Our hearts
[Proverbs 21:1-4]
If you look at Proverbs 15:13, the Bible says: “A joyful heart makes a cheerful face, But when the heart is sad, the spirit is broken.” In light of this word, I would like to ask you a question: “Do you have a joyful heart or do you have sad heart?” If our heart is joyful, then that joyful heart is “good medicine” for us (17:22). But if our spirit is broken, then it will dry up our bones (v. 22). If there is brokenness in our hearts, our hearts will be sad (15:13).
I would like to receive lessons from Proverbs 21:1-4 while meditating on our hearts in four ways:
First, God directs our hearts.
Look at Proverbs 21:1 – “The king's heart is in the hand of the LORD; he directs it like a watercourse wherever he pleases.” Do you think that the heart of our president is in God's hand? Do you think that even though the president of our country is an unbeliever, his heart is in God’s hand? In Proverbs 21:1, King Solomon says, "The king's heart is in the hands of the Lord." Here, “the king's heart” refers not only to King Solomon himself, but to all kings. Even here, “The king's heart” refers to the hearts of Gentile kings who aren’t the kings of Israel. That means “The king’s heart” includes the hearts of the kings of the Gentiles who don’t believe in God. What King Solomon is saying now is that the hearts of all the kings in the world are in the hands of God. That means that God is directing the hearts of all those kings. For example, God directed not only the heart of King Solomon who believed in God, but also the heart of Pharaoh, king of Egypt who didn’t believe in God. Exodus 10:1-2: “Then the LORD said to Moses, "Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his officials so that I may perform these miraculous signs of mine among them that you may tell your children and grandchildren how I dealt harshly with the Egyptians and how I performed my signs among them, and that you may know that I am the LORD.” As God directed the heart of King Pharaoh, He hardened his heart. What was its purpose? There were two. The first purpose was to show the signs of God among him and his servants. And the second purpose was to convey to the ears of the Israelites and their descendants the signs that God had done among them. Another example is that in the time of Ezra, God also led the heart of King Artaxerxes and made him to order all the treasurers of Trans-Euphrates to province with diligence whatever Ezra might ask of them (Ezra. 7:21). Ezra 7:27-28 tells us why God did this: “Blessed be the LORD, the God of our fathers, who has put such a thing as this in the king's heart, to adorn the house of the LORD which is in Jerusalem, and has extended lovingkindness to me before the king and his counselors and before all the king's mighty princes Thus I was strengthened according to the hand of the LORD my God upon me, and I gathered leading men from Israel to go up with me.” What does it mean? It means that God has a will in the heart of King Artaxerxes to beautify the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem. And God gave Ezra grace, and God's hand was on him. So he was strengthened and made him come up to Jerusalem with the leaders of Israel, and in the end, he made the temple of God beautiful. In this way, God directs the heart of the king “like a watercourse wherever he pleases” (Prov. 21:1b). It means that God directs the heart of the king as He pleases, just as He directs the watercourse according to His will. So the Bible says: “The mind of man plans his way, But the LORD directs his steps” (16:9), “The lot is cast into the lap, But its every decision is from the LORD” (v. 33), “Many plans are in a man's heart, But the counsel of the LORD will stand” (19:21), “Man's steps are ordained by the LORD, How then can man understand his way?” (20:24). Looking at these words, the point is that even if we plan our way with our hearts, only God's will stands completely. In other words, only God's sovereign will will be fulfilled. How, then, should we interpret the case when King Solomon was old and his wives turned his heart to follow other gods? In 1 Kings 11:4, the Bible says, “his heart was not wholly devoted to the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father had been.” In Proverbs 21:1, King Solomon said that God directs the king's heart. But he himself rejected God's guidance and turned his heart to follow the idols his wives served. This was doing evil in the sight of the Lord (1 Kgs. 11:6). King Solomon's heart was not wholly devoted to the Lord his God. This kind of heart is a perverse heart (Prov. 11:20). The lesson we need to learn here is that we, like King Solomon, should not reject God's guidance and live our own way. Rather, we must yield our hearts to God and live according to God's guidance.
Second, God weighs our hearts.
