We'll be looking at Proverbs 15 verse 1. It's on page 538 of the P-Bible, but we're looking just at one verse tonight. Proverbs 15 verse 1. A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.
It's so short, I'll read it a second time. A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. Well, let's pray. Heavenly Father, we pray that you would give us joy as we think about a hard time.
God's subject, speaking softly in the face of anger. And we pray that you would remind us, teach us, and instruct us of your truth, for your great name's sake. Amen. Well, a soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.
I want us to think about this verse in two ways. First, practically. A soft answer turns away wrath. It's clearly a piece of good advice, and we should consider it as such.
And second, theologically, a soft answer turns away wrath. It points us, as all scripture does, to the Lord Jesus, as Jesus himself tells us in John chapter 5. So I want us to think about what this verse says to us about us, but also what this verse says to us about our Lord Jesus. So first, practically.
How should we live? A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. That's how the second half of that verse reinforces the practical advice of the first half. Unlike a harsh statement or word, a soft, humorous, humble response can turn away wrath.
And it can even turn away something that's less than wrath, something that's just a little annoying. So, for example, in October 1984 to bait with Walter Mondale, then President Ronald Reagan was asked about his age. A reporter from the Baltimore Sun asked him, you are already the oldest president in history, and some of your staff say that you were tired after your most recent encounter with Mr. Mondale.
I recall that President Kennedy had to go for days on end with very little sleep during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Is there any doubt in your mind that you will be able to function in such circumstances? Well, Reagan answered, not at all. And I want you to know that I will not make age an issue in this campaign.
I'm not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent's youth and inexperience. It was a brilliant reply, and if you watch the video, Walter Mondale, the opponent is actually seeing chuckling himself and the reporter who asked the question, hearing Reagan's answer said, Mr. President, I'd like to head for the fence and try to catch that one before it goes over. The soft answer, a humorous answer, was in fact a home run.
And a soft answer is the better way. It takes a willingness to laugh at ourselves, to laugh at the difficulties of this life, and to laugh at things even with our opponents. But it's hard even when one is aiming for a soft answer to know what tone to take. Consider another political moment from a different nation in a different century.
In the British House of Commons in 1835, Daniel O'Connell criticized then member of Parliament, but future Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, a Christian of Italian Jewish descent. O'Connell started his speech by criticizing Disraeli on policy grounds, but then he turned personal, speaking disparagingly of Disraeli's Jewish background. Disraeli's reply is probably my favorite in the history of politics. Yes, Disraeli said, I am a Jew.
And when the ancestors of the right honorable gentleman were brutal savages in an unknown island, mine were priests in the Temple of Solomon. It's a great reply. But here's the question. Does Disraeli give a soft answer that turns away wrath, or does he give a harsh word?
Well, let's think about ways that we can test ourselves to see whether or not we're actually giving a soft answer. First, ask yourself, am I trying to justify myself? Second, do I care about the other person? And finally, do I want peace or war?
We can ask questions about how our hearts are towards ourselves, towards other people, and then also our hopes for the conflict. One commentator on this verse, Proverbs 15, verse 1, contrasts Gideon's response to the men of Ephraim in Judges 8, with Jepthas reply to the men of Ephraim in Judges 12. Gideon, when harshly confronted, responds reasonably and kindly. Jepthas, four chapters later, does not.
In Gideon's case, if you look at Judges, the soft answer turns away wrath. In Jepthas, the harsh word stirs up anger, and the contrast is illustrative. But what's the difference? Well, one commentator on Judges 12 notices Jepthas' warm vindication of himself.
His warm vindication of himself. Jepthas did not endeavor to pacify him, as Gideon hid on in the like case. Why the commentator continues, Jepthas had not so much of a meek and quiet spirit as Gideon had. They would be pacified or no.
Jeptha takes care to justify himself. So one way of knowing whether or not you are giving a soft answer that turns away wrath is whether or not you are trying to justify yourself in your own eyes or in the eyes of your opponents. Gideon's response to the men of Ephraim in contrast with Jeptha helps us think about how we should respond to each other. How quick are we to say sorry?
How eager are we to give other people credit? Let's say that you do the bulk of the work. And someone comes to you for not being recognized for the paltry little part he or she has played in the enterprise. Do you end kind of approaching the person?
Do you set yourself the task of setting the other person straight? Now look here, buckaroo. Who did the work? Or instead, do you say thank you?
You know what? I appreciate that you sharpen those three pencils over there. It was very kind of you to do that. It's hard to do that, isn't it?
But we mustn't seek to justify ourselves in our own eyes or in the eyes of our opponents. Second, we can ask about our attitude towards those around us. Do we love our neighbors? Do we love even our opponents with the love that we are called upon to love them?
As Jesus said in the words that I read a moment ago from Mark 12 that we should love our neighbors as ourselves. And that's a straightforward way of testing whether or not we have a soft answer. Is your heart right towards the other person? I like to sometimes think about things in terms of headlines.
