A Bit Of Advice

"A Bit of Advice'
Proverbs 11:14; 13:10; 15:22


I’m going to start out by offering a riddle.  I’ve decided not to give the answer to the riddle until the end of the sermon.  I realize that I might be taking a chance that some will be concentrating harder on the riddle than the message, but both go together, so the time would not be spent entirely in vain.

Here’s the riddle.
You are on the road of life and you come to a fork in the road.  One road leads to heaven and the other to hell.  There are two guides standing at the fork in the road from whom you can ask one question only (one question total; not one question apiece).  One of these guides is an absolute liar and will not tell you the truth.  The other is an absolute truth teller, and you can be confident he will tell you which road is right and which road leads to hell.  But you don’t know which guide is which.

The riddle is, What one (only one) question can you ask of one of these guides that will give you an assured answer so you will know you have chosen the right road?  One further bit of information:  Even after you have received your answer and are sure you are on the right road, you will still not know which of the guides told the truth and which was the liar.  But you will know with certainty that you have chosen the right road.

See what you can come up with, as to the correct question to ask either guide, and I’ll check back in with you at the end of the message.

Well, the question that these proverbs are begging us to ask is, “How can we get the best kind of advice with a problem we are wrestling with, or are in some way looking for advice?  Our lives, indeed the world we currently live in, can get so complex.  And looking for advice usually doesn’t come cheap.  Not many people can afford to visit a number of CPA’s, psychologists, lawyers, doctors, etc.  We all have friends and family that we can talk to for advice, but there may be times when we don’t feel comfortable “spilling our guts” to a great number of people.

So, one interesting question you might ask yourself is, “How many people do you consult when you have a problem?”

I’m going to offer two bits of advice about problem solving and seeking advice, and then illustrate that advice with three points from our Proverbs read this morning.

The first bit of advice has to do with a strategy, or formula for dealing with a problem, that most of us, may in one way or another follow.  The first part of the formula is to pinpoint the exact problem we are facing.  This is crucial to the rest of the formula, as we shall see in a moment.  If we identify the wrong problem, any solutions, or any advice we may get along the way, will be ultimately unhelpful.  Then we’ll have to start all over again.

Remember, a few weeks ago we talked about handling anger.  I talked about how often people ask the wrong question about their anger.  The question they usually ask is, “Why do other people make me so mad?”  A better question, when getting advice is, “Why do I allow other people to make me angry?”  Or, the better question might be, “Where is the hurt and pain in my own life that may be the seat of my anger?”  Sometimes, in getting advice, the first thing you need is to find out how to pinpoint the exact problem you are dealing with.

Next, after pinpointing the problem, we need to identify two or three alternative solutions to the problem.  Dealing with problems in our lives, help is always found in discovering what the options are.  Often, when we get all wrapped up in our issues and problems, our horizon shrinks down too small.  Remember, I likened it to blinders on the horse.  Identifying optional solutions helps take the blinders off and lets us see there’s a much broader horizon to see, many more options to our problem, and then find our way home.

And the next step in the problem-solving formula is to ask three questions of each of the alternative solutions we have identified.  These are the three questions:
First, What are the consequences of each alternative solution?

One of the things I’ve seen in working with kids for so many years in my ministry, is that they have thought less and less about consequences of their actions.  When I was in Leoti I coached the junior high girls basketball teams.  We had a couple of kids rub Spam all over the lockers and benches of the visiting team’s locker room.  When talking with them afterwards, both had no thought that what they did was going to have really negative consequences, like being suspended from the basketball team for a couple of games.  It didn’t even enter their minds that there were consequences for what they chose to do.  Thinking of consequences can help head off other problems.

The other two questions are:
What are the values and virtues that are being upheld if I chose this alternative?
What are the values and virtues that are being denied if I chose this alternative?

These two questions have to do with helping us understand there’s a weird balance of values and virtues that either get upheld or denied with each alternative we might choose.

When I talk with couples I tell them they need to fashion a mission statement for their marriage and families.  One young couple with kids I talked to out in California, decided that their mission statement was to be as financially sound and secure as possible.  That’s a good value to uphold, to make sure they and their kids will be taken care of financially.  But that meant both the husband and wife had to work full-time.  They were amassing a nice nest egg with two huge incomes.  But what they didn’t see was that they were denying some basic values of family togetherness and parenting time with their children.  They, as parents, were hardly every home.  A nanny was raising their children, and developing the relationship they wished they had with their kids.

The second bit of advice, which is also the first point of our Proverbs, is don’t go through this strategy alone.  Don’t make decisions alone.  We are not capable of seeing all the alternatives, consequences, or values being upheld and denied all by ourselves.  Even to rely only on one other person’s advice may not be enough.  The Bible is full of examples where one worthless adviser steered whole nations to corruption.  In one story in 2 Chronicles (22:3-4) the king’s mother, serving as his sole adviser, led him to ruin.

Let’s look, for example, at one of Jesus’ parables.  It’s the one about the rich fool in Luke 12.

The farm of a certain rich man produced a terrific crop.  He talked to himself:  “What can I do?  My barn isn’t big enough for this harvest.”  Then he said to himself, “Here’s what I’ll do:  I’ll tear down my barns and build bigger ones.  Then I’ll gather in all my grain and goods, and I’ll say to myself, ‘Self, you’ve done well!  You’ve got it made and can now retire.  Take it easy and have the time of your life.’”  Just then God showed up and said, “Fool!  Tonight you die.  And your barn full of goods--who gets all that?”  (Then Jesus adds this killer of a statement)  “That’s what happens when you fill your barn with self and not with God.”

