Proverbs 6:1-19 (July 30, 2023)

Practical Wisdom for Everyday Life in Proverbs 6

Amen, well you can turn with me in your Bibles to Proverbs chapter 6, Proverbs chapter 6. As you're turning there, I want to let you know where we're headed over the next several weeks over the next month or so as far as sermons go.

So this is going to be our last Sunday in the book of Proverbs. We've been working this summer, we've been working through Proverbs. We're going to stop here in verse 19 and then we'll pick up in Proverbs again next summer.

But over the next month or so in August, I want us to take a look at a few different topics related to church matters over the next couple of Sundays. So next Sunday we're going to look at church membership in the Scriptures, which is appropriate because we're also going to celebrate the Lord's Supper together next Sunday.

Then on August the 13th, I'm going to preach about corporate worship in the life of the church. That'll be August 13th. I'm going to be out of town. Our family's going to be out of town on the 20th, so we'll have a guest preacher then.

And then on August the 27th, we're going to start the book of Acts. And that'll take us the majority of the next year until we get to Proverbs next summer. We'll take some breaks around Christmas time and a few other places, but we'll look at the book of Acts beginning on August the 27th, and that'll take us through the majority of the next year.

And also on August 27th, that'll be the day that we start our Sunday school back. And so we're looking forward to that as well. So I just wanted to give you a little bit of a heads up of where we're going.

But today we're in Proverbs 6, verses 1 through 19, Proverbs 6, 1 through 19. And this is a passage in which the father, remember, as we're going through this book, we keep saying that it's a father giving instruction to his son about the art and skill of godly living.

And so in this section, he's giving his son some very practical wisdom. And so this chapter, when I was studying this week, it reminded me of when my oldest nephew was young. And so that's my brother Matt over here.

It's his oldest son. He's got his youngest son with him today, but his oldest son is Samuel. And when he was much younger, he was in Boy Scouts. And my sister Christy, who some of you know, she comes here when she's in town.

She lives in Charleston now. But my sister Christy thought some of the stuff that Samuel was learning in Boy Scouts was, I mean, it was really good stuff, but it wasn't really practical enough for her liking.

You know, so starting a fire with flint, learning to tie knots, learning to read a compass, wilderness survival. She just didn't see when Samuel was going to need to use that stuff. And so she said she was going to do street scouts with him.

And she was going to teach him some stuff he could actually use. And so she taught him how to pick a lock with a credit card and how to negotiate more dollars per A on his report card with his grandfather.

Or how to answer a question with not really, you know, actually answering the question. Other practical life skills, we'll say. And so street scouts became a running joke in our family ever since. And in Proverbs 6, the father's giving his son a street scouts lesson.

He's giving his son lessons in practical wisdom. He's teaching him, and by extension he's teaching us, how to be wise in the course of everyday life. Particularly as we relate with other people. And so having warned, we saw last week in Proverbs 5, having warned against the forbidden woman or the immoral woman, today we see in Proverbs 6, the father's warning against worthless men.

Against being ensnared by them, or becoming like them. So he begins in verses 1 -5 with a warning against putting up security for a neighbor and giving your pledge for a stranger. So let's read Proverbs 6, verses 1 -5, and the word of God says this, My son, if you have put up security for your neighbor, have given your pledge for a stranger, if you are ensnared in the words of your mouth, caught in the words of your mouth, then do this, my son, and save yourself.

For you have come into the hand of your neighbor. Go, hasten, and plead urgently with your neighbor. Give your eyes no sleep, and your eyelids no slumber. Save yourself like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter, like a bird from the hand of the fowler.

This is God's word to us. What we see here in these first five verses, what's in view, is making yourself responsible for someone else's debt. Now this is not an absolute command against putting up security.

For example, maybe cosigning on a loan. This is not an absolute command about it, but rather it's a warning not to do it rashly. You see it there in verse 2, if you're snared in the words of your mouth.

Rash vows are repeatedly warned against in the scriptures. And so we need to be careful about the promises that we make. And count the cost of those promises so that we don't end up in trouble because our mouth is making promises that we can't keep.

And so it's also a warning against putting up security for someone whose character that you don't know well. And so if you see in verse 1, you notice a parallel, because it basically says the same thing twice.

Put up security for a neighbor, or you've given your pledge to a stranger. And in that parallelism, what you see is at the end of that you have neighbor and stranger. And so it's very likely that the neighbor in view here is one whose character you don't know very well.

And so the warning then is not to quickly make yourself responsible for someone else's debt or someone else's actions, or we might say someone else's inactions. Particularly someone whom you do not know well, especially their character.

Because it could backfire on you. If you're ultimately responsible for something, not that person, then they don't necessarily have any incentive to pay back what they owe. And then you could be on the hook for it.

Or like verse 5 says, you could be like the deer in the hunter's headlights. Not headlights, sights. You'd be the deer in the sights of Ron Cook's rifle. You wouldn't have a chance, right? You'd get him.

Or you'd be like the bird in the hand of a fowler, trapped. And so we want to be wise. Now why might somebody get into such a situation? Why would they put up security rashly for a stranger or a neighbor, taking on responsibility for their debt?

Or if we apply it more broadly, beyond debt, sometimes people commit their time and their energy and their finances rashly to those who they have no formal obligation to. Why do people do that? Well, sometimes people are manipulated into it.

There are people who will manipulate you into doing their bidding. They'll put false guilt upon you. They will take things that they know that you believe and they know that you value and they'll twist them in such a way to make you feel obligated to do what they want you to do.

And so we've got to be on guard against guilt manipulators. A second reason people end up making themselves responsible for others is just simple good-hearted kindness and compassion and tenderheartedness.

