Proverbs 19:19

A man of great wrath shall suffer punishment: for if you deliver him, yet you must do it again.

There are men who get angry, and then there is the angry man who is characterized by that sin. Those poor souls that must interact with the angry man find themselves “walking on eggshells” so as not to irritate him to even the slightest degree. For if he is irritated, there is no telling what he will say or do. Inevitably, the angry man will suffer the consequences of his angry ways. When he loses his temper in the presence of a police officer, for example, he is remanded to the jail for “resisting arrest.” When anger gets the better of him in the courtroom later, again he serves more time in prison for “contempt of the court.” When his family or his friends intervene in an attempt to “fix” the problems he gets himself into, they find that they must do it again and again. They soon discover that it is better that he face the miserable consequences of his miserable habit than to get involved with him. Of course, this means that his family will suffer because of his foolish anger. Until the man repents of his anger problem in humility, it would be far better to minister in little ways to his family members than to minister to him.

Proverbs 19:20

Hear counsel, and receive instruction, that you may be wise in your latter end.

Some trees or plants that do not receive adequate water early in their growth cycle will fail to grow to full maturity and produce adequate fruit. Even if the plant is nurtured well later in its growth cycle, for lack of early care, the plant languishes. It is therefore important that the plant receive the nourishing water and nutrients early on, that it might bear fruit a year or two later. The same principle applies to a young man or woman. Should a young man reject the wisdom provided him in his early years, and should the soil of the heart be hard to the watering of the Word, he may very well find wisdom coming harder in the later years. What happens to those teenage rebels and scoffers who grow up in Christian homes with access to good wisdom and instruction but throw off those blessings? Generally, they will find wisdom harder to come by in their later years. This is not to say that they cannot pick up some wisdom later on, but it would have been so much better if they had received it in their younger years.

Proverbs 19:21

There are many devices in a man’s heart; nevertheless the counsel of the LORD, that shall stand.

The Humanist Manifesto was a document issued by a group of highly influential leaders in this country shortly after the turn of the 20th century. These proud men wrote, “Man is at last becoming aware that he alone is responsible for the realization of the world of his dreams, that he has within himself the power for its achievement. He must set intelligence and will to the task.”

The authors of this document really believed that man is in control of his own destiny. Whatever man would become by the year 2200 A.D. or 2500 A.D. would be entirely dependent upon the plans and intents of his own heart. Man’s will, therefore, becomes the hinge point upon which reality swings. You must understand that this is the very heart and soul of humanism. Yet, the present text flatly contradicts such a metaphysical theory.

Never has man been more confident in his own planning. He really believes that he can predestine the future! Tens of thousands of bureaucrats plan the social conditions of the next generation through education funding in this country each year. They control the curriculum, the sexual behavior, the family size, the economic systems, and the political opinions of the next generation. The United Nations Population Fund issued its goals in the early part of the 21st century, aiming to end poverty in the world by the year 2015! Never in the history of the world has so much of the world’s mass been controlled by large centralized governments. But all of this will come to nought!

“The LORD brings the counsel of the heathen to nought: He makes the devices of the people of none effect. The counsel of the LORD stands for ever, the thoughts of His heart to all generations.”  Psalm 33:10–11

Men may make all the plans in the world, and those plans may come to fruition, or they may rot in the ash heap of history. But the wise plans, purposes, and counsels of our eternal, covenant-keeping God will always and forever stand.

There are many implications to such a basic metaphysical perspective of reality and history. When men reject the sovereignty of God in favor of the sovereignty of man, they reject an extremely basic biblical truth. Either God determines what will happen or man is the ultimate determinant, else we must leave it up to pure chance in a meaningless universe. Which will it be? We may plan to launch a successful business, or we may plan to bring a relative to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ—and we may work diligently to those ends—but our success is always in the hands of God. It is His purpose that will stand! At the least this calls us to humility before God. For He can shift the direction of our lives, and the direction of our organizations and empires anytime He so desires. The founders of this country well understood this truth, as George Washington said in his memorable words at the Constitutional Convention: “Let us raise a standard to which the wise and the honest can repair. The event is in the hand of God.”

Family Discussion Questions:

1. How can anger ruin the life of a man (and his family)? What is an “angry man”? What can you do with an angry man?

2. Children, are your hearts soft to wisdom in your early years? Do you strive to understand the lessons that your parents teach you? Or are you bored, disinterested, and hard-hearted as you sit in family worship or in church?

3. Who is the ultimate determinant of what will happen in history?

4. When men believe that they control the future, what will they do with their governments? What do you think God thinks about this?

5. Do we trust in governments to determine the future for us, or are we trusting in God?