1 My son, if thou be surety
for thy friend, if thou hast stricken thy hand with a stranger, 2 Thou art
snared with the words of thy mouth, thou art taken with the words of thy mouth.
3 Do this now, my son, and deliver thyself, when thou art come into the
hand of thy friend; go, humble thyself, and make sure thy friend. 4 Give
not sleep to thine eyes, nor slumber to thine eyelids. 5 Deliver thyself
as a roe from the hand of the hunter, and as a bird from the hand of the
fowler.
6 Go to the ant, thou
sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise: 7 Which having no guide,
overseer, or ruler, 8 Provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her
food in the harvest. 9 How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? when wilt
thou arise out of thy sleep? 10 Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a
little folding of the hands to sleep: 11 So shall thy poverty come as one
that travelleth, and thy want as an armed man.
12 A naughty person, a
wicked man, walketh with a froward mouth. 13 He winketh with his eyes, he
speaketh with his feet, he teacheth with his fingers; 14 Frowardness is in
his heart, he deviseth mischief continually; he soweth discord. 15 Therefore
shall his calamity come suddenly; suddenly shall he be broken without remedy.
16 These six things doth the Lord hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto
him: 17 A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,
18 An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in
running to mischief, 19 A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that
soweth discord among brethren. (Prov 6:1-19)
This chapter of Proverbs three major divisions and a number
of subdivisions:
I.
God’s Admonitions (6:1-15, 24-35) Under
this division are four subdivisions of people being warned:
i. The
thoughtless and impulsive person
ii. The
shiftless (vs 6-11)
iii. The
ruthless (vs 12-15)
iv. Those
without virtue (24-35)
II.
God’s Assurances (vs 20-23)
i. God’s
Word will protect us (20-22)
ii. His
Word will be a Light and Guide to our feet (v 23)
III.
Seven Abominations that God hates in a
person (v 16-19)
In Part I, we will undertake God’s admonitions revealed in
verses 1 thru 19 of Proverbs 6, sort of the good, the bad
and the ugly if we substitute “foolish” for good.
It is thoughtless to undertake responsibilities and commitments which we may be
unable to satisfy. It is easy to make a commitment with one’s mouth, but
altogether a different matter to satisfy that commitment. Of course,
there is no sin in offering genuine support for a friend that you can surely
perform, but lip-service is a characteristic of man with which the Lord is all
too familiar. You will not have helped a friend in offering false hope in the same
way that you will not have satisfied the Mercy of God by claiming His Son as
your Lord and Savior with your mouth, and rejecting His holiness with your
living testimony. 5 Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than
that thou shouldest vow and not pay. (Eccl 5:5) The false professor of
Christ places himself in great danger for he presumes that his false profession
has satisfied the premises of Grace with God, but not so! 1 My
son, if thou be surety for thy friend, if thou hast stricken thy hand with a
stranger, 2 Thou art snared with the words of thy mouth, thou art
taken with the words of thy mouth. Truly, words have consequences.
Our commitments to God offer freedom and liberty if we are sincere, but our
commitments to man become a burdensome yoke if we find ourselves unable to meet
them.
If we have created either a debt of money or of action with a friend, and find
we cannot meet the terms of the debt, please do not hide your face from your
friend. If we are honest with our friend, he will still remain our friend; but,
if we simply avoid his face in silence, his friendship will turn cold. 3 Do
this now, my son, and deliver thyself, when thou art come into the hand of thy
friend; go, humble thyself, and make sure thy friend. 4 Give not
sleep to thine eyes, nor slumber to thine eyelids. 5 Deliver
thyself as a roe from the hand of the hunter, and as a bird from the hand of
the fowler. Do not let an unsatisfied debt fester in the
heart of a friend, or of a stranger.
6 Go
to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise: 7 Which
having no guide, overseer, or ruler, 8 Provideth her meat in the
summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest. I
often wonder if Aesop, an ancient Greek story-teller of wisdom (c. 620–564 BC),
may have had access to the earlier writings of Proverbs since his Fables as so
close to that given in Proverbs. Verse 6 is perfectly illustrated in Aesop’s
account of the Ants and the Grasshooper: “THE ANTS were spending a fine
winter’s day drying grain collected in the summertime. A Grasshopper, perishing
with famine, passed by and earnestly begged for a little food. The Ants
inquired of him, “Why did you not treasure up food during the summer?” He
replied, “I had not leisure enough. I passed the days in singing.” They then
said in derision: “If you were foolish enough to sing all the summer, you must
dance hungrily to bed in the winter.” (Translated by George Fyler
Townsend - Aesop's Fables) Please note that anyone who labors not for his bread
and eats the bread of others is called, by God, a SLUGGARD. “…..if any
would not work, neither should he eat.” (2 Thess 3:10) This principle
is a far cry from that of our present day welfare state who boasts of giving
away free cell phones to all comers. The all-nurturing welfare state leads to a
constant upgrade in totalitarian principles and away from those principles of
perfect Liberty offered by God and His Word.
