“Then Ahab the king of Israel replied, “Tell him, ‘Let not him who girds on his armor boast like him who takes it off.’”
1 Kings 20:11
Well, I won’t lie.
I think it’s pretty funny that a guy who barely made it out of public school with a 1.8 GPA is speaking to the student body of New Saint Andrews.
I wish my public high school guidance counselor could see this…
My junior year she tried to talk me into taking another language course.
French, as I recall. She told me it would help me get into a better college like it helped her. I was a do the bare minimum sort of guy back then…
So I refused. I told her that wasn’t a major concern of mine.
Kept trying to persuade me and I kept refusing.
This eventually angered her and she said, "Michael, you’re not going to amount to anything.”
I replied, “That may be but I know one thing.”
She said, “What’s that?”
“I know that at least I won’t be a high school guidance counselor.”
And here I am presenting at NSA’s macchiato!
What’s with that name?
Why is this thing named after a Starbucks drink?
Well, I told folks on Facebook that I was speaking to you guys.
I asked them what I should speak about but only gave wrong answers only.
I got 168 replies. Want to hear a few?
How to rightly discern your enneagram
How Watching Anime Gives You Autism
Should we continue in cringe so that based may abound
Why loving your neighbor means doing anything the government says
Slay the Girl, Get the Dragon
Doug Wilson is a poo poo head and sweater vests are stupid
Emily: The Secret Connection Between Monsanto and Essential Oils
So what is this talk about?
It’s about insults.
To be precise, it’s about the blessing of a good insult.
I love insults.
I grew up on Yo Mama jokes.
Yo Mama jokes were a rite passage in the 90s…
Yo mama is so hairy Bigfoot takes pictures of her.
Yo mama's so stupid, when I said, "Drinks on the house," she got a ladder.
Yo mama's so fat, she was overthrown by a small militia group, and now she's known as the Republic of Yo Mama.
Anyways, I like them when I’m their object too.
I spoke at this secular men’s conference and some gay pastor, like as in a sodomite, that got booted from the PCA hopped on the video of the talk and commented on my clothing.
He said, “What is the deal with his clothing? Did two different people dress him?”
It was great. I did kind of look that way. So it made me chuckle and it made me like him a little. I mean, I still blocked him but whatever.
My favorite insulter in church history is Martin Luther. He’s epic. He would have been a master of Twitter and YouTube comments.
Just a few of his…
“You people are more stupid than a block of wood.”
“For you are an excellent person, as skillful, clever, and versed in Holy Scripture as a cow in a walnut tree or a sow on a harp.”
“You seem to me to be a real masterpiece of the devil’s art.”
My favorite insult in Scripture and the brief text I want to consider this afternoon is found in 1 Kings 20:11.
Basically, the context of this verse is two kings, Ben-hadad and the infamously ungodly Ahab, taunting each other.
Again, it reads…
“Then Ahab the king of Israel replied, “Tell him, ‘Let not him who girds on his armor boast like him who takes it off.’”
Prior to battle, back in the day, you harness or gird your armor to your body and after the battle has been fought you unharness your armor take it off.
So Ahab is essentially saying it’s easy to talk big outside the ring but let’s see happens when you actually step inside the ropes.In other words, you ain’t done nothing yet.
Now how is the insult of a wayward idol-worshipping king valuable wisdom and instruction for us and you in particular?
First, let’s agree that you can mine wisdom from the dark caves of pagan minds. Paul quoted the pagan poets, Calvin Cicero, and I’ve learn quite a bit from Jocko Willink.
Spurgeon puts it this way:
“On a dunghill a diamond sometimes has been picked up; it is not to be rejected because of the place where it lay.”
Such should be our general attitude: proceed with caution but do proceed.
Why is this valuable wisdom for you, young men and women of NSA? I can’t improve on Spurgeon so I’ll quote him again:
“The text is peculiarly adapted to those who are commencing the battle of the Christian life…It will do also for young men and women who are commencing life for themselves, lately married, beginning housekeeping and intending to do so well; opening the new shop with such fair prospects; moving to the new farm with such bright hopes.
It may be a word in season to such. Girding on the harness, you have not put it off yet, and therefore do not boast. It will do for my new students who have just come to college. May they be preserved from the tendency to boast, which is natural enough, and is as silly as it is natural. Perhaps I address some young minister who is commencing his ministry, or some worker for Christ who has begun in the Sabbath school, or taken a district for distributing tracts, or entered upon some other new labor. There are many other things which I need not mention here, but which each one can think of for himself, more especially if he happens to be in the condition intended. ‘Let not him that girdeth on his harness boast himself as he that putteth it off.’”
So this insult is a good warning for you. Young people can be proud and especially so when they know Latin and attend an academically rigorous college such as this one.
