there’s always room for one more body. The “barren womb” is empty, and wants to be filled and can never be satisfied until it is. No matter how much rain you get this week, next week the land will be dry again and need more water. And the reason we have firefighters is because a fire never suddenly decides it’s had enough of the forest it’s consuming, does it?

That’s the deceptive nature of greed, isn’t it? And that fatal stubbornness keeps us from recognizing that lie that says, “Oh, just a little more, and I’ll be satisfied!” But greed is like a wildfire— “enough” is never really enough, and greed will keep demanding more and more until it consumes you.

Agur poses another riddle in verses 18-20:

Proverbs 30:18–20 ESV

Three things are too wonderful for me; four I do not understand: the way of an eagle in the sky, the way of a serpent on a rock, the way of a ship on the high seas, and the way of a man with a virgin. This is the way of an adulteress: she eats and wipes her mouth and says, “I have done no wrong.”

Now, what do these things have in common? None of them leave any trace behind. The eagle doesn’t leave contrails behind like a jetliner, does it? You can’t trace a snake’s path across concrete, and you can’t look at the water where a ship went an hour ago and see it’s path. They don’t leave trails or marks or scars.

The fourth thing in the riddle, “the way of a man with a virgin”, is referring to the proper expression of sexual intimacy in marriage. The picture is of a husband coming together with his bride for the first time for both of them on their wedding night. The reason that this picture fits in with the other three parts of the riddle is because sexual expression within God’s appointed boundaries—one man and one woman in one marriage for life—is the only kind of sexual expression that leaves no scars.

That’s why the very next verse is a picture of an adulteress who “eats, and wipes her mouth, and says, ‘I have done nothing wrong!’” The fatal stubbornness of the world around us that rejects God’s commands for sexual expression says that anything your desires tell you to want is perfectly fine—whenever, whoever and whatever you want, it’s all good. It’s a natural appetite, just like eating, and it’s stupid and narrow-minded (and even hateful!) to suggest that there’s something wrong with the way people choose to satisfy their sexual appetites.

The fatal stubbornness of denying the consequences of sin ignores the

Destructive lust (vv. 18-20)

that is destroying so much of our society today. God has clearly spoken in His Word (which Agur stands on with faithful stubbornness) that the only proper expression of sexual activity—the only way that sex won’t scar you in some way—is between one man and one woman together for life in the bonds of marriage. Period. But the fatal stubbornness of our world will deny that all day long—even as it slowly destroys itself in lust and sexual rebellion.

Fourth, the fatal stubbornness of our world will deny the consequences of sin in its

Miserable materialism (vv. 21-23)

Look at verses 21-23:

Proverbs 30:21–23 ESV

Under three things the earth trembles; under four it cannot bear up: a slave when he becomes king, and a fool when he is filled with food; an unloved woman when she gets a husband, and a maidservant when she displaces her mistress.

The picture here is of people who got everything they ever wanted—but are still miserable. The mailroom employee who finally gets the corner office and realizes he still hates his job, the girl who grew up with a rotten father who ignored her and degraded her mother gets married and finds out that her marriage doesn’t give her the happiness she always thought it would, the college athlete who quits school and gets signed to the NFL and winds up with all the money, fame, success and glamour he ever wanted—and suicidal depression along with it.

In Luke 12:15, Jesus warns us that“life does not consist in the abundance of your possessions”. But spiritual stubbornness will trick you into chasing those physical things your whole life, only to betray you in the end because you spent your whole life trying to be rich according to this world and not rich toward God.

Agur wants us to understand that there is a good kind of spiritual stubbornness that is faithful--following and obeying God with contentment no matter what. And he wants to warn us that there is a kind of spiritual stubbornness that is fatal—it denies that it has a sin problem, it rejects God’s commands and plunges headlong into the destruction of arrogance, greed and lust.

But then starting in verse 24, Agur shifts gears again and contrasts that fatal stubbornness that refuses to admit it has a sin problem with

III. God’s Gracious Wisdom for the Lowly (vv. 24-31)

The next riddle that Agur poses is in verses 24-28:

Proverbs 30:24–28 ESV

Four things on earth are small, but they are exceedingly wise: the ants are a people not strong, yet they provide their food in the summer; the rock badgers are a people not mighty, yet they make their homes in the cliffs; the locusts have no king, yet all of them march in rank; the lizard you can take in your hands, yet it is in kings’ palaces.

These are wonderful pictures of how submission to the way God made the world results in blessing. Unlike the arrogant, greedy, lustful and miserable souls who stubbornly refuse to admit they have a sin problem, these lowly little creatures simply live according to the way God made the world—and He perfectly provides for them!

From the ant, we see God’s

Provision for the weak (v. 25)

Even though they are one of the smallest and least powerful insects, they simply do what God has given them to do, and they have plenty to eat.

A “rock badger” (or conie, or hyrax) is a little furry mammal that looks kind of like a gopher—they are helpless against predators, but they naturally submit to God’s order for the world, following their instincts to make their dens in the rocks. And so we see how God provides

Security for the vulnerable (v. 26)

Agur points to the insect world—a locust is a tiny little bug that, by itself, is of no consequence. Just step on it, and it’s all over, right? A single locust is beneath our notice. But God provides

Belonging for the unnoticed (v. 27)

—those locusts join together in a mighty army that can bring a whole kingdom of men to their knees!

