APRIL 16, 2024
“And the king of Israel answered and said, Tell him, Let not him that girdeth on his harness boast himself as he that putteth it off.” (I Kings 20:11)
This was King Ahab’s response to a threatening message from the Syrian King Benhadad. These two kings were on the verge of going to war. It was the custom of combatants in those times to send stinging, insulting messages, exciting each other’s worst passions before they commenced the battle. Benhadad’s last message to Ahab was quite boastful: “The gods do so unto me, and more also, if the dust of the Samaria shall suffice for handfuls for all the people that follow me.” Ahab countered with the words of our text: “Let not him that girdeth on his harness boast himself as he that putteth it off.” Ahab was a wicked man, and certainly not known for his great wisdom, but here, in an attempt at sarcasm, he inadvertently uttered a proverb of the wise.
It is safe to say that most people find braggarts to be very off-putting, especially so when their boasting comes before the fact. Once, in defense of a certain self-aggrandizing baseball player, Yogi Berra famously said, “It ain’t braggin’ if you can do it.” No, Yogi, it is still braggin’ and it is still obnoxious. My dad offered much better counsel to his basketball team: “You boys just play the game; if you do something worth talking about, other people will take care of that for you.” The legendary coach of the Dallas Cowboys, Tom Landry, must have been of the same mind, saying to his players, “When you make it into the endzone, act like you’ve been there before.” It is refreshing these days to see outstanding athletes who are willing to display their amazing skills, leaving it for others to extoll their greatness.
However insultingly intended, our text contains a great deal of common sense. This is one of those cases in which we can learn something very worthwhile from the mouth of a very wicked and foolish man. Though this may not be exactly what Jesus had in mind when He suggested that we might learn from children of darkness who are wiser in their generation, than the children of light, we do well to heed what Ahab here said.
The text is peculiarly adapted to those who are commencing the battle of the Christian life. The new believer is just girding on the harness. He or she does not yet realize the intense battles that are coming. It is easy to allow youthful zeal to underestimate the forces of the enemy, and the difficulties that lie ahead. We have known of newlyweds who talk about successful marriage as if they were coming upon their golden anniversary. Sometimes new parents consider themselves authorities on child rearing having not yet dealt with any of the inevitable struggles of parenthood. Young ministerial students arrive on campus already having all the answers before even attending a class. Young ministers enter the pastorate as if they have been in the harness for many decades, even though it has not a single dent in it.“Let not him that girdeth on his harness boast himself as he that putteth it off.”
There is within those who newly put on their harness a tendency to boast. They are more apt to be proud and to think of their intentions as accomplishments. Human nature is both poor and proud. It is so poor that it is naked and miserable, and yet it is so proud that it will claim to be rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing. The Pharisee, while he gorges on what he has robbed from widows, opens his mouth and cries, “God, I thank Thee that I am not as other men.” Let not any who gird on thewhole armour of God be so proud as to boast of anything. Let us remember that we are what we are by the grace of God and we have nothing, including this harness, that we did not receive.
Those who put on the harness have good reason to refrain from boasting. The very reason that we have been issued a harness should prevent any boasting. Without the helmet of salvation, how easily the fatal blow would be struck. Remove our breastplate of righteousness; our poor hearts would be wounded with mortal sins. If we weren’t properly shod, just one thorn would render us lame. Consider each piece of the armour, though it glistens like burnished silver, it affords no grounds for boasting, for it reminds us of how frail and weak we are. Let us therefore put on the whole armour of God, but let us wear it in the utmost humility.
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