Straightforward

Greetings again everyone. Let’s pick up the Bible Study through the book of Proverbs by turning to Proverbs 6:1. We’re continuing through the first part of the book of Proverbs. The theme in this first part is wisdom and applying wisdom to everyday living. It’s all about, really, practical Christianity when we really understand what we read in these tremendous verses in the book of Proverbs. There are other themes as well. There are other admonitions as well. But fundamentally, we’ve been focusing on that particular point and that is, how do we read through this book of Proverbs, understand it verse by verse and apply it to everyday life as a Christian?

So let’s begin in Proverbs 6:1:

1 My son,—

My daughter, anyone who wants to serve God. This is addressed to all of us.

1 —if you be surety for your friend, if you have stricken your hand with a stranger,

2 You are snared with the words of your mouth, you are taken with the words of your mouth.

And what is this talking about? Here we find God through Solomon inspiring instructions regarding money matters, regarding agreements, contracts, co–signings, and so that’s what it’s talking about here. If you have guaranteed some plan, some deal, for your friend or your supposed friend, or who you thought was your friend and it may not turn out to be a friend. Or if you have shaken hands, agreed upon a plan or agreed upon a financial deal or a purchase, come to an agreement. You’ve said, “Okay, I promise to help you with this or I promise to take care of this if you can’t take care of it,” and then you shake on it and you agree with it. You might even sign a contract. You may have made a mistake.

So what it’s saying here is, you better be careful in your financial dealings because I have seen over and over again, this verse really does come into play in everyday life. One thing you have to be aware of is if you agree to co–sign with someone regarding purchase of a car or a house or taking out a loan, you better really think long and hard about that and you better realize that you may end up having to pay for that car or that home or pay out that loan. When you co–sign with someone or you put up collateral for someone, you better be prepared to pay for that purchase because you may well have to do that.

So this admonition, this warning, this instruction here in Proverbs 6:1 is just telling us, you better be very cautious, you better be very careful, you better think it through. You better have some second thoughts before you are surety or before you co–sign or before you put up collateral for your friend or for your supposed friend, or for even a stranger and shake hands and agree to it because you can end up being snared with the words of your mouth as it says in verse 2.

2 —you are taken with the words of your mouth.

And then he goes on to say, “Here’s what you better do if you have second thoughts and you begin to realize, ‘Oh no, I’ve painted myself into a corner on this deal.’”

3 Do this now, my son, deliver yourself, when you art come into the hand of your friend; go, humble yourself, and make sure your friend.

Or plead with your friend. Don’t be too arrogant or vain or smug to go and say, “Listen, there’s no way I’m going to be able to follow through on this agreement. I made a mistake. I didn’t have all the facts. I didn’t think it through. I didn’t really understand fully or I don’t want to mislead you. I just can’t do this. We need to reverse this or we need to get out of this,” and if it can’t be reversed and it can’t be gotten out of, you need to explain, “We’ve made a mistake. What can we do?”

4 Give not sleep to your eyes, nor slumber to your eyelids.

In other words, don’t waste time on this.

5 Deliver yourself as a roe from the hand of the hunter,

or as a gazelle

5 —and as a bird from the hand of the fowler.

Now, you may not be able to get out of it. You may be responsible here. You may be obligated to follow through on what you agreed on and if so, you may have to learn a hard lesson. The best thing to do is, not go into some kind of agreement like this and if you do, you need to really give some serious thought before you do. But if you have entered into it and there’s a way that you can get out of it without doing damage to your friend or damage to his reputation or your reputation or doing something illegal, it might be something to pursue.

In other words, what Proverbs 6, verse 1–3 is telling us is, be careful about financial arrangements, and if you’ve gotten into one that’s bad, maybe you can cut your losses and make other arrangements, and if not, then try to get that taken care of the best way you can and then don’t be trapped like that again. That’s very important information that we need to consider as we make decisions in these areas of finances.

Now notice chapter 6 in verse 6. Here’s an admonition for all of us regarding our work ethic and regarding being diligent.

