Bad Proverbs

Mark Dunagan
10/12/14 - Sunday Evening

Bad Proverbs

Ever heard a “bad” proverb? Maybe something like, “A bad excuse is better than none”, “You shouldn't jog — it jumbles your insides”, “Use the same pencil for studying as you do for taking the test — it will remember the answers”. Although the Bible contains an entire book with nothing but proverbs in it and is 31 chapters long, there are obviously manmade proverbs that God views as quite erroneous. In fact, during the lifetime of the prophet Ezekiel God singles out two of them.

• Ezekiel 12:22

“Son of man, what is this proverb you people have concerning the land of Israel, saying, ‘The days are long and every vision fails?’”

God here tells Ezekiel that while the people loved to listen to his preaching, regrettably, they would never acted upon it (33:32). This proverb was one of the ways that the people were rationalizing the choice to not act upon his preaching. Even in this chapter, they heard but they did not truly listen (12:2). The above verse informs us that the exiles in Babylon did not think that his prophecies were valid. They were arguing that many prophecies had been given over the years through men like Isaiah, Jeremiah and others, yet none of them seemed to have come to pass. So why, they reasoned, should they now accept Ezekiel’s warnings? Actually, anyone who could really see what was going on would realize that the predictions of the prophets were coming true. All the way back to the time of Moses there were warnings about being removed from the land if they departed from God (Deuteronomy 28:36) — and where were they now — in Babylon! Yes, Jerusalem was still standing, but two major deportations had already taken place and the king in Jerusalem had become only a puppet king. And where was the northern kingdom of Israel? That kingdom no longer existed, having been removed from the land over 100 years earlier.

Ezekiel 12:25  “For in your days”

Some had believed Ezekiel concerning his warnings yet thought it would not come in their life-time. In verse 27 they were saying, “The vision that he sees is for many years from now, and he prophesies of times far off”. If we are also inclined to rest in thoughts of postponed judgment — in the course of doing so, we tend to avoid preparing and taking the message seriously. “This attitude is always present, for even today no one wants to consider the idea that God might soon judge them or their nation. The same attitude relates to the second coming of Christ (2 Peter 3:4)” (The Expositors Bible Commentary, Volume 6, Ralph H. Alexander, p. 799).

Ezekiel 18:2 “Who do you mean by using this proverb concerning the land of Israel, saying ‘The fathers eat the sour grapes, but the children’s teeth are set on edge?’”

God is obviously not asserting that parents have no effect upon their children, for their impact will be undeniably life-changing. That is why there are so many passages that exhort parents to exercise good influence on their children (Proverbs 22:6). In addition, the life and choices of one's parents will affect one in a myriad of physical ways. For example, if my parents are poor, then certainly I will grow up poor. Yet the Israelites were not using this proverb to make those points, they were saying something quite different. In fact, this must have been a very popular proverb for Jeremiah references it as well (Jeremiah 31:29-30).  Among the applications that generation may have been making with such a proverb include:

• Ezekiel’s generation may have been claiming that they were being presently punished for the sins of their forefathers, and for that reason it did not make any difference how they currently lived.
• They may have claimed that seeing that their forefathers had been so rebellious, it was therefore hopeless to try to change after having been raised in such an environment.

“It was an appealing saying, since its subtle message was that the present generation was not responsible for all the disasters that had come upon it but had merely inherited conditions and problems that previous generations had set in motion. The attitude expressed in the saying, then, was one of both fatalism (‘you can’t do anything about the way things are’) and irresponsibility (‘you don’t have to do anything about your own situation since it isn’t our fault’). Of course, we can easily appreciate how that sort of thinking could have come about. If there is a chance to blame another person or situation for your own problems, you’ll certainly be tempted to do so. Most people are blame-avoidant, and to some degree, all too willing to consider the idea that their problems are not of their own making. It is doubly hard to face difficulties while also knowing that we are the sole cause of them. The people of Jerusalem of Ezekiel’s day were all too willing to say that they had inherited a situation of disaster, since this meant that they could claim not to have caused it” (Stuart. pp. 152-153).

A Fresh Message

In contrast, Ezekiel illumined the situation with these truths:

• Generational cycles of evil or failure can be stopped. This is something that the Israelites missed in Exodus 20:5. Yes God visits the sins of the fathers upon the children, but the verse then clarifies the recipients to be, of those who hate Me. A cycle of calamity can stop if that third or fourth generation decides to serve the Lord, for, praise God, anyone can decide to break from a poor or horrible upbringing: 18:14-19. You've seen this wondrous change happen, and so have I, and not just once, but so many times in my life as a Christian. I have personally seen children who were raised by exceptional parents turn around and completely discard all the great teaching and example that was set before them (18:5-10). Then I have seen people raised in situations that were incredibly tough. Maybe they did not have a father or mother, or had alcoholic or abusive parents, or parents opposed to Christianity, or very worldly parents, and maybe even ended up parenting their own parents when they were kids — and yet turn out to become incredibly strong Christians (18:14).
•  Thank heaven there is no such thing as an “evil seed” that inherently and genetically contaminates one generation after another. The same is true in the opposite direction (18:10) — if your parents love goodness, you must love goodness for yourself. Our God is a God of fairness.
• This chapter should serve as a wake-up call to every person in every generation. At the Judgment Day, God has already made it clear that He will not accept the excuse of “parental neglect” or “poor parental example” as to why a person did not become a Christian or remain a faithful Christian. You can do all things through Christ that strengthens you, when you make your Heavenly Father, the father you never had and give to your own children what you yourself may have not been given.

“The Way of the Lord is not Just?”

A couple of times in this chapter Ezekiel addresses a complaint that the people had about this teaching. 

• “Yet you say, ‘Why should the son not bear the punishment for the father’s iniquity?’”  (18:19).
• “Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just’” (18:25).

Why did they object so strongly to God’s teaching here? What problem did they really have with it? Why did it not make sense to them? 

There are people who don’t want to believe in our personal accountability because it removes all their present excuses. It is far easier, in the short term, to blame mom and dad for my failures than to accept the fact that I am to blame. It is far easier to label my anger as being “dad’s anger” — rather than my own. If I am addicted to something I want to place all the focus on that single event in the past in which someone gave me my first cigarette, drink, or dirty magazine and completely ignore all the choices I have made since then that only reinforces that addiction.

Mark Dunagan | mdunagan@frontier.net
Beaverton Church of Christ | 503-644-9017
www.beavertonchurchofchrist.net