Untitled Sermon (6)

proverbs 25:2-3

Well let me read our passage and I’m going to read verse one also because I believe it helps us with the context of our verses.

Read verses 1-3

intro: Has anyone ever heard of the movie “Allan Quatermain and the lost city of Gold”. It was a adventure/comedy type film. Now i believe there may have been some earlier versions of this film in the earlier 1900s but the one i saw was the 1987 one. This movie in particular was actually a sequel to the 1985 film King Solomons Mines.

Now my Uncle Thomas my mom oldest brother introduced me to this film. My Uncle Thomas loved these types of movies along with cowboy/westerns film, westerns like Clint Eastwood movies and John Wayne then adventure type film like Indiana jones and Allan quatermain. And when i’d go visit him he would often be watching these types of movies even up until his dying days he’d be watching these. Now i remember the “ lost city of Gold” movie in particular because he sent me home home one day in my teens with this film. He really wanted me to get into these films. Both movies starred Richard Chamberlain and Sharon Stone. These films were essentially about a explorer allan quatermain who would go on these expeditions looking for lost people and also lost treasure. In King Solomons Mines they searched and found Sharon stones lost father who was explorer who was captured in his pursuit to find the treasure of King Solomons Mines that was a place full of raw diamonds and others priceless treasure. In second film the lost city of Gold they set out to find Quatermains lost brother and also a lost city of Gold, and a place with a abundant amount of Gold. And of course even though in both films they faced opposition like any other good adventure film they overcame the opposition and found both of these treasures.

Well in our passage today King Hezekiah we’ll see sought out something more valuable than the riches quatermain and his friends sought. King Hezekiah sought of the wisdom of Solomon. He sought out wisdom found in these proverbs so that he too could be good and wise King. Wisdom is something far more precious than earthly riches. In proverbs 16:16 we read “ How much better to get wisdom than Gold! To get understanding is to chosen rather silver.

Ultimately this wisdom of Solomon we find in these proverbs is God’s wisdom and its ultimately from him that one can be made wise.

Verse 1

Well in order to understand what’s being taught in verses 2 -3 I read verse 1 first. Verse one immediately lets us know about the verses to follow. It lets us know that our passage is apart of a larger collection of proverbs. In fact chapters 25-29 are all a collection King Hezekiah had in his possession. And by the direction of the Holy Spirit these were copied and included in this book of proverbs we have now in our posession. Now we know that King Solomon had over 3,000 proverbs but only what is contained in this book is was God chose to be preserved for our learning and direction. We know Solomon lived some 200 years before King Hezekiah and God used Hezekiah to add these proverbs to the book of proverbs. This helps us to see that God is in control of what goes in the Bible. God sovereignly used King Hezekiah some 200 years later to copy these proverbs dig up these proverbs, dig up these treasures and had them added to this book we come to know.

So why did King Hezekiah chose these proverbs? Well I believe King Hezekiah desired to be a wise king and he understood in order to be wise he needed instruction from the Lord. He used these proverbs to help him as he served God’s people during his reign as King of Judah. Now Hezekiah the Bible tells us in 2 Kings was a good king, one who did what was right in the sight of Lord. He came into power at a time the people of Israel were caught up in idolatry, a time where they had shrines of false gods standing that they worshipped, a time where they not following the commandments of God. Hezekiah’s father King Ahaz was one the most wicked kings of Judah who introduced many of these wicked practices done among the people of Israel. But Hezekiah didn’t follow in his wicked fathers steps, he followed after God and during his reign we see him cleaning things up, he gets rid of these wicked practices and destroys these idols and false gods. He helps bring revival and restores worship of the true and living God in Judah. So Hezekiah sought wisdom and in these verses we see some of the things he learned.

Rich had been using this Belcher theology on the purpose of proverbs and that is he says is to impart wisdom to the teachable. And wisdom is skill in the art of godly living, that it starts with fear of God, and it springs from a new heart. Well Solomon desired to know wisdom and to impart wisdom to his son and to anyone who desires to know wisdom letting them know it starts with a fear of the Lord. So King Hezekiah desired this wisdom and benefited greatly from this instruction from God. So that’s the background and now we come to our verses. The first verse reads.

