Tuesday, September 30, 2025

Proverbs 30:12

The book of Proverbs gives us insights into so many different areas of life. The book gives us instruction on how to live our lives for God. Here is a proverb that gives us insight recognizing your own faults:

Proverbs 30:12 (ESV)

There are those who are clean in their own eyes

but are not washed of their filth.


Solomon is in the process of writing about a variety of people who can't find wisdom.   He has just told us about a group that are unkind to there parents.  In this proverb he tells us about those who think so highly of themselves they fail to see that they, too, have filthiness.   It is amazing to hear someone put down others for their "problems" and not recognize their own ... or, worse, fail to address their own.   Solomon is telling us that those who miss out on wisdom are those who think too highly of themselves.  To acquire wisdom you have to ask God (see James).   To acquire wisdom, you have to fear the Lord, which implies you see your own sin in light of His holiness.  To acquire wisdom  you have to be humble.   Those who are "pure" in their own eyes can't and aren't humble and therefore can't and won't acquire wisdom.  We live in an age full of this type of person.  Sports stars are probably the most egregious of the spirit of humility.   Their very nature tells them to have confidence and to fight and to be superior.  The same with entertainment and legal mindsets.   The same is true of educational mindsets.   There really isn't any occupation whose mindset is not impacted by the spirit of "self-proclaimed purity and pious behavior."   There is a generation like this.   We live in it.   Are we like it?


Perhaps the worse thing about the human spirit is that we want to be worshiped.   In fact, we want to worship ourselves.   We not only desire honor, when we can't get it ourselves, we like to honor others instead.   We love to promote others and worship others.   In the above proverb we see the reason for that worshp.  We are so pure in our own eyes we can't, or won't, see the filth we have in our heart.   That causes us to have a distorted view of ourselves and everything we touch or view.  It clouds our view of the world.   Instead of seeing the world through our sinful eyes and seeing events through the eyes of God via faith, we see everything upside down.   When we see ourselves exalted we fail to humble ourselves.   When we fail to humble ourselves and see our sin we can't approach God in faith and trust.   We simply trust ourselves and our ability.     We don't see the wretchedness of our soul.   It is when we are blind to that filth that we think their is something in ourselves valuable enough to worship.   True wisdom is about seeing God correctly and seeing ourselves, in light of that view of God, correctly.   If we want to fear The Lord (and thus have wisdom) we have must have the proper view of God AND of the filth in our hearts.

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