Do Not Be Fooled, Galatians 6:1-10
Introduction
Job 28:18 says, “No mention shall be made of coral or of pearls: for the price of wisdom is above rubies.” In Matthew 13:46 Jesus says of a man in a parable, “Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it.” (Following adapted from Spurgeon’s “The Bible and the Newspaper”)
A certain jewelry manufacturer had grown so clever at imitating pearls, that at an exhibition there was a necklace which purports to be a mixture of true pearls and false, and the manufacturer challenges his customers to single out the real ones if they can. Nobody at the exhibition was able to do so.” The art of pearl-making is by no means a new discovery; by various methods imitation pearls have been manufactured in diverse countries for many years. The French have, however, proved themselves superior to all competitors. Specimens of their artificial productions exhibited at the Exposition of 1867 could neither in their luster nor color be distinguished from oriental pearls, even when the genuine and the sham were laid side by side. We are told that there is only one way by which they can be detected, and that is by their specific weight, they are much lighter than the real pearls. There is “one pearl of great price” about whose genuineness there can never be a question, but all the goodly pearls which this world can yield need to be weighed before we may conclude them to be of any great value; indeed, the choicest pearls of earth are insignificant in price compared with him who is more precious than rubies, and of whom it is written, that “all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto him.” Even real pearls, the best of them, fit to adorn an emperor’s crown, and to heighten the beauty of the fairest of maidens, have been known to sicken and die and vanish in a day. Every now and then we hear of magnificent ancestral pearls, the pride of noble families, turning of a sickly color and crumbling into dust. In the last century the crown-jeweler of France solemnly applied to the Academy of Science for the means of preventing the decay and corruption of the precious gems in the royal crown. No satisfactory answer was given, and many highly-prized jewels have since then passed away. “Behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.”
In a work entitled “The Wonders of the Deep,” M. Schele de Vere tells us the following story, of which we leave our readers to draw the moral for themselves: A dusky fisherman in the far-off seas of India once found a pearl in an oyster. He had heard of such costly gems, and sold it to an Arab for a gold coin which maintained him for a whole year in luxury and idleness.
The Arab exchanged it for powder and shot furnished him by a Russian merchant on board a trading vessel, who even yet did not recognize the dirty, dust-covered little ball as a precious jewel. He brought it home as a present for his children on the banks of the Neva, where a brother merchant saw it and bought it for a trifle. The pearl had at last found one who could appreciate its priceless value. The great man — for it was a merchant of the first class, the owner of a great fortune — rejoiced at the silent fraud by which he had obtained the one pearl of great price, without selling all and buying it fairly, and cherished it as the pride of his heart. Visitors came from all parts of the world to see the wonder. He received them in his merchant’s costume in a palace plain without but resplendent inside with all that human art can do to embellish a dwelling, and led them silently through room after room, filled with rare collections and dazzling by the splendor of their ornaments. At last, he opened with his own key the carved folding-doors of an inner room which surprised the visitor by its apparent simplicity. The floor, to be sure, was inlaid with malachite and costly marble, the ceiling carved in rare woods, and the walls hung with silk tapestry; but there was no furniture, no gilding, nothing but a round table of dark Egyptian marble in the center. Under it stood a strong box of apparently wonderful ingenuity, for even the cautious owner had to go through various readings of alphabets, and to unlock one door after another, before he reached an inner cavity, in which a plain square box of Russia leather was standing alone. With an air akin to reverence, the happy merchant would take the box and press it for a moment to his bosom, then devoutly crossing himself and murmuring an invocation to some saint, he would draw a tiny gold key, which he wore next his person, from his bosom, unlock the casket, and hold up his precious pet to the light that fell from a large grated window above. “It was a glorious sight for the lover of such things; a pearl as large as a small egg, of unsurpassed beauty and marvelous luster. The sphere was perfect, the play of colors, as he would let it reluctantly roll from his hands over his long white fingers down on the dark table, was only equaled by the flaming opal, and yet there was a soft, subdued light about the lifeless thing which endowed it with an almost irresistible charm. It was not only the pleasure its perfect form and matchless beauty gave to the eye, nor the overwhelming thought of the fact that the little ball was worth any thing an emperor or a millionaire might choose to give for it — there was a magic in its playful ever-changing sheen as it rolled to-and-fro — a contagion in the rapt fervor with which the grim old merchant watched its every flash and flare, which left few hearts cold as they saw the marvel of St. Petersburg. For such it was, and the Emperor himself, who loved pearls dearly, had in vain offered rank and titles and honors for the priceless gem. “A few years afterwards a conspiracy was discovered, and several great men were arrested. Among the suspected was the merchant.
