Well, let us turn to that short
portion of Holy Scripture we were reading at the beginning
of Proverbs, chapter 30. I'll read again the first three
verses of the chapter. Proverbs 30, verses 1 to 3. The words of Agor, the son of
J.K., even the prophecy. The man spake unto Ithiel, even
unto Ithiel and Uchel, Surely I am more brutish than any man.
and have not the understanding of a man. I neither learned wisdom,
nor have the knowledge of the Holy." Considering then this
portion of God's Word for a little while this evening, we might
ask you, is it that he's speaking these words, we have these strange
names, Agor and Jacob, What is the meaning of these names? Well,
the name Ako literally means the gatherer. The gatherer. JK literally means harkening. And the reference, no doubt,
is to Solomon because we're told, aren't we, at the beginning of
the book what he contains, the Proverbs of Solomon, the son
of David, king of Israel. And he was very much a man that
hearkened, and a man that gathered, and we see that in the book that
follows, which is also part of the writings of King Solomon,
the words of the preacher, the son of David. King in Jerusalem,
we're told there at the beginning of Ecclesiastes. And then when
we come to the end of that book, chapter 12 and verse 9, And moreover,
because the preacher was wise, he still taught the people knowledge,
yea, he gave good heed, and sought out, and set in order many proverbs. The preacher sought to find out
acceptable words, and that which was written was upright, even
words of truth. He was a gatherer. he would hearken
and what he found and what under the leadings of the Spirit he
found to be profitable we find recorded then in this wisdom
literature the writings of King Solomon in 1st Kings 4.32 we're
told he spake three thousand proverbs and his songs were one
thousand and five. Now we have many of his proverbs
in scripture but we only have one song that is the song of
Solomon that was written of course under the inspiration of the
Holy Spirit but not all of his gatherings were inspired of God. What we have in scripture is
not so much then the words of King Solomon, but the words of
God. And as I said, I just want us
this evening for a while to look at these opening three verses
here in chapter 30. The words of Agor, the son of
J.K., even the prophecy, the man spake unto Ithiel, even unto
Ithiel and Ukal, Surely I am more brutish than any man, and
have not the understanding of a man. I neither learned wisdom,
nor have the knowledge of the Holy." What a remarkable confession
this is, because he was, of course, one of the wisest of men. And
God granted him that special gift of holy wisdom. But he felt his need for an understanding
heart. And of course, last Thursday
evening we were considering another part of the book and what he
says there in chapter 8 at verse 5 remember the words that we have
there oh you simple understand wisdom and you fools be of an
understanding heart he would exhort others that they should
seek after a wise and an understanding heart and that was surely what
he desired for himself and as I say it's what God favoured
him with and yet he still makes his acknowledgement in the portion
here. But let us consider the words and first of all to say
something of the confession. It's a confession of ignorance. Notice the reference here to
man. I am more brutish than any man. and have not the understanding
of a man. Man, the most noble of all the
creatures that God ever created. Now, when God comes to create
the man, he consults with himself. There's a council between the
persons in the garden, father, son, and Holy Ghost. Let us make man in our image
and after our likeness. And so God makes a man, makes
his body of the dust of the earth breathe into his nostrils a breath
of life. He becomes a living soul and
we're told how God looks upon all that work that he had made
at the end of the sixth day and behold it was very good. Behold it was very good. There is man, he set over all
the rest of creation, he is to replenish the earth, to subdue
it, to have dominion. There is that verse in Genesis
1.28 that's referred to as the cultural
mandate, where the man is set over all of God's creature. He's God's vicegerent, as it
were. He's in the place of God here
upon the earth, and creation is there to serve the man. Now, remarkable, all the animals
are brought to Adam, and he gives names to every one of those creatures. What an intellect! was man favoured
