A STRONG TOWER

The words of a worship chorus have been running through my mind for several days: “The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run into it and they are safe.” Over and over the words come. When I get up in the morning I am singing them in my mind; during the day when I pause, there they are.

Am I the only one this ever happens to? Or perhaps it’s the uplifting words of Kanye West or Rascal Flats that occupy your mind! (I’m just kidding! To all my friends in the emerging church, don’t get upset…it’s just a joke.)

The words of the song are taken from Proverbs 18:10 and I’m going to quote that and the next verse because to really understand the message of 18:10, you also need to understand the next verse. Verse 11 is a contrast to verse 10 and as such sets the message into a sharper image for us.
10 The name of the LORD is a strong tower;
the righteous run to it and are safe.
11 The wealth of the rich is their fortified city;
they imagine it an unscalable wall. (Proverbs 18:10-11 NIV)

The “name of the Lord” is God in His completeness. He is not just God the creator, or the provider, or the merciful, or the just. He is God and He is all those and much, much more. When I mention the name of a person you have known for years, as some of you have known me, what immediately springs to mind? A mental picture of that person and with it the memories, the knowledge of who that person is, and what kind of person he is. This is what “the name of the Lord” is meant to convey, as complete a picture of God as we are capable of having and then some, His strengths, His character, His mercy…all of Him!

To picture the “strong tower,” think of the high walls of a fortified castle. If you were one of the few who saw the movie Troy, you know that the Greeks could not defeat the city of Troy because of its high and unassailable walls. The only way the Greek army could get into the city was to resort to trickery because they could not get through or over the walls. And so it is with God’s people when we run to the strong tower; the only way the enemy can get in is to trick us into opening the door.

“The righteous run.” The word run is self-explanatory; it means haste, don’t mess around, get where the protection is. I struggle in this area because I am a negotiator. I like to work things out and instead of throwing myself into God’s arms, I try to negotiate a peaceful settlement of the pain, of the problem. The “righteous run” means we drop that pretension and throw ourselves into God’s protection. It’s tough for the John Wayne spirit to do this but “John Wayne” has screwed up enough times to finally begin to learn that his way is not God’s way.

“Are safe” means to be lifted up out of harm’s way; this is a powerful promise for God’s people. All of God is committed to keeping his children “safe.”

As someone said earlier, verse 11 is the contrast to verse 10 and as such sets the meaning of verse 10 into a more clearly defined image.When we speak of “the wealth of the rich,” we are not speaking only of financial fortune. We are also speaking of all those who are rich in many other ways: in success, in status, in celebrity, in education, in intelligence. The wealth that they have amassed in the area of their endeavors becomes, in their mind, their fortress. Their mind tells them to believe that in that wealth, they can find the security they are hungering for.

The wealthy imagine that their abundance is providing them a protection that is “unscaleable” (Proverbs 18:11). Their conceited minds believe, “Nothing can get to me, nothing can overcome the richness of what I possess.” The financially wealthy think that finances will insulate them; those rich in intelligence think they can find a solution without help by using their vast mental resources; the successful entrepreneur believes that with dogged determination and a few more dollars, he can press ahead and find a way.

Verse 12 helps to set it in perspective: “Before destruction the heart of a man is haughty (proud), And before honor (to be lifted up to safety) is humility.”

And the Patterson version says, “To Him I will run because I am a bankrupt person and He is everything I can never be on my own.”