9 How
long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? when wilt thou arise out of thy sleep? 10 Yet
a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep.
Exorbitantly leisure leads to poverty in the same way that regular labor leads
to strength of character. 11 So shall thy poverty come as one
that travelleth, and thy want as an armed man. Your desires for
what you lack will dominate your thoughts and impoverish your soul.
12 A naughty person, a wicked
man, walketh with a froward mouth. For
far too long, the American people have tolerated profane and uncouth language
in all public places. The wicked have no restraint of morals on their speech,
so the restraint must arise from decent society itself. If society remains
silent, the public decorum will degenerate. 13 He winketh with
his eyes, he speaketh with his feet, he teacheth with his fingers;
If the tongue of the wicked is curtailed by civil circumstance, he will devise
lurid signs by which to transmit his wicked intentions. 14 Frowardness
is in his heart, he deviseth mischief continually; he soweth discord.
Wickedness is not an impulse to the evil person, but an established habit.
There are no moments of daily life in which he is not contemplating some
wickedness against humankind. 15 Therefore shall his calamity
come suddenly; suddenly shall he be broken without remedy.
God is slow to anger but quick
to forgive. He abides in patience until the iniquity of a person or nation is
full, then He lowers His strong Arm of Judgment with it's a final indictment of
the sinner. There is a point at which the sinner becomes reprobate – not
because the Holy Ghost ceases it’s beckoning – but because the conscience of
the sinner has become hardened as a wound seared with a hot iron. Now
the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from
the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; Speaking
lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron (1
Tim 4:1-2) The sin may be so egregious that God will give them over to a
reprobate mind as with the sin of homosexuality: And likewise also the
men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward
another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in
themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. And even as they did
not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate
mind, to do those things which are not convenient (Romans 1:27-28) I
fear for our beloved Land when I recognize that our very own political leaders
are calling for the acceptance of this filthy sin.
Now we come to the six things that God hates in the character of man, and even
a seventh: 16 These six things doth the Lord hate: yea, seven are
an abomination unto him: 17 A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands
that shed innocent blood, 18 An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations,
feet that be swift in running to mischief, 19 A false witness that
speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren. God often
adds, by traditional language, one additional matter as an emphasis to the
total number of seven. The first thing that God hates in man is a PROUD
LOOK. Those who put on airs of false wealth or accomplishment are
repugnant to God. Pride is a terrible sin when it exceeds legitimate bounds. It
is natural for a mother to be proud of her children, but pride of station and
profession often incur the wrath of God. There is a great example of pride that
led to much of the pain and suffering on this earth. Lucifer was lifted up with
pride and decided that he would be like unto God Almighty! For this rebellion,
he was cast out of heaven along with his following of unfaithful angels. We owe
our every benefit to God and His grace. We can claim no accomplishment of our own
except our sins.
God hates a LIAR! We are told that there was a man named Ananias,
and his wife, Sapphire, who lied to the Lord and to His people. The sorrowful
account is given in Acts 5:1-10. The lives of both were demanded by the Lord
the selfsame instant. Now, friends, consider seriously that next characteristic
that God hates: “Hands that shed innocent blood.” Can you
imagine any blood more innocent that a child who is deprived of glimpsing his
first sunrise by a mother who aborts the child for convenience only? Is America
about to experience a hard judgment for our depravity?
What of the “HEART THAT DEVISETH WICKED IMAGINATIONS?”
What percent of the people of America today sit before a constant panorama of
pornography and bloody images? Has not our nation become a purveyor of
pornography and violence around the world? Will God exact a price for this
sinful propagation? If He doesn’t, perhaps He will feel obligated to apologize
to Sodom and Gomorrah. Do not the feet of many Americans today run to
the scent of mischief? How many are killed on our highways by
drunken drivers, or overdose on some sensual narcotic?
The worst form of the LIE is a
FALSE WITNESS whose lies lead to the ruin of the innocent. The False
Witness is, disgracefully, heard in the chambers of our national Congress more
frequently than on the streets of the ghetto. How did we come to this state of
affairs? Did we not reject morals and justice long ago when prayer was deprived
our children in public schools in contravention of the First Amendment of the
Bill of Rights? Am I getting too political for you? Good, then you are the one
to whom I address these words. Have morals improved, or degenerated, among our
youth since that time? Have Christians become like skunks with a yellow line,
instead of a white one, running down their limp spines? When did we first begin
to fear to speak out against immorality sponsored by government and education?
What
of those who seek influence by creating division in the church and society
itself? Are such not “he that soweth discord among brethren.”
What of those who would divide a church body over the color of carpet or
drapes? What of those in government, which should reflect the justice of God,
who pit race against race and wealthy against poor? When we survey these
offenses against God, it seems that it is a detailed description of modern day
America. Perish the thought. I pray that the Holy Spirit will once again move
upon the “Face of the Deep of America” and say, “Let there be Light!” and the
Light of Christ will become our Day Star if that day comes soon.