Look at Proverbs 21:2 – “Every man's way is right in his own eyes, But the LORD weighs the hearts.” Are all your actions right in your eyes? Do you think all of your actions are right in your eyes? Among the stories of Samuel that we are familiar with, there is a scene where Samuel goes to Bethlehem by obeying God's word (1 Sam. 16:4) to find out whom God will anoint (v. 6). In that scene, when Samuel saw Eliab among Jesse's sons, and said, “Surely the LORD'S anointed is before Him” (v. 6), God said to him: “… Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart” (v. 7). Even Samuel saw Eliab and thought he was God's Anointing One. The reason is because he saw a person's appearance. In other words, Samuel thought that his way was right in his own eyes, but even he could not look at the heart of a man. So he misrecognized the one who was to be anointed by God. But the Bible clearly says: “But the LORD weighs the hearts” (Prov. 21:2b). Also, in Proverbs 16:2, the Bible says: “All the ways of a man are clean in his own sight, But the LORD weighs the motives.” Proverbs 24:12 says this: “If you say, ‘See, we did not know this, Does He not consider it who weighs the hearts? And does He not know it who keeps your soul? And will He not render to man according to his work?’” What does it mean? It means that the omniscient God knows all of our hearts. God, who weights our hearts and knows our hearts, knows all the thoughts and motives of our hearts. So the psalmist confessed in Psalm 139:1-4: “O LORD, You have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; You understand my thought from afar. You scrutinize my path and my lying down, And are intimately acquainted with all my ways. Even before there is a word on my tongue, Behold, O LORD, You know it all.” God knows us. The Bible says that God knows us clearly. God is saying that there is nothing that He doesn’t know about us. But what is the problem? The problem is that we humans are foolish and mistaken that our ways are right in our own eyes. Look at Proverbs 12:15 – “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, But a wise man is he who listens to counsel.” We humans are foolish and don’t know that we are sinners and say that we are right. Pastor Yoon-sun Park said five reasons why humans cannot see their sins: (1) It is because they forget their sins in the past, and (2) because they cannot predict their future sins. And (3) it is because, even though they feel hardly that they have done something wrong, they don’t know how much they are short before God. (4) This is because they don’t know that not believing in God is the biggest cause, and (5) their heart is false, and they have the thought of defending their wrongdoings (Park). Our sin that is even more foolish than this is to try to deceive the God who weighs our hearts (Job 13:9). The reason for doing so is because we humans think that the Lord won’t call us to account (Ps. 10:13). The reason is because we are proud (v. 4).
Our God is a God who sees (Gen. 16:13). From heaven God looks down and sees all mankind (Ps. 33:13). He looks to the ends of the earth and sees everything under the heavens (Job. 28:24). “The eyes of the LORD are in every place, Watching the evil and the good” (Prov. 15:13). God sees our iniquities (Ps. 130:3). And God sees our affliction (Lam. 1:9). His eyes are upon the ways of a man, and He sees all his steps (Job 34:21). The righteous God tries the hearts and minds (Ps. 7:9). God not only examines our actions, but also sees and knows all of our hearts (Park).
Third, God desires the hearts that do righteousness and justice.
Look at Proverbs 21:3 – “To do righteousness and justice Is desired by the LORD more than sacrifice.” Remember what Samuel said to King Saul that “Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice” (1 Sam. 15:22)? Apparently Samuel said to King Saul, “Has the LORD as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices As in obeying the voice of the LORD?” (v. 22) When I meditate on this word again, I think that we too, like King Saul, are loving and serving God from our standpoint. In other words, since we think that God likes worship, we try to prepare Sunday worship from our point of view. But aren’t we living six days after worship disobeying the word of God? The reason is because from God's point of view, we are more pleased to live a life of obedience to God's word than to offer such worship to God countless times. In Proverbs 21:3, King Solomon says that God is more pleased with doing righteousness and justice than in offering sacrifices to God. In other words, God is pleased that we worship God, but what is more joyful than that is that we do righteousness and justice in this world. However, if we reflect on this word, King Solomon went to Gibeon and offered a thousand burnt offerings at the altar of the great high place (1 Kgs. 3:4). But when he was old, his 1,000 women turned his heart and made him follow other gods (11 :3-4) and disobeyed God's command. As I meditated on this fact, this thought came to me: ‘When we worship God 1,000 times, Satan deceives us by his 1,000 servants. From our point of view, we may think that having a thousand worships to God will be pleasing to God. But from God's point of view, we are more delighted to obey God's first command.’ In regard to sacrifices, God demands our religious and ethical obedience from our hearts rather than sacrifices. That religious ethical obedience is to obey God's commands and to do righteousness and justice. However, the Israelites in the days of the prophet Isaiah didn’t practice righteousness and justice, but offered sacrifices while receiving countless offerings to God (Isa. 1:11). Regarding these sacrifices, God said: “What are your multiplied sacrifices to Me?” (v. 11), “I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams And the fat of fed cattle; And I take no pleasure in the blood of bulls, lambs or goats” (v. 11), “When you come to appear before Me, Who requires of you this trampling of My courts?” (v. 12), “"Bring your worthless offerings no longer, Incense is an abomination to Me New moon and sabbath, the calling of assemblies-- I cannot endure iniquity and the solemn assembly” (v. 13), “I hate your new moon festivals and your appointed feasts, They have become a burden to Me; I am weary of bearing them” (v. 14). The prophet Jeremiah said, neglecting to obey God's word, and offering sacrifices was nothing more than to give relief to a criminal life (Jere. 7:8-10) (Park). Look at Jeremiah 7:8-10: “But look, you are trusting in deceptive words that are worthless. 'Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal and follow other gods you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which bears my Name, and say, ‘We are safe’-safe to do all these detestable things?” In the end, the Israelites lied, stole, murdered, committed adultery, swore false swearing, and committed the sin of idolatry. But they entered the temple of God and said in front of God, “We are safe” – “safe to do all these detestable things” (v. 10). If we apply this to us, we say that since we believe in Jesus and saved, we will never lose our salvation. So we go out to into the world and commit sins. And we go up to the Lord's house every Sunday and say, ’Once we are saved, we are saved forever.’ We think that we are safe because we have already been saved. God is never pleased with our act of worship that we offer to God as we comfort and reassure ourselves like this.
