Chapter 27
Some of the dangers of the ordinary life. There is nothing ordinary about the ordinary life of the Church Age. The Church Age is the most intense hidden part of the angelic conflict. When Jesus Christ was glorified by being seated at the right hand of the Father the angelic conflict shifted gears, and when it did, every believer for the first time the individual believer became the personal target of Satan. In this intensified part of the angelic conflict when the body of Christ is being formed the conflict is being intensified. The angelic conflict is divided into two parts: the Church Age, which is the intensified hidden part, and then the Tribulation when everything comes out in the open. The Tribulation is the most awful period in all of human history, a period of concentrated horror historically. But right now we as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ are living in the most intensified spiritual battle in all of human history when every believer is the target and the life of every believer is the battleground. We have fantastic hidden enemies and therefore God has provided for every believer great resources which are not hidden but clearly described in Bible doctrine.
There are six enemies of the believer in full time Christian service, the ordinary Christian life. They are all related to one of the most subtle phases of making a casualty out of the believer today; they are related to mental attitude sins.
Verses 1-2, arrogance or pride.
Verse 1 – “Boast not thyself of tomorrow.” The word for boasting here is a hithpael stem of halel, from which we get hallelujah and ordinarily means to praise. But hithpael is the reflexive stem and under he reflex concept it means to praise self. Therefore it becomes a verb for boasting, for glorifying one’s self, to be conceited or to be arrogant. In this verse pride is related to time. Pride must never be confused with self-consciousness which is simply awareness of one’s existence and a part of the image of God concept. This is perfectly legitimate. Pride is said to be inordinate self-esteem or conceit. Overtly it includes an overbearing behaviour pattern but on the inside pride is a mental attitude of disorientation to the grace of God. The word “tomorrow” here is literally in the Hebrew, “the next day.” The principle is that God gives us one day at a time.[1] This one day at a time requires that we avoid mental attitude sins, and the first representative sin mentioned here is pride or boasting.
“for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth” – in other words, we are not aware of what is going to happen tomorrow or the next day. The point is that pride catches us in a position where we cannot cope with the adversities and the tragedies of life. This is because pride is not only a mental attitude sin but because all mental attitude sins produce self-induced misery, and the believer is out of fellowship as a result. Pride, when you are out of fellowship, puts you on your own resources and you try to handle your problems with your own resources, and this is the greatest danger in the ordinary life. This mental attitude sin which is mentioned first is the one that keeps us from utilising divine resources under grace. Under grace God knew every day that we would live in phase two, every problem we would ever face, and He made full provision for it, day by day. Pride not only keeps us from utilising the grace of God but it also disorients us to the grace of God, and therefore gets first mention.
Verse 2 – “Let another man praise thee.” Here is a person who says “I will not boast about tomorrow, but I will be proud of what I have done in the past.” Here is the other aspect of pride. In the past he has evaluated his own life in terms of self-accomplished. This, again, is total disorientation to the grace of God. Others may evaluate your person and works in terms of praise but you should relate this to the grace of God and never to your own approbation lust. In other words, don’t take seriously the compliments of others. We have here a piel stem of halel, and this praise can be a trap if it is linked to approbation lust but is no hazard to a relaxed person who is learning Bible doctrine.
“but not thine own mouth” – the mouth expresses what the person thinks. If he thinks well of himself in terms of arrogance and if he is disoriented as far as the grace of God is concerned, if he has no relaxed mental attitude, then he is going to be doing what we commonly call tooting his own horn. But the relaxed mental attitude of grace is never snowed by praises or compliments from others. “Let another man prise you” is simply recognition of something that exists. In the realm of human life even the most ordinary life is going to receive a certain amount of praise. It is a battleground and a challenge not to do two things: be ungracious toward the person who compliments you; do not relate this to your approbation lust. If you relate it to the grace of God and thank God for His grace, this means the presence of a relaxed mental attitude, and a relaxed mental attitude is based on knowledge of doctrine, and knowledge of doctrine is a part of the whole principle of living the ordinary life successfully as unto the Lord.