So or the kind of caption of the moment. Is this the headline of your life? Co-worker yet again wrongs best employee, husband yet again ignores wife's needs. Or is it instead lost person desperately needs Jesus?
Discernaged man needs undeserved affection. When answering each other, we ought to tend towards strive to frame the situation in a way that motivates us to love our neighbors as ourselves. So how we treat ourselves, our view of other people, and finally what do we want to do with the conflict? Gae-ian's answer led to peace.
Jepthos to war. A harsh word stirs up anger. We must remember that. We must ask ourselves in the heat of the moment whether we actually want the conflict to persist.
And we should have in our minds first and foremost to do good to all people, but especially to those who belong to the Lord Jesus. Now we can't compromise the gospel. We can't gloss over the truth. But we can be warm-hearted towards and seek peace with even those who try to wrong us.
But we are going to need God the Holy Spirit to change us for that to occur. But let us be people who seek peace. Now I'll add some caveats here. Let me give you three.
First, it's not the case is it that in every instance when you give a soft answer, wrath will be avoided at all times. People are in such a frenzied state of anger that no small, you know, you can give as many soft answers as you want and nothing will do. Now that doesn't disprove what the verse is saying because after all proverbs are general guidelines for life, they are not explicit promises that kind of a rabbit's foot that if you give a soft answer, then boom, everything will work out. We know we live in a fallen world and we must deal with the sin of other people and the sin in our own hearts.
So that's the first caveat. Second, it's not always the case that the softest answer is meek, some kind of humble, groveling whisper like Gollum would give to Frodo in his most debased moments. No, soft answers can be quite firm, but they can never transgress the boundaries of honoring Christ with our speech. Third, I think that soft answers can be given even when we know that in giving the soft answer, we may actually bring wrath upon us.
Sometimes we know that a soft answer will make the already angry person even angrier, but we still must give it. In a moment, I'd like to consider some points in Jesus's life where we see this happen to the Lord. But for now, just remember that a soft answer turns away wrath and not every soft answer needs to be mushy. Some can be quite firm.
And you can give a soft answer even when you reasonably expect that someone is going to respond in anger. But keep in mind that the question for you is not what the other person will do. The question for you is what you must do. How will you respond?
And let's be honest, it's very hard to give a soft answer, isn't it? And that's why we need God the Holy Spirit to help us. And we need to cry out to the Lord. Proverbs 15, verse 3 is actually the eyes of the Lord are at every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good.
And that's a nice reminder that we need to guard our tongues because the Lord is watching. And we need to ask the Lord for help. We need wisdom. We need self-control.
And we need love. And sometimes, and why we need wisdom? Because sometimes having the right attitude isn't the big question. It's actually the big question is knowing what to say.
Knowing what to say. And so we need to ask God for wisdom. And we also need to ask God for self-control. Too often we just shoot from the hip, ask you know, shoot first and take questions later.
But we need to pray that the Lord will guard our tongues. That we will have strength to exercise us to give us software. Even in the face of a harsh one. And finally, we simply need to ask for more love for each other and for the Lord Jesus.
That I would be as gracious with you about your anger as I am with myself about mine. How easy it is for me to say, but doesn't that person know that I've had a really bad day without actually thinking that that other person may have had a far worse day than I have had. And if I'm truly concerned about the glory of Christ rather than the glory of Jay, then it would be much easier, wouldn't it, to give a soft answer? It would be much easier because I wouldn't be so self-regarding and so self-justifying.
So soft answers turn away wrath and we can and should ask God for help to give soft answers. Now that's the practical half of our message. But let's turn our eyes from ourselves and think about our predicament with God. Because God is after all full of wrath against sin.
And God's anger is different from our anger with each other. First, we get angry with each other for silly, ridiculous and unjustified reasons. But God is angry at our sin precisely because we have disobeyed His most holy, wise and good law. We have done what we should not have done and we have left undone what we should have done as we just said a moment ago.
So God is rightly angry with us for our sin. And second, whereas we get angry and we kind of flare up, we yell, and then we forget about what's happened. If you ask me and my wife to say, why did you have an argument a year ago or maybe even yesterday, we'll forget the reason for it. But God never forgets.
He always remembers our sin and he has a deep, seated hatred of wickedness. He remembers and he's angry. Think of Romans chapter 1 verse 18, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. God is angry at sin.
He's full of wrath. Years ago, Ted preached a sermon on Genesis 3 and in that sermon, he talked about how when God confronts the serpent and Adam and Eve, he treats them very differently. I found it quite striking because I never thought about it before. But when after the fall, the Lord God rounds the corner and it's as though he just kind of pops around the corner and looks at the serpent and says, cursed are you?
The serpent gets no opportunity to speak. He's asked no questions whatsoever. He is simply cursed. But God deals differently with Adam and Eve.
They are cast out of the garden. Yet nevertheless, God talks to them. He waits to hear their answers. He closed them and he gives them a promise of a redeemer.
How does God deal with us? Does God round the corner of the universe look at us and say, cursed are you? Cursed are you? Well, we certainly hope not.
