Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

When a king sits on his throne to judge,
    he winnows out all evil with his eyes.
Who can say, “I have kept my heart pure;
    I am clean and without sin”?
Differing weights and differing measures—
    the Lord detests them both.
Even small children are known by their actions,
    so is their conduct really pure and upright?
Ears that hear and eyes that see—
    the Lord has made them both.
Do not love sleep or you will grow poor;
    stay awake and you will have food to spare.
“It’s no good, it’s no good!” says the buyer—
    then goes off and boasts about the purchase.

• Proverbs 20:8-14

Proverbs 20:9 ” ‘No one can make himself sinless. Cf. Job 14:4; Romans 3:10, 23; 1 John 1:8.  Those whose sin has been forgiven are pure before God (Ps. 51:1, 2, 9, 10).”

• John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)

Proverbs 20:8 talks about winnowing.  Winnowing is where the grain is dropped over a shaft of air, a breeze, for example.  The chaff will blow away with the wind leaving the good grain behind.  A king must have the wisdom to separate the good from the bad, the truth from the lies, so that justice can be served.

No one is perfect.  Rev. MacArthur speaks of God forgiving us, but none is good enough on their own to enter God’s Holy Kingdom.

Differing weights and differing measures refer to illegal or unjust scales.  There are a lot of ways to make a scale unjust.  Putting a weight on the scale that is marked at one weight, but is actually a “different weight” is one way.  Have you ever ordered a foot-long hot dog and when you measured it, it was only ten inches long?  And hot dogs do not all come in the same thickness.  A thick ten-inch hot dog may have more meat than a thin twelve-inch hot dog.  And my wife visited a jewelry store in northeastern Mississippi.  Nothing had a price on it.  She talked to a friend who knew the owner.  They had three different prices: a friends and family price, someone recognized as living in the town all their lives, and you paid through the nose if you were a stranger.  Of course, they had no prices shown.  God hates all that stuff.

But skipping ahead to Proverbs 20:14, it is the opposite of Proverbs 20:10.  It is not nice to grumble loudly, proclaiming you were cheated by the proprietor and then laugh about how you had gotten such a great bargain.

Back to Proverbs 20:11, Solomon is saying that little children can be little monsters.  Saying that “boys will be boys” does not correct the bad behavior.  And of course, the same thing applies to the girls.  This is a reminder that children need guidance and discipline.  I have seen too many mothers who lock their toddler outside the house all day so that she can get some peace and quiet.  In one neighborhood where we lived, my wife fed the boy his lunch and kept an eye out for him.  In that circumstance, the mother entertained while the boy was playing in other people’s yards unsupervised, and he was still in a diaper.

And as for Proverbs 20:12 is not just a shout to God, glorifying Him for His wonderful Creation, but God gave us eyes and ears for a purpose.  We should be just in our actions.  We should use our eyes and ears for God’s glory.

And we have the recurring theme of the sluggard in Proverbs 20:13.  Lately, I will wake up, and immediately start praying, “Oh, Lord, I need your help today!”  I will pray that two or three times and maybe even drift back to sleep for fifteen minutes.  I repeat the process of praying, but when God has had enough of my complaining, I am reminded that He will help me, only after I slip my feet off the edge of the bed and stand up to start my day.  I may again go through the prayer multiple times before I am in front of the computer.  God is not telling us to never go to sleep, but studies are starting to surface that we can do with a lot less sleep than we get.  Now, as my wife always complained about not getting enough sleep, if you are on kidney dialysis and you have thyroid disease and heart disease and diabetes, you will probably feel bad regardless of the sleep you get, but I will not chide you.

And now let us sing.

The following song is And Can it Be?  This is sung by Hymns of Grace. We are not perfect. To be saved, a perfect sacrifice must die in our place.  Oh, how can it be, that my God should die for me?

Closing Prayer

Dear Lord,
We need Your wisdom.  We are not perfect.  You are.  As a result, we cannot make demands.  When we deal with each other, we need to use our intellect and wisdom in making just and proper decisions.  We must keep our eyes and ears open to do the right thing for our neighbor and act justly in any transaction whether we are selling or buying.  Sandwiched in the middle of all these admonishments to act rightly and justly is a reminder that children, no matter how cute they might be, are not blameless, but we might be to blame if we do not discipline them and guide them to act rightly and justly themselves.  Lord, you are the standard.  We cannot live up to your standard, but we can do our best.  Give us Your guidance and Your strength.  Thank you for those nudges to help me get out of bed in the morning.
In thy Name we pray.
Amen

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.