Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

The sayings of Agur son of Jakeh—an inspired utterance.
This man’s utterance to Ithiel:
“I am weary, God,
    but I can prevail.
Surely I am only a brute, not a man;
    I do not have human understanding.
I have not learned wisdom,
    nor have I attained to the knowledge of the Holy One.
Who has gone up to heaven and come down?
    Whose hands have gathered up the wind?
Who has wrapped up the waters in a cloak?
    Who has established all the ends of the earth?
What is his name, and what is the name of his son?
    Surely you know!
“Every word of God is flawless;
    he is a shield to those who take refuge in him.
Do not add to his words,
    or he will rebuke you and prove you a liar.
“Two things I ask of you, Lord;
    do not refuse me before I die:
Keep falsehood and lies far from me;
    give me neither poverty nor riches,
    but give me only my daily bread.
Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you
    and say, ‘Who is the Lord?’
Or I may become poor and steal,
    and so dishonor the name of my God.

• Proverbs 30:1-9

Proverbs 30:2 ”Did Agur really mean all he said? I cannot doubt it. Forcible expressions are not always to be understood in their strictest sense, yet I have no doubt Agur meant to describe himself as he felt himself to be apart from the grace of God. Or better and more likely, he felt thus stupid, and foolish, after he had been enlightened by the Spirit of God. One mark of a man’s true wisdom is his knowledge of his ignorance. Have you ever noticed how the clean heart always mourns its uncleanness; and the wise man always laments his folly? It needs holiness to detect our own unholiness, and it needs wisdom to discover our own folly. When man talks of his own cleanness, his very lips are foul with pride; and when a man boasts of his wisdom, he proclaims his folly with trumpet sound. Because God had taught Agur much, he felt that he knew but little. Here was a man, who, whatever he really was, held himself in His own opinion and judgment to be an inferior person; and yet, nevertheless, was a firm believer in his God. He was not only a firm believer, but he was an earnest student of the sacred oracles. All the more because of his ignorance he pressed on to learn more and more of God. Nor was this all, he was a willing worker, for he spoke prophetically in the name of the Lord. Nor do we even end here, for from this short writing it is clear that he was a joyful truster in God. Brutish as he judged himself to be, he rose into supreme content at every thought of God. Those four points I am going to handle at this time, as the Lord may help me by his Holy Spirit.

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• Charles H. Spurgeon, from his sermon notes

The Message

Before we get into the wisdom, in the first verse, three, four, or five people are mentioned.  Agur is the sage, son of Jakeh.  Oddly, in the Douay-Rheims 1899 American Bible, it says the Gatherer, the son of the Vomiter.  But some older translations add another ancestor, Massa.  Finally we come to a person who is named in the Bible elsewhere, but is the Massa of this chapter of Proverbs, not included in modern translations, the same Massa as mentioned in 1 Chronicles 1, a descendant of Ishmael?

It is thought that Ithiel and Ucal are students of Agur.  But oddly, Ucal is not in most modern translations.  Ucal is thought to mean either the complete or the consumed.  Ithiel is mentioned elsewhere, as a name.  A descendant of Benjamin listed in Nehemiah 11:7.  He was an ancestor of Sallu, the provincial leader for the tribe of Benjamin, several generations removed.  Again, these could be two very different people.  Ithiel means that God is with him.

But should this bother us?  If the sayings are wise sayings, we should not be bothered.  No one knows exactly who Theophilus was, the person Luke wrote to when he authored the Gospel of Luke and the book of the Acts.

But then the next verse is something that you would not hear today by a published author. Agur is a brute, not a man.  He does not have the wisdom of God.  Well then, why should we listen to this unknown person who does not have God’s wisdom within him?

But that is the point.

We cannot plumb the depths of God’s wisdom.  Our human wisdom falls horribly short.  Agur’s wisdom might just be something to study.  Agur paints a picture of an empty vessel.  “God, I am nothing.  Fill me, Lord!”

We will never achieve God’s wisdom in this life, but we will not achieve a tiny morsel of God’s wisdom if we think we know it already.  If we think we know it already, we really know nothing at all, but the doors to our empty heart are locked and bolted.  We have told ourselves that there is nothing new to learn.

And how many churches are relatively empty of everyone except a few teachers and the children twelve and under that have been dropped off by their parents and the parents go to the coffee shop?  The few adult Sunday school classes, where the issues that life throws at us can be discussed, there are the 1-3% of older people who never stopped going to Sunday school when they became teenagers.  I have heard so many parents say that it is not worth it to fight a teenager who thinks he or she knows everything?  Is their immortal soul worth that fight?  And when the habit of staying home or at least away from church is established as a teenager, why ever go back?  Or so it seems is the pattern for too many who still call themselves Christians, who might share their personal glory with others at Christmas and Easter, to show how they think they do not need God the other 363 days of the year.

After this short introduction, Agur begins by saying that the Word of God is flawless.  The Word of God is a shield that protects, but it also rebukes.  The Word of God calls some of the people liars.  If what you write is against Holy Scripture, then you are in error at best.

Then, Agur’s plea to God is twofold.  Keep lies from me.  And give me my daily bread.

Of course, Agur has already given us the means of staying away from lies – staying in God’s flawless Word.  And the first eleven chapters of Genesis are part of that Scripture that Agur states is flawless, regardless of what the scientist have invented out of thin air so they can ignore the God that is clearly in the room.  Again, people who a filled with their own hubris, not empty to receive God’s goodness.

As for the daily bread, Agur gives us the reason.  If we have more than we need, we can be tempted to think ‘Who needs God?’  If we do not have enough, we would be tempted to steal, and thus dishonor God.

In these few verses, we discuss the inerrancy of the Scriptures.  We see that what Jesus taught us to pray in the Lord’s Prayer is the logical thing to request.  God, give me what I need today.

I think if I had more than I needed and I awoke without a single pain in my body at the start of the day, I might easily decide that I did not need God.  But I start the day with “Lord, I need your help today.”  Then after nothing moves for a few seconds.  I sometimes add, “Okay, God, I get it.  I have to provide the effort in starting to move, but then you have to help by holding me up.”

And now let us sing.

The following song is Amazing Grace.  This is sung by the Northern Baptist Association Big Sing.  Why did I choose that recording?  I wanted a recording that had the lyrics in the video.  Alan Jackson, Celtic Women, and Celtic Thunder may all sound nice, but they all eliminate the verse I wanted to sing.  These few verses of Proverbs 30 shouted “The Lord has promised good to me, His Word my hope secures; He will my shield and portion be As long as life endures.”  None of those professional groups sang that verse.  I have written about how there are many verses in Amazing Grace that we never sing, but this one is in almost all hymnals.  Maybe they had been given too much and they did not want to attribute getting just what we need as being God’s provision.  Then, others may have edited the verses, and they sang what was on the teleprompter.

Closing Prayer

Dear Lord,
We need Your wisdom.  Help us to value wisdom.  Lord, we laugh when we hear Janis Joplin singing the prayer where she asks God for a Mercedes Benz.  Her friends all have Porsches, and she must make amends.  But we often pray for things we do not need.  You are omniscient.  You love us.  We are more like the Israelites in the wilderness crying about how there is not enough water, or we are sick and tired of this manna.  Forgive us, Lord.  Empty us of our notions of what we need in this world and fill us with Your love to the point of overflowing so that we might bless others.  In thy Name we pray.
Amen

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.