And, make no mistake, it is a good thing to know Latin and labor under rigor…
…if you possess humility.
“God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
Thus, an insult can be helpful if it deflates, that is humbles, an inflated proud spirit.The best digs, the best insults, are those which accentuate something true about the object of the insult.
This can be hard for women to get.Men insult each other but don’t really mean it just as, often, women compliment each other and don’t mean it.
But, perhaps, let’s move away for the form of an insult for a moment and simply get the substance of the matter:
which is speaking hard things that most people aren’t keen to hear.
Proverbs 27:5-6 read, “Better is open rebuke than hidden love. Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy.”
These certainly aren’t verses you commonly hear Christians or even pastors quote. I think most Christians would be very pleased to just ignore them as they run counter to the conventional thinking about godly speech.
However, these verses contain truths that are essential if you are going strap on your armor and go hard at life…
I love Matthew Henry’s exposition of these gems:
“It is good for us to be reproved, and told of our faults, by our friends. If true love in the heart has but zeal and courage enough to show itself in dealing plainly with our friends, and reproving them for what they say and do amiss, this is really better, not only than secret hatred (as Lev. 19:17), but than secret love, that love to our neighbors which does not show itself in this good fruit, which compliments them in their sins, to the prejudice of their souls.
Faithful are the reproofs of a friend, though for the present they are painful as wounds. It is a sign that our friends are faithful indeed if, in love to our souls, they will not suffer sin upon us, nor let us alone in it. The physician’s care is to cure the patient’s disease, not to please his palate. It is dangerous to be caressed and flattered by an enemy, whose kisses are deceitful We can take no pleasure in them because we can put no confidence in them (Joab’s kiss and Judas’s were deceitful), and therefore we have need to stand upon our guard, that we be not deluded by them; they are to be deprecated. Some read it: The Lord deliver us from an enemy’s kisses, from lying lips, and from a deceitful tongue.”
Ahab, in a roundabout way, was a friend to Ben-Hadad.
Because Ben-Hadad eventually got his rear handed to him in battle. His arrogance undid him. He wasn’t ready just as Ahab warned. In that sense, that good insult was a blessing.
There is such a thing as mean-spirited unkind ungodly speech and therefore some insults are truly sinful.
But it’s not the hard words that you have to be concerned about as much as the smooth and soft words.
Smooth words are flattering words that go-down easy and puff up the willing recipients.
Consider just a few Bible verses on the wickedness of flattery:
"For such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery they deceive the minds of naive people." Rom 16:1
"You know we never used flattery, nor did we put on a mask to cover up greed—God is our witness." 1 Thess 2:5
"Whoever flatters his neighbor is spreading a net for his feet." Pr 29:5
Flattery is always used by ungodly men to mask their true intentions. These men might appear to be kind but they are setting a snare by feeding your pride.
A student of Socrates wisely said, "It is better to fall among crows than flatterers; for those devour only the dead--these are the living."
Plutarch wrote much on the topic. He said:
“Flatterer is mutable, inconstant, not his own man but ever-changing to be the man he thinks will appeal to his victim.”
“The flatterer labors to please rather than profit you.”
“A flatterer will seek to separate you from your true friends by speaking ill of them.”
Steer as far away from flatterers as possible.
You must ask God for three things.
First, that he would trained your hearts to be nauseated by the sugary-venom that is flattery.
Second, that He would remove flattery from your lips.
The straight-forward loving rebuke of a friend, though they may seem harsh at the time, will accomplish more than the sweet words of a flatterer.
Lastly, that he would bless you with a humble self-assessment of ourselves. For Plutarch was right:
“The surest prophylactic against the evils of the flatterer is a just opinion of oneself that will reject, as untruthful, the flatterer's insinuations.”
Amen?
Let me bring this home…
You don’t know yourself the way you think you do. Your self-assessment isn’t what needs to be. It can’t be. That takes time. It takes years, it takes experience, and it takes faithful friends who will wound your pride.
So don’t strap on your armor like him who takes it off.
My fear for you is success by proxy. In other words, you are blessed with bold risk taking godly leaders in this community.
Pastors. Professors. Entrepreneurs.
God is blessing their faith and boldness.
But their winning doesn’t make you a winner.
You may receive the blessings of your leaders' victories—and in that covenantal sense you do participate in those victories—but you must fight your own battles.
You must build your own household. You must get out there and do it.
P.S. These are notes from a talk I gave at New Saint Andrews College.
Amen on the need for the "straight-forward loving rebuke of a friend," and the necessity of avoiding flattery (either on the giving or receiving end). I think it's problematic, though, to equate insults with rebuke. That's tantamount to saying Twitter is a bastion of rebuke.