BOAST NOT THYSELF OF TOMORROW

It is an odd paradox that a too ready use of the words, ‘I will’, often reveals that the speaker lives for the present and is shortsighted about the future.

In 1 Kings chapter 20, Benhadad, the king of Syria, boasted of what he was going to do to Israel. In reply the king of Israel said, ‘Let not him that girdeth on his harness boast himself as he that putteth it off’. In other words, win the victory before you hold a victory parade! In a parallel passage, Exodus chapter 15 in Moses’ victory song, Pharaoh boasted four times, ‘I will’. The series of boasts is stopped short in the song by the triumphant, ‘Thou didst blow with thy wind, the sea covered them’. The tomorrow of those who fight against God is a grim one.

The classic case of fighting against God is in Isaiah chapter 14, where the king of Babylon is addressed as Lucifer, or the ‘day-star’. He is described as making five ‘I will’ boasts, climaxing with, ‘I will be like the most High’, claiming divine honours. Immediately there comes the chilling reminder of his weakness in opposing God: ‘Yet thou shalt be (NIV ‘are’) brought down to hell, to the sides (NIV ‘depths’) of the pit’. The higher the boast today the lower the plunge tomorrow!

In chapter 4 of his epistle, James condemns another kind of boasting, that arising from arrogant plans for future prosperity in business. The businessmen are depicted by James as planning the year ahead: a city targeted for trade, the trading all arranged, the profit taken for granted. Here is singleness of purpose and absolute self-assurance. Proverbs chapter 30 verse 9 describes the danger in this: ‘Lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is the Lord?’ Life is too short and uncertain to squander it in a path which may well end in ignoring God’s will. Four times in James chapter 4, these men state their plans, ‘I will’; but James reminds them, ‘Ye know not what shall be on the morrow’.

A final example of folly in future planning is the foolish farmer in Luke chapter 12. He was already rich, for the harvest was assured, but his plans were to store it and live in idle luxury for many years. But God said, ‘This night’ and ‘thy soul’. Thus are men drowned ‘in destruction and perdition’, 1 Tim. 6. 9.