Verse2 (Read)

So immediately in my reading of this passage we see a contrast between God and the King. We read first that it is the Glory of God to conceal things. So what does that mean God conceals things? What is God concealing? Well first we must define conceal. And using the Consise Oxford English Dictionary it means to not allow to be seen, to hide, to keep secret, to keep from being made known. Well I believe there are two ways we see God doing this concealing. The first way is in his conceal of things he doesn’t want us to know, he puts this concealment outside of our knowledge, outside of our grasp. Another way God conceals things which I believe is at the heart of our passage is that God conceals things he desires for us to search out, or other words he desires us to seek him so that we can know what it is He wants to show us or give us to direct us. God unlike the Kings gets glory in his concealment of things. There isn’t anything God doest know, he doesn’t need to search out things like we have to in order to find things out, For God is all knowing, there isn’t a thing that God doesn’t know. And the first part of the passage helps us to see this contrast. I thinks help us to recognize how much greater God is than us. This should deepen the awe of God, or the majesty of his splender. The fact that God isn’t easy to figure out is what separates him from us. If we knew everything about God then we probably wouldn’t honor him in way we should. There something about the mystery of God in things he conceals that raises our view of God which helps us to see God is not like us. So God conceals things for his reasons alone that he does not want us to know and he also conceals things that he wants us to find out. Well we know many things that we just don’t know, things that are just outside our grasp. And we have as humans have many questions about why God did this and how God did this and why God allowed this, but yet the Bible doesn’t tell us. Things in creation how did God do this or how Lucifer fell or why God allowed satan in the garden, how exactly does the trinity work, how exactly is Jesus both God and man and many more things right we could go on and on, but what scripture does tell us is that everything God does is good, it is right and it is perfect. And we must be content in understanding that there are certain things we just won’t know that God has conceal, now in heaven will God reveal everything complet I’m not sure. But for now he doesn’t reveal certain things and he has his own good reasons for not doing so. And they hidden things belong to him.

Well on the flip side not only is there this concealment of things we just won’t know there is things that have been concealed that God wants us to know. And these things have been concealed in his law/word. For God wants us to seek him and his word in order to reveal the things he has concealed. It is through his word we find that God has revealed himself in many different ways. Through creation, through our hearts/concicences and ultimately through the person and work of Christ. There is enough of what God reveals that is suffienct for us and for our instruction.

King Hezekiah rightly understood that in order to lead in a way that was right and wise in the sight of God he needed instruction from God which was revealed to him through God’s law and these proverbs God inspired Solomon to write.

We read this passage in deuteromony that supports this thought

Deut 29:29 tells us “ The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law”

Hezekiah desired to be a godly King, he didn’t want to rule in a evil way like his father before him, he wanted to please God. So we see him putting the later part of this verse on display. “But the glory of kings is to search things out”

He recognized good kings search this out, this brings glory to them. The marks of a good king is one who seeks out instruction from the Lord not one who relies upon his own strength or his own knowledge. Something we just a quick read through the book kings we seen the difference between evil kings and good kings. Evil kings sought their own ways, their own knowledge and pridefully rejected instruction from God and they faced ruin. Good kings such as Hezekiah and Solomon sought the Lord for instruction and when they did they received blessing and the people prospered.

So what Solomon is teaching here in this proverb is very wise and this would be something that a King who desired to be a good/wise king would want to know. He would want to heed these proverbs. This proverbs is telling them, you want to govern in a way that brings glory? You want to rule righteously? In a way that brings honor? It says search things out. Inquire knowledge. Seek out Gods instruction. Marks of kings we see in scripture who lead well were those who had a ability to figure things out. As a king one is tasked with responsibility of making decisions concerning the people in which he governs whether that’s whether or not to go to war, strategies when engage in war, judgements concerning matters of the people, and many other decisions that fell in his lap. There was great responsibility in the hands of the King and what showed whether or not he was wise was the decisions that he made. Did he search out things did he seek instruction from God or did he act hastily and rely only on his own council.