with, there at the beginning when we see him pristine, coming
from the hand of his Creator, made in God's image, created
after God's likeness. But then, what do we leave? Our two points here with regards
to this confession. It's a confession of ignorance
that we have in these verses. And what is the reason? Well,
there's man's fault of course, man's fault into seeing how quickly
man falls. We have only two chapters that
deal with the creation. The second chapter, of course,
goes into somewhat more detail with regards to the manner in
which God created the man. But then, immediately after that,
in chapter 3 of Genesis, we have the solemn, the sad account of
the fall of our first parents. And here in Ecclesiastes 7.29,
Solomon declares, Lo, this only have I found. God made man upright,
and they have sought out many inventions. Or the very posture
of man as he stands erect upon the earth, indicating his fellowship
with God in heaven, that they seek out many inventions. There's that verse in Psalm 49,
the twelfth verse, man being in honour abideth not a die man
being in honour abideth not a die it's interesting
the words that are used there the word man is literally the
word Adam The Hebrew word Adam and abide does literally mean
to stay or to lodge one night. There are those who say that
the psalmist here is recognizing the fact that no sooner was the
man created than within 24 hours he had fallen into sin. Oh no wonder here concerning
man. The king says surely I am more
brutish than any man. And have not the understanding
of a man, how great is the fault of man. Again in another of the
Psalms, Psalm 73, verse 22, So foolish was I and ignorant, I
was as a beast before thee. And it's interesting, that particular
verse, because you may observe in your Bibles that the word
as is in italics, and we know the significance of that. It's
a word that's been brought in, introduced by the translators. It's not a rendering of any word
that is there in the original. It indicates that they understand
the statement to be a simile. So foolish was I and ignorant
I was as. a beast, but it's not really
a simile. What is the psalmist saying?
The word, the noun for beast is a plural, and we might say
the fact that it's a plural indicates a superlative. He's making a
remarkable statement. So foolish was I and ignorant,
I was beasts. I was beasts before the And in
many ways, we might say that the man is really worse than
the beasts. Remember the language of the
Prophet Isaiah, writing there in the opening chapter of his
book. And what does he say? Right at the beginning of the
book really, in verse 3 of that opening chapter, "...the ox knoweth
his owner, and the ass his master's crib, But Israel doth not know. My people doth not consider. O thou worse than brute beasts. Worse than the beasts. And this
is that man that was made and created to be the image-bearer
of God himself. Again the psalmist says, Be ye
not as the horse or as the mule which hath no understanding.
whose mouth must be held in by bit and bridle, lest he come
near unto you." Now men stand in need of such an exhortation.
The folly of men, they have no understanding. And that's the
complaint that King Solomon is making. I have not the understanding
of a man, he says. He's not what he was when he
came from the hand of his maker. We see these things time and
again. Another exhortation or a word that we find in the Psalms.
Psalm 94 verse 8, Understand ye brutish among the people and
ye fools, when will ye be wise? And all of this is the result
and the consequence of the fall. How it has affected man in all
the faculties of his soul. how his understanding is darkened,
how he's alienated from the life of God through the ignorance
that is in him, because of the blindness of his heart. We see then why there must be
such a confession as this, a confession of such ignorance, because man
is a fallen creature. It's the consequence of man's
rebellion. It's the evidence that he's now
in a state of sin. He's in the dark. And he's separated
from his God. And then also there is the matter
of man's inability to right his condition, to rectify himself. Jeremiah says, every man is brutish
in his knowledge. And the margin there shows how
the language in the original of the Hebrew is much more pointed
and pregnant. The margin says, is more brutish
than to know. Every man is more brutish than
to know. He cannot know. Of himself he
can never come to any true knowledge of God. Again, that word in the