Taking his one great treasure with him, he fled to Paris. Jewelers and amateurs, Frenchmen and foreigners, flocked around him, for the fame of his jewel had long since reached France. He refused to show it for a time. At last he appointed a day when his great rival in pearls, the famous Dutch banker, the Duke of Brunswick, and other men well known for their love of precious stones and pearls, were to behold the wonder. He drew forth the golden key, he opened the casket, but his face turned deadly pale, his eyes started from their sockets, his whole frame began to tremble, and his palsied hand let the casket drop. The pearl was discolored! A sickly blue color had spread over it, and dimmed its matchless luster. His gem was diseased of some unknown ailment which maligned its beauty. In a short time it turned into a white powder, and the rich merchant of St. Petersburg, the owner of the finest pearl known to the world was a pauper! The pearl had avenged the poor Indian of the East, the Arab, and the poor traveler, and administered silent justice to the purchaser who paid not its price.
Transition
There is another pearl of great price for which men seek; it is of immeasurably more value than any pearl of oyster making or any treasure of human wealth. In Proverbs 3:13-18 it says, “Blessed is the man who finds wisdom, the man who gains understanding, for she is more profitable than silver and yields better returns than gold. She is more precious than rubies; nothing you desire can compare with her. Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honor. Her ways are pleasant ways, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who embrace her; those who lay hold of her will be blessed.” (NIV)
This morning I want to draw some contrasts between the supposed wisdom of this world and the wisdom of God which has been revealed to us in the pages of Holy Scripture. Those things which the world calls wise are often but rubbish and those things which the word of God calls wise are precious jewels, though they be discarded by many as nonsense and their adherents be discounted as followers of blind faith! Let God be praised and every man be a liar!
Exposition
In Galatians 6:7 it says, “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.” (NIV) The people who God used to provide to us the words of Scripture, those faithful men and women of Scripture were by and large people of agrarian cultural background. The people of Old Testament and New Times in the Holy Land were primarily famers, planters, and harvesters. Throughout the Bible there is a thread of teaching with regard to the laws of reaping and sowing. Here in the Midwest, these laws are well understood.
Indeed, no farmer ever planted seeds of corn in the spring with serious expectation of reaping a harvest of beans the fall. Among people acquainted with the soil, the laws of sowing and reaping, the laws of planting and harvesting are well known and appreciated. So it was with the prophets and teachers in the Bible.
They well knew that God’s laws that are written into the fabric of the universe are also written into the timing and life of the soil. These laws apply not only to the soil but also to our lives. Here, the Apostle Paul says that “God can not be mocked. A man reaps what He sows.” In other words, God’s laws can not be violated without consequence.
The law of reaping in sowing applies to more than merely to the planting of physical seeds in the ground and the harvesting of fruits from the vine. God’s laws are universal and apply to all areas of life. When we sow to please our sinful nature we will reap a harvest of destruction. Here we see the contradiction between the so called wisdom of the world and the wisdom of God.
While the culture around us tells us that pleasure is to be sought above all else, the wisdom of God says that those who sow to please their sinful nature will reap a harvest of destruction. The culture is filled with the victims of this lie. I read a report recently that points to the reality that our culture is enslaved to sin. Our culture is particularly enslaved to sins of a sensual nature.
In a society where once a loose woman or a womanizing man were frowned upon, now porn accesses are seen by popular culture in nearly the same light as mainstream actresses. Alcoholism, drug addiction, gambling addiction, sex crimes and addiction are the order of the day and what is more troubling still is that what was once considered sinful, unhealthy, or at the very least non-preferred lifestyles are now simply alternatives and progressive points of view.
Listen to some of these statistics with regard to pornography from the respected website safefamilies.org; Pornography Addiction and Industry Statistics As of 2003, there were 1.3 million pornographic websites; 260 million pages (N2H2, 2003). The total porn industry revenue for 2006: $13.3 billion in the United States; $97 billion worldwide (Internet Filter Review).
U.S. adult DVD/video rentals in 2005: almost 1 billion (Adult Video News).
Hotel viewership for adult films: 55% (cbsnews.com). Unique worldwide users visiting adult web sites monthly: 72 million (Internet Filter Review).