So just a quick example of this we can see in the life of the author of this proverb King Solomon. And in 1 Kings 3 we read that Solomon loved the Lord and was walking according to the statues of his father David and one night during a dream the Lord appeared to him and told him to ask what the Lord should give him. And Solomon didn’t ask for long life or riches, he asked and ill read that verse 9 “ Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people that I may discern between good and evil, for who is able to govern this your great people”

And God was pleased with what Solomon asked and he gave him this wisdom he sought and added even more blessings on top of that. But after this encounter with God Solomon in the very next chapter is faced with a decision. Two women came before King Solomon for him make a decision on a matter. And there essentially was this two women who lived in the same house and both of them had baby days apart and now of them women in the middle of night rolled over on her baby while sleeping and killed him. She then arose and while the other women was sleep switched the dead baby with the women’s living baby and when they arose the women who had the living baby woke up seen to a dead baby and after examining the baby recognized this baby didn’t belong to her, and that the other woman had taken her baby. So you have these two women before the King both claiming to be the mother of this living child. So Solomon has this decision to make and he says well bring me a sword so that I may cut the baby in half and each one of you can have a piece. One woman says great that’ll work divide him but the other woman who son it really was says who’s heart yearned for her child says no way give him to the other woman. And Salomon saw he love for her child and gave the child to whom he belonged to. And the scriptures all of Israel stood in awe when they heard the judgement Solomon gave and they understood that the wisdom of God was in Solomon to judge rightly. You see Solomon was only able to display this type of wisdom because he inquired of it from God, I would argue King Solomon rightly understood the task of governing God’s people was impossible apart from the wisdom and instruction of the Lord.

The job could not be done in his own power, and further more in any mans own power. Man needs help, making difficult decisions like these and man others was something he recognized could not be done in his own strength.

So there you have a king who because he sought this wisdom, because he recognized wisdom comes from God, the wisdom of God through the work of the spirit helped him to make that statement about cutting the baby in two knowing the true mother would come forth. And that kind of wisdom only could come fro God. We see something in that story that would concealed being revealed because Solomon sought God’s wisdom in his governing. And because he chose this wisdom, who else benefited? The people. The people in which he governed. People would seek justice they benefit. You see this type of king on coming into power should desire to be. And Hezekiah knew of the wisdom of Solomon and he too sought out to be a wise King like Solomon.

Verse3

In the next verse we read “ As the heavens for height, and the earth depth, so the heart kings is unsearchable”

And in this verse we see the unsearchableness of the Kings heart and it is compared the height of the heavens and the depth of the earth. And what its essentially saying is just as no one can comprehend the the height of heaven and the depth of earth neither can you comprehend all the is going on in a Kings mind. We can’t measure them, its impossible for us to know those measurements. Well the same is true for us knowing the kings heart. We can’t know what’s in the kings heart or his mind and why he has made this decision or that decision. This verse is speaking in relation to the people under the kings, his subjects. Those under the king can often wonder about the things done by the king and why he choses to do this or that. Many times believing they would have done things differently. You know if I was king I would have done this or done that. But for those underneath the King on the outside looking in they don’t know what all the king is looking at, what all he is thinking through when he makes his decisions. The information the King has isn’t asssesible to them. Now had all the info he had and insight given to him as King maybe they might understand why he choses to do a thing. So that’s the idea, we can’t know what’s in his heart because we haven’t been given that position.

Well how does this verse connect with that in verse 2 well we see that God is truly unsearchable for he conceals things that we can’t know unless he reveals them to us and the King gets glory when he searches out things, when he obtains wisdom from God. And for those on the outside his subjects underneath the authority of King benefit when a King receives this wisdom. As those on the outside they can’t know what’s in the heart of the king. And if that is true, wouldn’t they want a king who receives wisdom from God. Just as the people in Israel after they seen Solomons wisdom on display they stood in awe because they knew God was with him. The people under the direction of a God fearing wisdom seeking King could be at rest and experience comfort even though they don’t know what’s in the Kings heart. They know they can rest in the fact that ultimately good wise decisions will be made because their leader is seeking the Lord for direction.