In verse 28 Agur points to another helpless little animal, the gecko—you can grab it in your hand and crush it without a thought. It is completely within your control—and yet it can go wherever it wants—even skittering up the walls of the king’s throne room! When you submit to the way God has ordered the world, He gives

Liberty for the helpless (v. 28)

Agur says, “Look—you people who stubbornly refuse to submit to the way God made the world—how is all of your rebellion working out for you? Your arrogance, greed, lust, materialism—all it does is make you miserable, even though you won’t ever admit it! But look at these lowly, insignificant little creatures! They instinctively and completely submit to the way God made the world—and they are provided for, secure, happy and free! These little, insignificant animals are wiser than you’ll ever be, because they submit to the way God made the world—all you ever do is fight with the way God made the world!

And from this, Agur finishes his chapter with God’s

IV. Gracious Call for Repentance (vv. 32-33)

Look at verse 32:

Proverbs 30:32 ESV

If you have been foolish, exalting yourself, or if you have been devising evil, put your hand on your mouth.

In other words, Agur says,

Stop being foolish (v. 32)

Quit fighting with the way God made the world! Stop your stubborn refusal to admit that you have a sin problem, face up to the fact that you are destroying your life with your arrogance, greed, lust and materialism! Stop exalting yourself over God—the center of the moral universe does not reside behind your ribcage! Stop plotting against God’s created order, stop hating the parents He designed you to love, stop kicking over the boundaries for sex and marriage that He put in place to keep you from scarring yourself, stop chasing after “newer, better, bigger, faster” thinking it will give you any kind of lasting happiness! Because if you keep this up, if you don’t “put your hand over your mouth” and stop yourself from arguing and fighting and rebelling against the way God created the world, you will suffer the consequences someday! Because

Pushing back against God brings destruction (v. 33)

There is a very clever pun hidden in the Hebrew wording of verse 33:

Proverbs 30:33 ESV

For pressing milk produces curds, pressing the nose produces blood, and pressing anger produces strife.

The word “pressing” is also translated “churning” or “turmoil”—as in “churning” milk to produce butter (or curds). In Hebrew, the word for “nose” is a homophone with the word “anger” (like “rain” coming out of the sky and God’s “reign” over the world). So Agur says that just like churning the nose produces blood, so churning God’s anger will produce “strife”—the kind of strife that lands you under judgment!

If you spend your whole life rebelliously “pushing back” against God—rejecting His Word, defying His design for family, for sex, for gender, for the church, for worship, for holiness in your life—if you are constantly arguing with God, always wanting the last word in your life to be yours and not His—then you are pressing and pressing, churning and churning His anger until the Day comes when you will stand before Him in judgment. And on that Day, all of your clever arguments, all of your insistence on your personal rights, all of your bold assertions that you are following “your own truth” will curl up like smoke and vanish away in the hurricane of His wrath that you have stoked your whole life. You will deserve everything that lands on you on that Day, and all of the consequences of your sin that you have denied for so long will land on you for an eternity of torment in Hell. Scoff at that warning if you want, but your scoffing will only add to the damnation you are storing up for yourself.

You have only one hope to escape the consequences of your fatal stubbornness. You have only one way to avoid the damnation you are earning as you “punch God’s nose” with your refusal to submit to Him. Put your hand over your mouth, stop the evil you are planning, and

Call on the One who descended and ascended (v. 4, John 3:13; Ephesians 4:9-10)

Call on the One that Agur didn’t know—the One he wished he knew. Agur longed to know the Name of the Son of God:

Proverbs 30:4 ESV

Who has ascended to heaven and come down? Who has gathered the wind in his fists? Who has wrapped up the waters in a garment? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is his name, and what is his son’s name? Surely you know!

Surely, friend, you know the Name of the Son of God—you’ve heard His Name, you’ve used it as a curse often enough. Jesus Christ is the One that Agur longed to know, and He is the only one who has descended from Heaven to us and ascended again—he said to the Pharisee Nicodemus in John’s Gospel

John 3:13 ESV

No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.

Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Triune God, God Himself come as a man descended from Heaven to come here to this earth and suffer the curse of God’s wrath that you have earned so that you could be delivered from the consequences of your sin against Him! In the book of Ephesians, the Apostle Paul says that Jesus descended into the lower regions of the earth in death, and from there “ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things” (Eph. 4:9-10). You have churned the wrath of God by your fatal spiritual stubbornness, but it was Jesus Christ that bled in your place! Your rebellion against God’s design for this world may have reached to heaven, but Jesus Christ descended from Heaven to deliver you from the eternal consequences of your sin!

So don’t press back against God’s wrath one more day! Stop refusing to acknowledge the consequences of your sin—stop destroying your own life by your arrogance, your greed, your lust, your pride—turn from your fatal stubbornness and call out to Jesus for salvation. Come down and talk to me or one of the elders after the service and let us pray with you so that you can know for certain that you have eternal life. Come to Him for provision in your weakness, security in your vulnerability, belonging for your isolation and liberty for your helplessness. Put your hand over your foolish mouth and come—and welcome!—to Jesus Christ!

BENEDICTION

Ephesians 3:20–21 ESV

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION:

What does it mean to demonstrate “faithful stubbornness?” How is God calling you to demonstrate that kind of stubbornness in your life?

Are there areas of your life where you know you are pressing back against what God has commanded, but you still say “I have done nothing wrong”? What is God telling you in these verses that you need to do?