The Plugged-Ear Apostasy Text: Proverbs 19:27
Introduction: The Slow Drift to Nowhere
The Christian life is not a placid lake. It is a river, and the current is always flowing downstream, away from the presence of God and toward the falls. No man ever drifted upstream. No man ever accidentally became holy. The natural state of a boat with no anchor and no oars is to be carried away by the prevailing currents. And in our day, the prevailing currents are a torrent of foolishness, gushing from every screen, every institution, and every godless heart.
This is why the book of Proverbs is so intensely practical. It is a father's hand on his son's shoulder, pointing out the rocks and the eddies before the boy learns about them by shipwreck. The wisdom of God is not simply a collection of abstract truths to be filed away in our heads. It is a sea wall, a retaining wall against the pressures of the world, the flesh, and the devil. It is navigational guidance for a life that is constantly in motion.
The great danger for many Christians is not a dramatic, flamboyant rebellion. It is not a fist shaken at the heavens. Rather, for many, the path to destruction is a slow, quiet, almost imperceptible drift. It is the sin of neglect. It is the gradual unplugging of the ears. It is the subtle decision that one has heard enough sermons, enough rebukes, enough instruction. It is the assumption that you can now coast. But in this river, to coast is to be lost. Today's proverb gives us the simple, stark mechanics of apostasy. It shows us how a man makes shipwreck of his faith. It is a process that begins with the ears.
The Text
"Cease listening, my son, to discipline, And you will stray from the words of knowledge."
(Proverbs 19:27 LSB)
The Command to Drift (v. 27a)
The first clause is presented as a command, but it is a command dripping with divine irony.
"Cease listening, my son, to discipline..." (Proverbs 19:27a)
Solomon, speaking with the wisdom of God, says to his son, "Go ahead. Stop listening. Put your fingers in your ears when correction comes. Decide you've graduated from the school of discipline." This is like saying, "Go ahead, son. Take the guardrail off the cliff's edge. It's really spoiling the view." The command is stated to show the sheer absurdity of the action. It is a dare to be a fool.
The word for discipline here is the Hebrew musar. This is not just about punishment. It is a rich word that encompasses training, instruction, correction, and education. It is the whole process of shaping a life into conformity with wisdom. It is the father teaching his son to work, the pastor preaching the whole counsel of God, the elder correcting a brother in sin, and the pang of your own conscience when the Holy Spirit convicts you. Musar is the entire formative pressure of God's truth on a human soul.
And the command is to "cease listening." This is not about a momentary lapse in attention. The verb implies a settled, deliberate decision to stop. It is the young man who decides he is smarter than his father. It is the church member who starts fact-checking the sermon on his phone, not against Scripture, but against the spirit of the age. It is the Christian who decides that the hard parts of the Bible, the parts that demand repentance and submission, are no longer relevant. He has determined that his education is complete. He is now his own magisterium.
This is the root of all spiritual drifting. It begins when a man concludes that he is fundamentally "all set." He may still go to church, he may still read his Bible on occasion, but he has ceased to listen. He is no longer teachable. The Word of God comes to him, not as a scalpel to perform surgery, but as a gentle background hum that requires nothing of him. When a man's heart is no longer soft enough to receive the imprint of God's correction, he has already begun to stray.
The Inevitable Consequence (v. 27b)
The second clause is not a separate thought. It is the guaranteed result, the fixed and certain outcome of the first.
"...And you will stray from the words of knowledge." (Proverbs 19:27b LSB)
The relationship between these two clauses is the relationship between cause and effect. It is as certain as the law of gravity. If you cease to listen to formative instruction, you will stray from the words of knowledge. It is not a matter of "if," but "when." The straying is the necessary consequence of the unplugging.
To "stray" means to wander, to err, to get lost. It is the picture of a sheep that nibbles its way, tuft by tuft, farther and farther from the flock and the shepherd, until it looks up and finds itself alone in the wilderness with the wolves circling. The process is gradual, but the result is fatal. The "words of knowledge" are the established truths of God's reality. They are the doctrines of Scripture, the commandments of God, the wisdom that defines the path of life.
Notice the connection. The discipline, the musar, is the guardrail. The words of knowledge are the road itself. When you stop paying attention to the guardrail, it is only a matter of time before you swerve off the road. The man who stops listening to correction about his temper will soon find himself straying from the doctrine of Christian charity. The woman who ceases to listen to instruction about contentment will soon find herself straying from the words of knowledge about God's sovereignty and goodness. Doctrine and duty are tied together with rope. When you cut one, the other floats away.
This is why we must be so ruthless with our pride. The moment you think, "I already know this," you are in danger. The moment you hear a sermon on a sin you think you have mastered and you tune out, you have taken your hand off the tiller. The world is full of Sirens, singing their deadly songs of autonomy, self-expression, and rebellion. The only way to sail past their island is to be, like Ulysses, lashed to the mast of God's Word, with the wax of humility plugging your ears to their allure. If you cease listening to the captain's orders, you will inevitably be lured onto the rocks.
The Gospel for Wanderers
This proverb is a stark warning, but like all of God's law, it serves to drive us to the Gospel. In our natural state, every one of us has committed this sin. We are all born with our ears plugged to the wisdom of God. "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way" (Isaiah 53:6). Our straying is not an accident; it is our nature. We have all ceased listening to discipline, and consequently, we have all wandered from the words of knowledge.
The result is that we are lost, deserving of judgment. But the good news is that God did not leave us to wander. The Good Shepherd saw His sheep straying, and He came down from the high country to find us. Jesus Christ is the one who never ceased to listen to His Father. He was the perfect Son who always received the Father's instruction. And on the cross, the Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He took the penalty for our wandering. He bore the judgment for our plugged-ear apostasy.
And in the new birth, He performs a kind of divine ear surgery. He gives us a new heart and a new spirit, and He gives us ears to hear (Ezekiel 36:26-27). The Christian life, then, is a life of continual listening. It is a daily returning to the words of knowledge. It is a humble submission to the musar of God, delivered through His Word, His church, and His Spirit. When we do stray, and we will, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous (1 John 2:1). He is the one who calls us back. He is the one who corrects us in love, who disciplines us as sons, and who keeps our feet on the path.
Therefore, do not despise the discipline of the Lord. Do not grow weary of His correction. Every sermon, every rebuke from a friend, every hard providence is the voice of your Shepherd keeping you from the cliff's edge. Keep your ears open. The man who thinks he is standing firm should take heed, lest he fall. But the man who knows he is prone to wander, and who clings to the Shepherd's voice, will be kept all the way home.