Number of hardcore pornography titles released in 2005 (U.S.): 13,588 (Internet Filter Review). Adults admitting to Internet sexual addiction: 10%; 28% of those are women (internet-filter-review.com). More than 70% of men from 18 to 34 visit a pornographic site in a typical month (comScore Media Metrix).
More than 20,000 images of child pornography posted online every week (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, 10/8/03). Approximately 20% of all Internet pornography involves children (National Center for Mission & Exploited Children). 100,000 websites offer illegal child pornography (U.S. Customs Service estimate).
As of December 2005, child pornography was a $3 billion annual industry (internet-filter-review.com). "At a 2003 meeting of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, two thirds of the 350 divorce lawyers who attended said the Internet played a significant role in the divorces in the past year, with excessive interest in online porn contributing to more than half such cases. Pornography had an almost non-existent role in divorce just seven or eight years ago." (Divorcewizards.com) Christians, Pastors and Church Pornography Statistics
A 1996 Promise Keepers survey at one of their stadium events revealed that over 50% of the men in attendance were involved with pornography within one week of attending the event. 51% of pastors say cyber-porn is a possible temptation. 37% say it is a current struggle (Christianity Today, Leadership Survey, 12/2001).
Over half of evangelical pastors admit viewing pornography last year. Roger Charman of Focus on the Family’s Pastoral Ministries reports that approximately 20 percent of the calls received on their Pastoral Care Line are for help with issues such as pornography and compulsive sexual behavior.
In a 2000 Christianity Today survey, 33% of clergy admitted to having visited a sexually explicit Web site. Of those who had visited a porn site, 53% had visited such sites “a few times” in the past year, and 18% visit sexually explicit sites between a couple of times a month and more than once a week.
29% of born again adults in the U.S. feel it is morally acceptable to view movies with explicit sexual behavior (The Barna Group). 57% of pastors say that addiction to pornography is the most sexually damaging issue to their congregation (Christians and Sex Leadership Journal Survey, March 2005).
Statistics on Women with Pornography Addiction 28% those admitting to sexual addiction are women (internet-filter-review.com).
34% of female readers of Today’s Christian Woman’s online newsletter admitted to intentionally accessing Internet porn in a recent poll and 1 out of every 6 women, including Christians, struggles with an addiction to pornography (Today’s Christian Woman, Fall 2003).
Statistics on Pornography’s Effect on Families and Marriages 47% percent of families said pornography is a problem in their home (Focus on the Family Poll, October 1, 2003). The Internet was a significant factor in 2 out of 3 divorces (American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers in 2003 - divorcewizards.com).
Statistics on Child Pornography Use 9 out of 10 children aged between the ages of 8 and 16 have viewed pornography on the Internet, in most cases unintentionally (London School of Economics January 2002).
Average age of first Internet exposure to pornography: 11 years old (internet-filter-review.com). Largest consumer of Internet pornography: 12 - 17 year-old age group (various sources, as of 2007). Adult industry says traffic is 20-30% children (NRC Report 2002, 3.3). Youth with significant exposure to sexuality in the media were shown to be significantly more likely to have had intercourse at ages 14 to 16 (Report in Pediatrics, April, 2006).
“Never before in the history of telecommunications media in the United States has so much indecent (and obscene) material been so easily accessible by so many minors in so many American homes with so few restrictions.” - U.S. Department of Justice, Post Hearing Memorandum of Points and Authorities, at l, ACLU v. Reno, 929 F. Supp. 824 (1996).
Statistics on Online Perpetrators 1 in 7 children who use the internet have been sexually solicated - 2005. (Internet Filter Review) 1 in 4 kids participate in Real Time Chat. (FamilyPC Survey, 2000). 1 in 5 children (10 to 17 years old) receives unwanted sexual solicitations online (Youth Internet Safety Survey, U.S. Department of Justice, 2001).
2 in 5 abductions of children ages 15-17 are due to Internet contact (San Diego Police Dept.). 76% of victims in Net-initiated sexual exploitation cases were 13-15, 75% were girls. "Most cases progressed to sexual encounters" - 93% of the face-to-face meetings involved illegal sex (Journal of Adolescent Health, November 2004).
The most dangerous part of this folks, is that when the wisdom of God is abandoned for the wisdom of the world, when what is truly good is mocked and what is sinful and unhealthy behavior is treated as though it is merely and alternative, well intentioned people wind up trapped inside of prison cells of their own making. People seeking pleasure find themselves enslaved in shackles of unhealthy and sinful choices.