73rd Psalm that we referred to. So, foolish was I and ignorant. And the margin again gives another
rendering and indicates what the word ignorant means. I know not. So foolish was I
I know not. A sinner's man has no innate
ability to know anything with regards to God, and the ways
of God, and the things of God, and the word of God. The natural
man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God. Their foolishness
to him neither can he know them, because they are spiritually
discerned. This is man in his native ignorance. The carnal mind, the natural
mind is enmity against God, it is not subject to the Lord of
God, neither indeed can be. How the scriptures end, if we
come to any proper understanding of them, if our eyes are open
to the truth of them, how they can only bring humility into
the souls of men. Or when God is manifest in the
flesh, when we come to the New Testament, the fullness of the time, that
that God had ordained from all eternity, the great mystery of
Godliness, God's manifest in the flesh. We read there in the
Gospels of the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ and how few
really, how few received his ministry and the multitude rejected
him he comes to his own, his own receive him not but he declares
doesn't he no man can come to me except the father that has
sent me draw him no man can come except he is
drawn of the father It is a truth that we have to learn and we're
learning it in a sense all our days when Paul writes to a church,
writes to the church at Corinth. He reminds them not that we are
sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves. Our
sufficiency is of God. We have not the ability of ourselves
to think one right thought with regards to the things of God. it's not just a matter of the
fall and the ignorance that has come because of the darkness
of our minds it's also the matter that we can do nothing to help
ourselves and to come to any right understanding of God or
the ways of God and so we find the wise man uttering such words
as we have here at the beginning of this 30th chapter surely I
am more brutish than any man and have not the understanding
of a man, I neither learned wisdom, nor have the knowledge of the
whole." Now he's speaking that simply in terms of what he is.
Though he be the son of David, the man after God's own heart,
he was a man like all others born dead in trespasses and sins. All that he would ever have All
that he would ever have, I should say, was only by the grace of
God. But let us turn in the second
place to the beginning of wisdom. Wisdom that comes with the knowledge
of God. We think of those words of the
Lord Jesus, those remarkable words that we have in the 17th
of John, the Lord's prayer, that high priestly prayer, What does
he say at verse 3? And this is life eternal. To
know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast
sent. It's eternal life. To have that
knowledge. To know God as He has revealed
Himself in the person of His only begotten Son, the Lord Jesus
Christ. but also with that knowledge
that we must have of God and that full and final revelation
in Christ the image of the invisible God there must also come that
knowledge of ourselves surely I am more brutish than any man
he says and have not the understanding of a man he knows himself and
we have to know ourselves and remember right at the beginning
of his great work on the Christian Institutes Calvin makes the statement
that there are two branches of knowledge that he's going to
deal with the content of his book can be summed up in those
two branches that is the knowledge of God and the knowledge of ourselves
the knowledge of God and the knowledge of ourselves. How important
is this knowledge? When that image of God that was
lost in the fall is restored in the soul of the sinner, and
it is restored in the great work of regeneration, the new birth,
what happens? Colossians 3.10, men then put
on the new man. or they are partakers now of
the divine nature. There's a new man. Yes, there's
the old man, but there's a new man. And they put on the new
man, it says, which is renewed in knowledge after the image
of him that created it. There is that renewal then of
the knowledge of God. But thinking of how that knowledge
entails those two things. First, to say something with
the knowledge of self. It's a good prayer, isn't it?
To pray when we come before God and to ask that God would teach
us something about ourselves and something about himself.