It is right worship and right life that God is pleased with. It is that God is pleased when we live a life of worship that obeys God's word along with worship that is appropriate in God's sight. That God's word says that it is to do righteousness and justice (Prov. 21:3). Why should we do righteousness and justice? The reason is because the Lord executes justice and righteousness (Ps. 99:4). And the reason is because those who keep justice and practice righteousness are blessed (106:3).
Fourth and last, the heart that God regards as a sin is a proud heart.
Look at Proverbs 21:4 – “Haughty eyes and a proud heart, The lamp of the wicked, is sin.” Here King Solomon points out three sins. In other words, he is saying that there are three things that God considers to be sinful.
(1) “Haughty eyes”
Here, “haughty eyes” refers to ‘a person looking to get something beyond his degree or limit.’ Such a person has an empty heart and even pretends to be such a high person (Park). So the psalmist David said: “O LORD, my heart is not proud, nor my eyes haughty; Nor do I involve myself in great matters, Or in things too difficult for me” (Ps. 131:1). David tried not to be proud of his heart. He tried to keep his eyes low. So he didn't work on his big things and wonder that he couldn’t reach. We may be able to say that we have done great things by faith and that taking adventures outwardly in order to achieve the vision that the Lord has given us. But it only expresses our desire to achieve ambitions in our hearts.
(2) “a proud heart”
Here, the pride of the heart is indeed a more terrifying and dangerous sin because the pride in the heart doesn’t manifest outwardly and is latent. Such pride is difficult to control (Park). We shouldn't think beyond our degree or limit. We shouldn't be striving for a big thing that is beyond our degree or limit. In other words, we shouldn't go too far (Num. 16:7). Rather, we must not boast beyond our measure, as the apostle Paul said in 2 Corinthians 10:13, 15. And we should think, speak and act “according to the proportion of his (our) faith” (Rom. 12:6). The reason we should not be proud is because “Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before stumbling” (Prov. 16:18). The reason is because “Before his downfall a man's heart is proud” (18:12).
(3) “the lamp of the wicked”
I think there is no sin as dangerous as the wicked prosper in the midst of haughty eyes and pride. Especially if their eyes haughty and their hearts are proud, but they aren’t in trouble as other men and no plagues like mankind (Ps. 73:5), then how much more will their eyes be haughty and their hearts be proud? Also, if their income is more than the wishes of their heart (v. 7), always at ease and have increased in wealth (v. 12), and their body is fat (v. 4), how much more will the wicked be proud? The end of the wicked (v. 17) is destruction (v. 18), utterly swept away by sudden terrors (v. 19). The prosperity of the wicked, their haughty eyes, and the proud heart are considered sin by God (Prov. 21:4).
We must be humble in heart. We must be with the lowly (16:19). Each of us should be humble and think of others better than ourselves (Phil. 2:3). What is the reason? The reason is because before honor comes humility (Prov. 15:33; 18:12). The reason is because God gives grace to the humble (3:34; Jam. 4:6; 1 Pet. 5:5). The reason is because God will save the humble people (Job 22:29). I hope and pray that we can all have the humble heart of Jesus (Phil. 2:5).
Our hearts are in the hands of God. What we should not forget is that God is directing our hearts. And it is the fact that God weighs our hearts. Therefore, we must do righteousness and justice that God desires. And we must abandon the proud heart that God regards as a sin and have a humble heart.