If that's not going to happen to us, then we need someone to give a soft answer to turn away God's wrath. We need a soft word spoken, a peace, be still. And we have such a spokesperson in the Lord Jesus. In the Gospel of Mark, we see Jesus exemplify Proverbs 15 1, practically and powerfully.
If you remember in Jesus' trial in Mark chapter 14, Jesus is silent for a time and then he speaks boldly. First, there's silence in Mark 14. They're all of these false witnesses that are brought against Jesus and they actually disagree with each other. They've arrested Jesus.
Think about this. They've arrested Jesus, but their lying stories don't match up. And twice, Mark tells us that the witness has actually contradict each other. Jesus says nothing.
But then the High Priest asks Jesus when Jesus is asked by the High Priest to give a response to the testimony. He doesn't say anything. But then the High Priest says, are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed? Jesus says in Mark 14, verse 62, I am.
And you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven. At that moment, the High Priest tears his robe and says that there's no need for witnesses. Jesus is claiming God's power and authority for himself. He deserves to die.
But of course, there's one major mistake on their part. They think Jesus should die because he illegitimately claims God's power and authority to himself. But that's exactly what Jesus has every right to claim. And we see it all over the Gospel of Mark.
If you remember, in Mark chapter 2, Jesus sees a paralytic that had to be lowered through the roof. And he looks at the man and says, your sins are forgiven. The people listening say, only God has authority to forgive sins. And Jesus says, so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority to forgive sins.
I say to you, rise, take up your bed and walk. Oh, this Jesus, he has authority, certainly. And he has power too. If you remember, in Mark chapter 4, when the disciples are terrified, Jesus, Jesus, they wake up.
Don't you care about us? When Jesus speaks a word and the storm is quiet, Jesus is God's person with God's authority and God's power. So they are mistaken about Jesus. But notice that even though Jesus gives a soft answer, he increases their anger and violence against them, against him.
So there's an instance where a soft answer doesn't turn away the wrath, it increases it. But mercifully and wonderfully, there is a soft answer that turns away wrath. And we see it in Mark chapter 15 when Jesus is crucified, a terrible, horrible, and disgraceful death in Mark 1534. Jesus says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Forsaken me, left me behind, tossed me aside, given me up, discarded and abandoned me. Well Jesus knows why. Jesus knows the answer to his question. He had told the disciples the answer to that question in Mark chapter 10.
After telling us disciples for the third time, hey, I'm going to go to Jerusalem and die, he actually explains to them his mission. And if you remember it's in response to their quarrelling, they're wondering who's going to be greatest when Jesus comes into his kingdom. And Jesus repeats them and says, listen, listen, whoever wants to be great should be lonely if you want to, you need to serve each other. And he sets himself as the great example of this, Mark 1045.
For even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. And this verse offers an explanation for Jesus' cry on the cross. He was abandoned by God not for his sin, but for ours. He was given over to death to receive our punishment, not his own.
To put it in the language of Proverbs 15 verse 1, Jesus gave a soft answer to the wrath of God. And this soft answer turned away God's wrath from us only because Jesus took that wrath upon himself. He gave himself up as our ransom. He bore the punishment that we deserved.
And Jesus' answer to God's great judgment against our sin is his own substitutionary death. He took our place. So how then friends can we be cutting with each other? How can we be harsh and angry when God himself whom we had made our enemy gave up his own son to rescue us?
How can I not bear with your faults and you with mine when the Son of the Blessed One took upon himself our sin and sends penalty? So you can see how our two aspects of Proverbs 15 and 1, what I call the practical side and the theological side, are really two sides of the same coin. We ought to be kind and gracious with each other, giving each other soft words that turn away wrath precisely because God in Christ was giving a soft answer to turn away his wrath against us. We ought to trust in the one whose blood speaks a better word than the blood of Abel and we ought to hear kind and gracious speech coming from our mouths.
One last story that Jesus tells I think encapsulates these two aspects. In Matthew 18, Peter asked Jesus how often we should forgive one another. And Jesus tells his disciples a story about two debtors owing more than he could pay, one debtor pleads for mercy from his master and he receives it. And this forgiven debtor in turn finds someone who owes him money a small, very small amount of pathetic son and yet he chokes him saying pay what you owe.
Well, this second man, he too, pleads for mercy but finds none from a man who himself had been forgiven a much larger son. And Jesus uses that story to illustrate how we as Christians who have been forgiven so much by God ought to be quick to forgive the comparatively small things we do against each other. In the context of Proverbs 15 verse 1, I'd like us to think about how we, having been forgiven so much, can be gracious to one another at the point of conflict. We have heard Jesus own words, his own soft answer, spoken to turn away God's wrath.
How much more than should we speak kindly and softly to each other and give each other soft answers that turn away wrath? Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you that you are not a stranger to us and you are not our enemy because Jesus, the Son of the Blessed One, was forsaken so that we are not forsaken. Jesus, you work in us by your Holy Spirit to make us soft-hearted, kind-hearted, loving people.
And it's in your strong and powerful name you pray. Amen. Amen.