Show me myself. Show me thyself. Those two petitions
that we ought to utter when we come before him in prayer that
God would dying to do that, to show me myself, and to show me
thyself. In a sense we should really reverse
the order. First we need to know who God
is, and then we will know and see what we are. As I've said
many a time, what we have in Holy Scripture is the Word of
God, it's a revelation of God. God reveals himself. He reveals
Himself in His works. The Psalmist reminds us of that,
the heavens declaring God's glory, the whole firmament showing His
handiwork. He is the creator of the heavens
and the earth, and all of these speak to us, don't they? Of His
greatness and His glory. But God has also spoken to us
in His Word. He reveals Himself here. and
so when we come to God's word and we look into God's word and
we read God's word as those who were made in his image we should
see the reflection of ourselves as it were. James speaks of us
doesn't he being like those who see their face in a glass in
a mirror and then go their way and forget what manner of men
and women they are. What we see alas is so distressing
we're not what we were when God created us when God created the
man how that image has been defaced, defigured, lost all we see ourselves
in the word of God and it's not a pleasant experience at all
when we see how sadly we've fallen the guy in the language of Ecclesiastes
Chapter 3 verse 18 I said in mine heart concerning the estate
of the sons of men that God might manifest them and that they might
see that they themselves are beasts that they might see that
they themselves are beasts and worse than beasts as we were
just saying. Oh the sad condition of men and
it's a ministry principally of the Lord of Gods what things
whoever the law said it said to them were under the law that
every mouth may be stopped and all the world become guilty before
God. Oh God's holy law stops our mouths
before shorts continually fall short of the glory of God. We don't measure up to those
commandments. Now the Lord Jesus expounds the vigor of that law,
the spirituality of that law. And even a pharisee, the most
self-righteous man like Saul of Tarsus was brought to see
that he really knew nothing of the law, though he thought himself
a keeper of the law. Touching the righteousness which
is in the law, blameless, that was his boast. but then when
he showed the true character and nature of that Lord, the
spirituality of it, he saw that he was a sinner in
the sight of a holy God. Again, the language of the Psalms,
Psalm 92, 5 and 6, O Lord, how great are thy works, and thy
thoughts are very deep. A brutish man knoweth not Neither
does the fool understand this. It's all of a piece really, it's
the same as what we have here in the text. I neither learn
wisdom, nor have the knowledge of the whole. All the knowledge
of ourselves, the realization of our ignorance, when we're
in that state of alienation from God. but then there is also the
knowledge of God and that knowledge is truly all
together beyond us as we read in Job 11 canst thou by searching
find out God? canst thou find out the almighty
unto perfection? it is high as heaven what canst
thou do deeper than hell? what canst thou know? the measure
thereof is longer than the earth and broader than the seas or the infinity that belongs
to God the great God who fills heaven and earth we cannot find
him out and yet God can be known why? because God is pleased to
reveal himself that was Paul's blessed experience he pleased
God he says to reveal his son in me or to know that revelation
of God into our souls which was the experience of the apostle
who is a pattern to them who should hereafter believe he says in principle you see we must
know something of that experience we won't know the depth of that
man's experiences he was called to be an apostle None of us will
ever be called to that work. He was the Apostle to the Gentiles. But we need to know that gracious
revelation that was Paul's blessed experience. God can be known
because God reveals himself. You know, striking are the words
that follow the text. Here in verse 4, who was ascended
up into heaven or descended? who hath gathered the wind in
his fist, who hath bound the waters in a garment, who hath
established all the ends of the earth. What is his name? And
what is his son's name, if thou canst tell?" What is his son's
name? Solomon is clearly speaking here
of the Lord Jesus Christ who is
the eternal son of God. What is his son's name? When we come to the wisdom literature,
as with every other part of Holy Scripture, we find it speaks
of Christ. Because Christ is everywhere.