6 Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise:

7 Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler,

8 Provides her food in the summer, and gathers her food in the harvest.

In other words, God tells us that we are to learn from whatever and whichever and wherever we can learn from. In this case, we can learn from the little ant. If you’ve ever taken the time to observe ants in an anthill or observe ants in a column, you will see that they are very industrious. They are very busy. They are little bitty creatures that think ahead and plan ahead and make provisions for the future. It’s just built into them. It’s in their instinct. God Himself is the one who designed the ant, and God Himself is the one who put into the ant this approach to being busy, to providing for the needs of the ant colony, this approach to being busy and industrious, planning ahead, not waiting until the last minute, not putting it off, not procrastinating, carrying out responsibilities when they need to be carried out. Even a little ant or an ant colony does that.

And as you watch columns going along of ants, one behind the other, one behind the other, carrying a piece of leaf or a piece of grass or other things. They just work and work and work and work and work and work and work while they can work. They don’t wait until the time when they can’t get out there and do that. They do that while they can do it and then when the time comes that they can’t get out there and gather food and gather what they need, they don’t need to worry about it because they’ve already done it in the appropriate time and in the appropriate way.

So the lesson is, we need to do the same thing. We need to avoid this age old problem of procrastination, of laziness, of putting things off, of waiting for somebody else to do it for us. But rather, we need to have an attitude of diligence. We need to stay busy. We need to be planning ahead. We need to take stock of what our family needs, what we need for the coming winter, or for the trip we’re going to take, or for the education of our children, or for clothing cost and budgets for the coming year, or for needs for repair in the house, etc.

We need to go ahead and start making provisions, making arrangements. We need to go ahead and start preparing and gathering what we need in order to get those things done. The basic lesson here is, don’t procrastinate. It’s not that we should be workaholics. That’s not what God is saying. He wants us to practice moderation in all aspects of our lives. The point He’s making here is, don’t procrastinate. Stay engaged. Stay busy. Be a good provider. Work while you can. Make hay while the sun shines, so to speak. Don’t put off bringing the hay in until it starts raining and then you can’t bring it in. If you go ahead and make hay while the sun shines, then when it starts raining, the hay is already in the barn. That’s the principle. Whether we are on the farm or whether we’re working in a factory or working in the home.

Don’t delay doing what needs to be done while you can do it. Don’t delay acquiring what needs to be acquired while you have the means to acquire it.

Continuing now in verse 9.

9 How long will you sleep, O sluggard? when will you arise out of your sleep?

10 Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep:

Just snoozing along, and it’s so comfortable to be curled up in bed under the covers and, you know, it might be kind of cold outside. It might be raining a little bit. We might be a little bit tired so we just rollover and pull the covers up and keep sleeping and first thing you know, half the day is gone and we still haven’t done anything around the house, or anything around the yard, or anything about going to work, or anything about fixing things that need to be fixed and first thing you know, the day is gone and we’ve slept and then the night comes and we sleep some more, and laziness and indolence sets in.

10 Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep:

You might say, “Well, you know, I’m not that way.” Well, good. Don’t ever be that way. But there are people who are that way. They just laze around and sleep their life away, snooze their life away, and first thing you know, here’s what happens:

11 So shall your poverty come as one—

or as a prowler

11 —that travels—

or prowls around

11 —and your want as an armed man.

It’s inevitable. Whatever we sow, we reap. If we don’t sow anything, we’re not going to reap anything. If we’re not going to sow very much, we’re not going to reap very much. If we sow a lot and we’re busy, we’re going to reap a lot and enjoy the benefits of our work. Otherwise,

11 So shall your poverty come as one that travels, and your want as an armed man.

And so when poverty sets in or when bills stack up, or when houses begin to crumble, or when lives begin to be overrun with debt, we need to look and say, “Well, why? What’s the cause of this?” Cause and effect should be put into play here so that we can figure out what it is, and sometimes it’s tragedy or sometimes it’s an unexpected event that we didn’t plan for and had nothing to do with. But quite often, you will find a lack of diligence, laziness, and you will find procrastination and wasting time on this, that, and the other thing instead of being productive and instead of being fully engaged at accomplishing things. Quite often, that’s what you’ll find if you’re really honest about it.

12 A naughty person, a wicked man, walks with a froward mouth.

In other words, a perverse individual, a perverse mouth.

13 He winks with his eyes, he speaks with his feet, he teaches with his fingers;

He’s got all these slick moves. He’s got all these fancy approaches. He’s charming. He can twinkle and dance and point and just charm and fool and deceive people, and yet inside, he’s a perverse individual.