Who was the farmer talking to and seeking advice from in this parable?  Himself.  This is even more striking when you understand that middle eastern men spend hours talking with each other, tossing around their decisions with each other.  The slightest transaction is worthy of hours of discussion amongst the men of a middle eastern community.  The mind is made up, and decisions are faced, in community; not in isolation.  He does his thinking in a crowd.

But this man in Jesus’ parable does his thinking in isolation.  When he needs a dialogue, a community of advice, he can only talk to himself.

Also, as he reasoned to himself, he asked the wrong question at the outset.  He decided his problem was one of storage:  “What can I do?  My barn is not big enough for the harvest.”  Had he had some friends to talk over the situation with, friends who would shoot straight with him, he might have been able to see the deeper problem, that of being rich toward God.  Indeed, as the parable implies, the farmer doesn’t even consult God.  By seeking the advice of others he may have been able to have been pointed out to him that he made a critical error up front when deciding what the main issue was.  As a result, his alternative was wrong.  The consequences were unexpected and deadly.  The values of self were upheld, but the values of God were denied.

A second point to ponder from the Proverbs is that unchecked assumptions are almost always dangerous.  In Proverbs 13:10, that’s what arrogance and presumption are all about.  It is the taking upon ourselves the responsibility or authority to decide something without permission to do so.  It is the acceptance of something as true, when we haven’t looked for any proof to the contrary.  Or, it could be accepting something as false, because it just doesn’t add up in OUR heads.

It was on the eve of the great 1938 New England hurricane.  A man living in Stamford, Connecticut decided to fulfill a long-standing desire.  He walked two miles to the Abercrombie and Fitch department store in downtown, and bought a fine barometer.

Delighted with his acquisition, he hurried home and proudly hung the handsome brass barometer on his living room wall.  But what he saw made him angry.  The barometer was pointing at “hurricane.”  Hurricane in New England!?  Convinced that he had been sold a defective instrument, he walked back to the department store, handed the barometer to the sales clerk and snorted, “Fine barometer you sold me.  I put it up in my house and what do you suppose it registered?  ‘Hurricane!’”  The sales clerk replied, “No problem, sir.  We’ll be happy to replace it with a perfect one.”

Again the man headed for home with his new barometer, walking against a very stiff wind.  But by the time he arrived home, his house had been blown away by a hurricane.

In our strategy of taking a look at our issues, this is the problem of making assumptions.  We think we have all the answers and shut ourselves off from other alternative solutions.  The man with the barometer had at least two alternatives.  Either the barometer was defective (which was his erroneous assumption); or, it was telling the truth and he better evacuate his family.  He suffered the consequences of sticking to his singleminded assumption without checking it out with other information.

Here, humility is called for, in opening ourselves up to advice from others.  We need to be humble enough to say, “I don’t have all the answers; my viewpoint just may not be the correct one; or, my viewpoint is not the only one admissible.”  We need to be able to hear more than only what we agree with.  Otherwise, we may find ourselves in an embarrassing situation.  Or worse.

Jesus put it a little differently in another parable.  He told his disciples to count the cost.
Is there anyone here who, planning to build a new house, doesn’t first sit down and figure the cost so you’ll know if you can complete it?  (In other words, think about the consequences ahead of time.)  If you only get the foundation laid and then run out of money, you’re going to look pretty foolish.  Everyone passing by will poke fun at you: “He started something he couldn’t finish!”
Or can you imagine a king going into battle against another king without first deciding whether it is possible with his ten thousand troops to face the twenty thousand troops of the other?  And if he decides he can’t, won’t he send an emissary and work out a truce?  (Luke 14:28-31)

Notice that if either man in this parable makes the wrong assumption about his wealth or strength, he is humiliated and doomed.  But in the counsel of many, this danger can be checked and avoided.

One Sunday School teacher asked her class why they thought Solomon was so wise.  One little boy in the back raised his hand and said, “Because he had so many wives to tell him what to do.”


So back to the riddle.  The important question, before I give you the answer, is how did you think you’d figure out the answer?  Did you automatically think, “I’ve got to figure this out on my own?”  Or, did you think, “I’ve got a bunch of people in the pew here who, working together, could come up with the answer to the riddle?”  If you automatically went to trying to figure it out on your own, then maybe you’ll need to reread this message on the church blog site tomorrow morning.

OK, what’s the one question you can ask of either man at the crossroads, that will put you on the right road?  You can only ask one question.  And you don’t know which of the guides is telling the truth or lying.  So you ask this question to either guide:  “Tell me, if I were to ask the other guide which is the right road, what would he tell me?”  And then you take the opposite road of the answer.

Here’s the logic.  If, by chance, you ask the liar your question, he will lie about the true answer the other man would give you.  So you would know that you would need to take the opposite road from what the liar would say.  If, by chance, you asked the truth telling guide, he will truthfully report the lie that the liar would have told you.  So you know the opposite road is the answer.  Thus, the question will produce the wrong road no matter who answers it.  And you take the opposite.

Anybody get it right?  Maybe if you were able to discuss the problem amongst many advisers, you would have come up with the correct question.