Proverbs 20:5-21:4
October 13, 2024
preached by Pastor Ryan Bouton
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Time of Reflection Quotations

“No emotion is, in itself, a judgement; in that sense all emotions and sentiments are alogical. but they can be reasonable or unreasonable as they conform to Reason or fail to conform. The heart never takes the place of the head: but it can, and should, obey it.”

~ C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man

“The Christian, in the Pauline sense, claims true identity precisely because he does not cling. ‘For me to live is Christ,’ says Paul; ‘to die is gain’ (Philippians 1.21). Paul’s idea of finding his life in Christ is echoed no less than 160 times in his small collection of writings. He was more fully himself because he wasn’t too bothered about who he was …It was as if he’d been ‘bonsaied’ before—planted in a shallow container that prevented his roots from growing and limited the heights he could reach. Finally, having been planted in a field, connected to reality in both intimate and ultimate sense, he became one of the tallest trees we have ever seen. ‘I am the worst of sinners,’ St. Paul told a friend in one letter (Timothy 1.1.15). It’s the sort of thing a great man might say.”

~ “Identity” by Duncan Reyburn

“Let none think that I by tear or reproach make light
Of this manifesting the mastery
Of God, who with excelling irony
Gives me at once both books and night.

In this city of books he made these eyes
The sightless rulers who can only read,
In libraries of dreams, the pointless
Paragraphs each new dawn offers.”

~ “Poem About Gifts,” by Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) concerning his loss of sight following his appointment
as director of the National Public Library of Argentina

Sermon Passage

Proverbs 20:5-21:4 (ESV)

Proverbs 20

⁵ The purpose in a man’s heart is like deep water,
but a man of understanding will draw it out.
⁶ Many a man proclaims his own steadfast love,
but a faithful man who can find?
⁷ The righteous who walks in his integrity—
blessed are his children after him!
⁸ A king who sits on the throne of judgment
winnows all evil with his eyes.
⁹ Who can say, “I have made my heart pure;
I am clean from my sin”?
¹⁰ Unequal weights and unequal measures
are both alike an abomination to the LORD.
¹¹ Even a child makes himself known by his acts,
by whether his conduct is pure and upright.
¹² The hearing ear and the seeing eye,
the LORD has made them both.
¹³ Love not sleep, lest you come to poverty;
open your eyes, and you will have plenty of bread.
¹⁴ “Bad, bad,” says the buyer,
but when he goes away, then he boasts.
¹⁵ There is gold and abundance of costly stones,
but the lips of knowledge are a precious jewel.
¹⁶ Take a man’s garment when he has put up
security for a stranger,
and hold it in pledge when he puts up security for foreigners.
¹⁷ Bread gained by deceit is sweet to a man,
but afterward his mouth will be full of gravel.
¹⁸ Plans are established by counsel;
by wise guidance wage war.
¹⁹ Whoever goes about slandering reveals secrets;
therefore do not associate with a simple babbler.
²⁰ If one curses his father or his mother,
his lamp will be put out in utter darkness.
²¹ An inheritance gained hastily in the beginning
will not be blessed in the end.
²² Do not say, “I will repay evil”;
wait for the LORD, and he will deliver you.
²³ Unequal weights are an abomination to the LORD,
and false scales are not good.
²⁴ A man’s steps are from the LORD;
how then can man understand his way?
²⁵ It is a snare to say rashly, “It is holy,”
and to reflect only after making vows.
²⁶ A wise king winnows the wicked
and drives the wheel over them.
²⁷ The spirit of man is the lamp of the LORD,
searching all his innermost parts.
²⁸ Steadfast love and faithfulness preserve the king,
and by steadfast love his throne is upheld.
²⁹ The glory of young men is their strength,
but the splendor of old men is their gray hair.
³⁰ Blows that wound cleanse away evil;
strokes make clean the innermost parts.

Proverbs 21

¹ The king’s heart is a stream of water
in the hand of the LORD;
he turns it wherever he will.
² Every way of a man is right in his own eyes,
but the LORD weighs the heart.
³ To do righteousness and justice
is more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice.
⁴ Haughty eyes and a proud heart,
the lamp of the wicked, are sin.