14 Frowardness is in his heart, he devises evil continually; he sows discord.

He’s out to use and manipulate and deceive others so that he can get from them something that he wants while they simply are taken in by this con man, this con artist. We have to be alert to that. We can’t be taken in by charm and by slick talking and by something that sounds too good to be true. We have to get the facts. We have to investigate. We have to look for proof. We have to make sure that we put all of the information together, and then as Proverbs has been telling us through these chapters that we’ve been going through, use wisdom, and not be fooled by appearances and by slick talking and by fancy moves.

15 Therefore shall his calamity come suddenly; suddenly shall he be broken—

That’s what happens when someone is deceptive, when someone is evil, when someone is trying to take advantage of other people. Sooner or later, it catches up, and sooner or later, what he sows, he reaps, and the way he’s been treating others is the way he’ll be treated by circumstances, by penalties from broken laws that he has been breaking in mistreating other people and in trying to get something that he does not deserve, something that other people have that he should not be taking, either by deception or even by actual outright robbery.

Now Proverbs 6:16:

16 These six things does the Lord hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him:

Now, let’s think about this. We want to think the way God thinks. We want to try to be more and more like Him in all things because He’s full of love. He’s perfect. He always does and says the right thing. He is the way that we want to be. Now as human beings, we fall far short of that. But yet with God’s help, we can aspire to being more and more like Him and therefore be more and more like Him.

So if He says, “I hate these things. These things are an abomination to me.” Then we should hate these things and these things should be an abomination to us, and we should make sure that we’re not guilty of these seven things that we’re going to read about here, and we ought to be careful that we’re not keeping company with other people who are guilty of these seven things here.

It says here in Proverbs 6:17:

17 A proud look,—

Full of pride, full of vanity, strutting and prissing and preening and drawing attention to ourselves.

17 —a lying tongue,—

Someone who doesn’t tell the truth. Someone who simply sooner or later is going to lie, is going to shade and exaggerate and twist and modify the truth. God hates that. He wants us to tell the truth every time about everything.

17 —and hands that shed innocent blood,

Bullies and people that pick on others and take advantage of the disadvantaged.

18 A heart that devises wicked imaginations,—

Or is always coming up with evil schemes, things that hurt other people. things that deceive other people, things that extract from other people what is not deserving to the individual that is mistreating that person, coming up with con schemes, etc. Anything to steal or get from others, God hates that.

Sometimes the elderly are taken advantage of. In fact, you hear about it often where the elderly are taken advantage of, by slick talking con artists, and they’re always coming up with these schemes. Well, God does not take that lightly. He hates that. That is an abomination unto Him.

18 —feet that be swift in running—

to evil or

18 —to mischief,

Just figuring out how can I get involved in this, and that, and the other thing. Look at this, look at that, look at the other thing. Eat this, eat that, eat the other thing. Do this, do that, do the other thing. But it’s all evil instead of doing the right thing. God hates that.

19 A false witness that speaks lies,—

Someone who swears to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. And of course, we shouldn’t be swearing. But someone who declares to do that and yet really lies. Someone that is being relied on to explain the situation because they were an eyewitness, but they twist it and they lie about it. Now that’s a commentary on our justice system today. And when people go to court and they’re called upon to be a witness, and yet they lie, and therefore an injustice can easily be done because of relying on a false witness. God doesn’t take that lightly. And look at this. This is very important, the last part of verse 19:

19 —and he that sows discord among brethren.

This can be among brethren in the church. This can be among brethren within a family. People that gossip. People that backstab. People that twist bits and pieces of information and just go about sowing discord and creating mischief and creating confusion and creating complications, and turning people against other people, and separating friends from friends because of the words and the letters and the communications that they pass around. And they end up instead of sowing peace and harmony and unity and happiness, they sow discord and hate and pain and suffering, and split up marriages and split up families and split up friendships, and even split up congregations by sowing all of this discord sometimes. Create camps and they create all kinds of splits and schisms, and they end up, by sowing discord, hurting so many people. No wonder why God says He hates these things. This polarization that takes place between people that before loved one another and shared life together. God hates that. It’s an abomination. We better make sure that we’re never guilty of that.

20 My son, keep your father's commandment, and forsake not the law of your mother:

In other words, the teachings of our fathers and of our mothers. Honor our father and our mother and keep their teachings as long as they’re lined up with God’s teachings, and above all, keep God’s commandments in everything we do. That should be the path that we’re living our lives everyday as we walk down that path.

21 Bind them continually upon your heart, and tie them about your neck.

Make them a close friend and companion, the law of God, the commandments of God.