From Genesis right through to Revelation. Yes, there's a progression
in Revelation as we have it here in Holy Scripture. In the Old
Testament things are set forth in tides and shadows. The fullness
of the Revelation comes with the New Testament. But Christ
is there, throughout the Bible, and is here in the book of Proverbs. And when we read any part of
Scripture, we should ask that God would give us eyes to behold
the wonder of the person. and the work of the Lord Jesus
Christ. What is His Son's name? Who is this Lord Jesus? Well,
He is, of course, the Wisdom of God. As Paul says to the Corinthians,
"...of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom,
and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption." He's the wisdom
of his people. If any man lacks wisdom, he's
to ask of God who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth
not, but he's to ask in faith. Oh, we're to pray in faith that
God would deliver us from our ignorance, our brutishness, that
God would grant us an understanding mind, a wise believing heart, It is the Lord Jesus Christ who
is that one who has come to reveal God to sinners. He is the image
of the invisible God, as we've said. No man has seen God at
any time. The only begotten Son which is
in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him. And who is
it that Solomon is addressing? He's the hearer, he's the gatherer,
he's gathering these Proverbs. it's all prophecy and then we're
told at the end of verse 1 the man spake unto Ithiel and even
unto Ithiel and Eucharist now Dr. Gill remarks that this name
Ithiel literally means God is with me God is with me isn't
that similar to the name Emmanuel? that we have there in Isaiah
7.14, Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and
shall call his name Immanuel. That one born of the virgin,
the Lord Jesus, he is Immanuel, the great mystery of godliness,
God, manifest in the flesh. And then this other word, this
other name, Ukel, even unto Ithiel and Ukel, we're told that that
literally means the Mighty One. Ithiel, God with me, is the Mighty One. And so we're reminded, aren't
we, of the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. all that one who
comes is able to save and to save to the uttermost all those
that believe in it it is life eternal to know this one to know
God and Jesus Christ whom God has sent because he is God and
he is here as I say in this book of Proverbs and of course last
week we did actually read through that great 8th chapter where
wisdom speaks then was I by him as one brought up with him I
was daily as delight rejoicing always before him oh what is
his name what is his son's name remember how he's spoken of so
remarkably there in that 8th chapter of verse 22 following
he says I was set up from everlasting from the beginning or ever the
earth was he is before creation he is the creator when there were no depths I was
brought forth when there were no fountains abounding with water
before the mountains was settled before the hills was I brought
forth while as yet he had not made the earth nor the fields
nor the highest part of the dust of the world when he prepared
the heavens I was there when he set a compass upon the face
of the dead and so on he is that one who is eternally begotten of the
Father oh this is the glory of the Lord
Jesus Christ then isn't it the word made flesh dwelling amongst
us and we beholding his glory the only begotten of the father
full of grace and truth but what does Christ do? he comes just
where his people are he goes on there in that 8th chapter
at verse 31 to declare that he was rejoicing in the habitable
part of his earth and my delights were with the sons of men Even
from everlasting His delights were with the sons of men. There
were that people that were given to Him by the Father in the eternal
covenant. And how He longed and yearned
after them. And how He comes in the fullness
of the time to save them. And what does Christ do? He comes
exactly where His people are. This is the amazing thing. For
we read of God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful
flesh and for sin. Or he comes to sit just where
they sat. As was the case with the ministry
of the Prophet Ezekiel, he has to go into the captivity, he
has to sit where they sat. The Lord Jesus, the great Prophet
of God, has to sit where his people sat. Man a fallen creature. man so
brutish? And what does the Lord Jesus
say in the midst of all his sufferings? We have it there in Psalm 22,
I am a worm, a no man, the reproach of men, and despised of the people. Oh, the Lord Jesus uses those
words concerning himself, that's how much he identifies with his
people. Solomon says surely I am more
brutish than any man and have not the understanding of a man
I neither learned wisdom nor have the knowledge of the wholeness
or the wonder then of what the Lord Jesus Christ came to do
in bringing sinners to himself there is the necessity you see
as we see in what Paul says to Timothy of a sound mind there is that new man renewed
in knowledge after the image of him that created him. We're
not to despise the intellectual aspect of what we are as men
and women. We know that saving fate is more
than just a matter of assenting with our minds. There's also
that experience whereby we come to trust in the Lord and to lean
upon him and to rest in him for all our salvation all but the
wonder of what the Lord God has done in the person and work of
the Lord Jesus and he's here even in these words of King Solomon
Isaac Watts says in the hymn and I'll close with the verse
till God in human flesh I see my thoughts no comfort find the
holy just and sacred three are terrors to my mind. Oh God grant
that we might see then something of the wonder of what God has
done for us in the gift of His only begotten Son. What is His
name? What is His Son's name if they
can tell? Thank God we can tell. We know
and we confess that there is none other in whom salvation
can be found but the Lord Jesus Christ well God bless his word
to us let us before we come to prayer sing the hymn 748 the tune Meriton
366 in darkness born I went astray and wondered from the gospel
why, and since the Saviour gave me sight, I cannot see without
His light. 7482366