God is not mocked; a culture which sows in pornography will reap a harvest of crimes against children. God is not mocked; a culture which sows in violence will reap a harvest of school shootings. God is not mocked; a culture which sows in selfish pleasure will reap a harvest of the breakdown we see in families.
Is there yet any hope for you and me? Is there yet any hope for America in these times of seemingly absent moral values and no direction? Oh, precious wisdom, where is she to be found in these days where the accumulation of knowledge has not been able to lead to wisdom. Oh precious wisdom, where is she to be found in these times where technology, industry, and wealth have not provided solutions to crime, poverty, violence, and a host of ills which plague society!
There is a difference between knowledge and wisdom. There is a difference planting good seeds which lead to eternal life and planting corrupt seeds which lead to destruction! The Apostle goes on to say “the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.”
When we sow seeds of faith we will reap a harvest of hope. When we sow seeds of hope we will reap a harvest of assurance in God’s provision of grace for our lives. We must not grow weary as the Apostle says in doing good for at the proper time we will reap a bountiful harvest.
The vain wisdom of this world says that we must have what we seek right now. To be sure, immediacy and expediency are the forces driving the secular culture and they are driving us right over the edge of sanity into the abyss! People seek pleasure now and find themselves enslaved to pornography and violence! People do what is the most expedient at the cost of what is right and we find ourselves in a culture which increasingly disregards to the rights of unborn children to breathe the breath of life and pushes the weak and helpless to the side to save a few bucks.
Oh precious wisdom, how we need to return to her and embrace her as the treasure that she is. Knowledge and technology, pursuit and prowess, have not been able to cure that which plagues society because it never had the power to do so.
The promise of the modern culture to solve all of our problems with technology is vanity of vanities; it is man’s empty rhetoric of trusting in himself to the exclusion of the God who created Him! My mind is drawn to the folly of those people in our time who pay a king’s ransom to be cryogenically frozen until such a time many centuries in the future when they believe that technology may be able to awaken them from their sub-zero slumber and cure the ailment which sent them to the freezer, rather than to the grave.
Technology cannot save mankind because his problems are not of a technological nature. Man’s problems all stem from the one systemic disease which runs unchecked in his soul; sin, selfishness, and unbelief.
Wisdom is a matter of truth. And since truth is complete it stands logically to reason that truth is not contingent upon perspective. In other words, wisdom and truth have nothing to do with conservative or liberal, Republican or Democrat, or even necessarily with believer and unbeliever.
The God who created the universe and sustains everything in it built into His creation certain laws which when applied yield certain results. Ideas have consequences. Actions produce results. What goes up will come down, not because it is primarily a natural law but because it is the law of nature which God has woven into the fabric of creation.
In the very same way that something thrown into the air will return to the ground, the law of gravity, when we sow seeds of selfish choices, when we sow seeds of immediacy and expediency, we will reap a harvest of pain and destruction just as the one which we see every night on the news, read every day in the newspaper, and see with our own eyes in our own families and lives.
Conclusion
James 2:5 says, “Listen, my dear brothers: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him?” (NIV) The God of the universe is in no way bound by chains of human preference, knowledge, or ideas. We serve the God who is bound by nothing of human invention.
Oh precious wisdom! She is worth more than all of the jewels of this earth combined. She is to be treasured far above all knowledge of human construction and earthly manufacture.
What is knowledge that can not be applied for a lack of wisdom as to its use? What is scientific discovery compared with discovering the God of the universe by way of connection through His Son Jesus Christ?!
Dear saints of God let us conclude our tome together with the words of Proverbs 1:20-31 “Wisdom calls aloud in the street, she raises her voice in the public squares; at the head of the noisy streets she cries out, in the gateways of the city she makes her speech: "How long will you simple ones love your simple ways? How long will mockers delight in mockery and fools hate knowledge? If you had responded to my rebuke, I would have poured out my heart to you and made my thoughts known to you. But since you rejected me when I called and no one gave heed when I stretched out my hand, since you ignored all my advice and would not accept my rebuke, I in turn will laugh at your disaster; I will mock when calamity overtakes you when calamity overtakes you like a storm, when disaster sweeps over you like a whirlwind, when distress and trouble overwhelm you. "Then they will call to me but I will not answer; they will look for me but will not find me. Since they hated knowledge and did not choose to fear the LORD, since they would not accept my advice and spurned my rebuke, they will eat the fruit of their ways and be filled with the fruit of their schemes.” (NIV)
Wisdom is calling to us; let us run to her, embrace her, and reflect her beauty as the gift that she is from Almighty God.
Amen.