Verse 3 – wrath or anger, two aspects of the same thing. We have here a parabolic distich: the first line illustrates the principle of the second line. The illustration here is twofold. There is a rock, and when a rock falls on you it crushes you. There is sand. When enough sand falls on you it buries you. In the last anlysis there isn’t a whole lot of difference as to whether you get hit with the rock or are buried in the sand. The rock will illustrate anger and the sand will illustrate wrath. There are two ways in which people get mad. There is the explosive type, and that is like being hit with the rock. There is the slow continual thing that builds up and builds up until it buries its object. Wrath is the crushing power of the rock and anger is the weight of the sand. This verse says literally, “The heaviness of a stone, the weight of sand; a fool’s wrath is heavier than both.” So we have the illustration of anger as a mental attitude sin. The believer here is said to be a fool, he is involved in a mental attitude sin which is called wrath. This is the explosive type as illustrated by verse 4.
Verse 4 – “Wrath is cruel.” This is the explosive type anger, and this is the type of person who explodes and it’s all over. But someone always gets hurt!
“but anger is outrageous” – what is the difference? Wrath is the explosive type of thing, not justified, but anger goes on day by day and it builds up its own self-induced misery. This is the story of King Saul.
“who is able to stand against envy” – envy is one of the most destructive and devastating of menta, attitude sins. The person who is guilty of envy/jealousy is the most miserable. Even the object of it often becomes miserable because it becomes the object of revenge tactics. So whatever capacity for love exists with the believer, it is destroyed by the destructive power of jealousy or envy.
Verses 5-6, the fourth great enemy: pseudo-love—illustrated best by jealousy. “But who is able to stand before jealousy?”
Verse 5 – “Open rebuke is better than secret love.” But that is not what the Hebrew says. The Hebrew says, “Better naked communication than secret love.” This is what is called a comparative distich; the first line has something better than the second line. “Open rebuke” is incorrect, it is literally, “Naked,” the pual participle of the verb galah which means to be naked. What is naked communication, or demonstration? It means the revelation of true love; having the capacity for love and expressing it. It is impossible for the believer to have capacity for love as long as he harbours mental attitude sins. Naked communication/demonstration is a relaxed mental attitude producing the capacity for love, and the capacity for love is that relaxed mental attitude. In other words, you can say “I love you” to someone, but if you are bitter toward them, or jealous, if you have anger, or any of the mental attitude sins, your capacity for love is destroyed. The real thing only exists where the capacity exists. In the spiritual life the capacity does not exist apart from freedom from these mental attitude sins—the mind is open.
“than secret love” – illicit sexual love. Physical activity without love have no capacity for love, and it results in putting scar tissue on the soul. So secret love is attraction without capacity for love. The application is given in verse 6.
Verse 6 – “Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.” In this verse is the application: a person makes love without being mentally involved—the kisses of the enemy. The word “faithful is often used to describe true activities in the soul. Faithfulness in the soul means you are aware of someone, and in your mind you are faithful to that person. The wounds which are described here are decisions which you make to be honest with that person, to level with that person, eve though it hurts them. Faith are the wounds of a friend can be loving someone and levelling with them—expressing the truth even though it hurts. On the other hand, kisses without love is simply a demonstration of love without the soul being involved. The kiss expresses the physical relationship without the soul relationship. So the enemy is the person who will kiss you without loving you—a token of love without the reality of love.
Verse 7 – indifference to the Word of God. This is the greatest danger of all to the ordinary believer or to all believers in general. “The full soul loatheth an honeycomb.” The full soul is the believer who is occupied with the details of life. Here is a person who is minus doctrine, and because he is indifferent toward Bible doctrine he is interested in money, success, pleasure, social life, friends, loved ones, health, sex, materialistic things, or status symbols. These are the source of his happiness. He is minus doctrine and therefore he is said to be a “full soul.” This can really mean a scarred soul. A full soul here is a believer whose soul is scarred, and because of that he seeks his happiness in pleasures, social life, friends, etc. Because he is minus doctrine he has gone the way of all flesh and has scar tissue of the soul. He is occupied with the details of life to the exclusion of Bible doctrine. And he “loatheth,” which means to trample down; “the honeycomb” – representing Bible doctrine. Honey is stimulating to the taste, a provider of energy, a protector from allergies, and in this sense honey becomes an excellent illustration of Bible doctrine. Bible doctrine is stimulating to the soul, it provides energy for production of divine good, it protects the believer from the allergies of worldliness, the allergies of the old sin nature, and from the decay of the human soul.
“but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet” – the hungry soul is the believer with positive volition toward Bible doctrine. “Every bitter thing” means suffering, tragedy, diaster, frustration, disappointment. Etc., becomes sweet. Bible doctrine can take the worst tragedies of life, the most difficult pressures of life, and convert them into something wonderful. So the final great enemy of the believer is negative volition toward Bible doctrine.