22 When you go, it shall lead you;—

this law

22 —when you sleep, it shall keep you; and when you awake, it shall talk with you.

23 For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life:

I want to turn to Deuteronomy 6 just to show how important this is. Deuteronomy 6:1. It says here in Deuteronomy 6:1:

1 Now these are the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments, which the Lord your God commanded to teach you, that you might do them in the land where you go to possess:

He said to Israel, but it certainly applies to us today. And notice what He says in verse 7:

7 And you shall teach them diligently unto your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up.

In other words, they are such an important part of our lives, these Ten Commandments, both in the spirit and in the letter, that we often think about them and we often review them and we often talk about them and we develop them, and expand them, into concepts of practical living. We take these tremendous commandments, these tremendous principles, these tremendous nuggets, these tremendous directions from God, and then we develop and apply them to everyday living as we love God and love neighbor, and we show how they apply in all walks of life and they are a part of us wherever we go. We hold them close to our hearts and minds, and our actions and our thoughts are directed by this great law of God. That’s how important it is. We keep reading about it in this book of Proverbs because it’s so important.

And as we go through this dark society in which we live, and as we live our lives, and as we try to wend our way through this society that Satan has hatched, in this society that Satan energizes and maintains, as we keep this law in front of our eyes all the time, it’s like a compass, it’s like a lamp to our feet. It will guide us and keep us from going over there and falling in that trap and being pulled in that direction. But rather, it will keep us on track and on the right path and will save us a tremendous amount of grief, and will produce a tremendous amount of blessings in our lives.

So we must remember that we keep being reminded about this in God’s word for a reason. When He repeats things, He does it for a reason. He wants us to get the point about His commandments, and as we follow them, look what they steer us clear of. Proverbs 6:24:

24 To keep you from the evil woman, from the flattery of the tongue of an evil woman.

Or an evil man. As we keep the seventh commandment you shall not commit adultery that steers us away from this pitfall and from this death trap.

25 Lust not after her beauty in your heart; neither let her take you with her eyelids.

or with her appearance

26 For by means of a whorish woman a man is brought—

or reduced

26 —to a piece of bread: and the adulteress will hunt for the precious life.

And I’ve seen that happen where people who had a good life, a good home, a good happy family, a wonderful marriage, because they get involved with harlots, or they get involved with adultery or fornication, their lives begin to fall apart and unravel, and they lose everything and end up being on the street just looking for crumbs because of not obeying God’s law.

27 Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned?

28 Can one go upon hot coals, and his feet not be burned?

The answer of course is no.

29 So he that goes in to his neighbor's wife; whosoever touches her shall not be innocent.

He’s going to be burned and she’ll be burned, and if there’s not repentance, they’ll be burned up in the Lake of Fire. That’s how serious it is.

30 Men do not despise a thief, if he steal to satisfy his soul when he is starving;

You don’t like it, but if a man is starving and he takes some apples out of your apple orchard, you’ll probably going to allow him to do that or if he’ll work for a while, it won’t bother you.

31 But if he be found, he shall restore sevenfold;—

be fully responsible for restoring it

31 —he shall give all the substance of his house.

Until he’s repaid what he stole. Even though he was hungry, he still has to make restitution.

32 But whoso commits adultery with a woman lacks understanding: he that does it destroys his own soul.

33 A wound and dishonor shall he get; and his reproach shall not be wiped away.

34 For jealousy is the rage of a man: therefore he will not spare in the day of vengeance.

35 He will not regard any ransom; neither will he rest content, though you give many gifts.

The penalty is going to set in. It’s going to be painful. It’s going to be absolutely relentless and you can’t un–ring the bell, you can’t rewind the tape, you step over the line, I step over the line, anybody steps over the line life will never be the same again. And then we get in trouble with God, which is even worse.

So the best thing to do is for us to consider all these things that we’re reading in the book of Proverbs, and with God’s help turn in the right direction and stay on the right path and avoid all these things. And if we find ourselves in the middle of it, cry out to God. Repent about it. Ask Him to forgive us, give us the strength to move out of it and get on the right path and go in the right direction, and enjoy the wonderful blessings that come from that type of decision to walk according to God’s law in wisdom and by the strength of God.

Alright, we’ll stop there and pick it up next time in Chapter 7.

This is Charles Bryce with the Enduring Church of God.