People genuinely want to help. And they're willing to put themselves out in order to do so. They're compassionate and merciful. And we want to be compassionate and merciful, right? In fact, we're commanded to be compassionate and merciful in the Scriptures.

And the Spirit of God produces that in us. Mercy and compassion are produced by God's Spirit in us. And so I'm not going to tell you not to be compassionate and merciful in order to be wise. But rather, our compassion and our kindness needs to be fortified, guarded, and protected by wisdom.

You see, we live in a world that's finite. We each have finite resources. We cannot be the same level of generous with everyone. Or soon, we couldn't be generous to anyone. We wouldn't have anything left.

And so we need wisdom. And so the Father in Proverbs 6 is giving us wisdom saying, don't be rash with putting up security for someone whose character you don't know well. It could be dangerous for you.

And without such wisdom, two things can happen with kind and compassionate people. One, they become easy marks for the guilt manipulators. Those who manipulate them into doing their bidding. They know which buttons to push.

They know which heart strings to pluck. Or two, the well-meaning and kind, compassionate person just ends up biting off more than they can chew. And so, you know the old adage that fences make good neighbors?

Well, it's true because we all need to know our boundaries. Limits are good. We live in a culture that doesn't believe in limits, but limits are good. And knowing our limits can keep us from exposing ourselves to risk that could be catastrophic for us.

And that's what the Father is warning against here. And then the third reason people get into this type of fix is a savior complex. They feel like they have to save the world and everybody in it. This is similar to the kind and compassionate person I just mentioned that might be well-meaning, but maybe a little bit naive.

But it's different because this person's not all the way innocent. This person is trying to fill some sort of need within themselves. And the help that they are giving in putting up security for another or whatever is really not about the other person, it's about them.

They help others selfishly because they need to be needed. They want to be the savior. They're after their own self-fulfillment and it becomes all about them. And they end up in a mess. And so these are at least three reasons.

There's probably more. These are at least three reasons that would explain why someone would put up security for a neighbor or a stranger. One distinction that I think can be helpful on this issue is this.

It is a sin to be selfish, right? We see that in Philippians 2 .4. It's a sin to look after our own interests at the exclusion of the interests of other people. Philippians 2 .4 commands us to look out for the interests of others and not to do that would be a sin.

So it's a sin to be selfish. We all know that. But it's not a sin to look out for your interests alongside those of others. And so Philippians 4, if you read it, it says, look not only to your own interests, but also.

Also implies both, right? So we are to look out for our own interests, just not to the exclusion of other people. So it's not a sin to look out for your own interests and not being on the hook for someone else's bad decisions.

And in fact, if you have people that you're responsible for or who are responsible for you, and so in some way that's pretty much all of us, it is a sin to not look out for your own interests, just to blindly put ourselves out there.

Because those who you are responsible for or responsible for you, your interest is tied up in theirs. And so it's a way to obey Philippians 4. And so what do you do if you end up in a situation like the Father's warning about here in the beginning of Proverbs 6?

What does he say? He says, Go! Hasten! Plead urgently with your neighbor! Give your eyes no sleep, your eyelids no slumber! He says, go and extract yourself quickly. Plead with your neighbor. Pester him until he fulfills his duty and takes responsibility for himself.

Get out from that burden as soon as possible, lest you end up like the deer or the bird, trapped and soon to be prey. So that's the first bit of practical wisdom the Father gives. Then we go down to verses 6 -11, and the Father warns his son against laziness.

Let's read God's word beginning in verse 6. Go to the aunt, O sluggard! Consider her ways and be wise, without having any chief, officer, or ruler. She prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest.

How long will you lie there, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber and want like an armed man.

And so what we see here in these verses is the enemy is within. The enemy is sloth in a man's heart because sloth in a man's heart will destroy him. And so the Father says, Go to the aunt, O sluggard!

Consider her ways. Look at her, study what the aunt does, and be wise. You see, the aunt has no guide. The aunt has no overseer. The aunt has no ruler who's making her get up and get at him. Yet she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest, and she is well prepared for the winter.

The aunt works even when no one instructs her to. The sluggard does the opposite. The sluggard sleeps. And when he is roused, he hits the snooze button again and sleeps a little longer. He can't be bothered with his duties.

To quote Charles Bridges, for the sluggard, present ease is all he calculates on, is all he provides for. Present ease. He only thinks for the moment, not seeing the danger on the horizon because of his laziness.

He only thinks for the moment. But what is the danger? Verse 11 tells us, poverty will come upon you like a robber, want like an armed man. We need to be on the lookout for that. And how are we on the lookout for poverty or want coming on us?

Like an armed man. It's through diligence. It's through diligence. In Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, one of the characters is asked how he went bankrupt. And he replied two ways, gradually and then suddenly.

Gradually and then suddenly. That's how it goes. Time slips by, bit by bit for the sluggard. Present moment by present moment. Nap by nap. And then all of a sudden, quote another commentator, Alistair Roberts, the bitter consequences of his abandoned duties comes upon him like a bandit, stripping him of all he possesses.

He is left defenseless by his inaction. And poverty and want come upon him like a thug in the night and take everything. He said let this be a warning to us against laziness and against sloth in our heart coming out into our lives.

There's a broad principle that we can apply here. And that is the fleeting pleasures of sin are never worth the lasting consequences of sin. The fleeting pleasures of sin are never worth the lasting consequences of sin.

The temporary relaxation of laziness is not worth the long-term consequences of laziness. And so what is a lazy young man to do? Well, he's to go to the aunt. He's to consider her ways and be wise and be like the aunt.

See, the aunt has no officer commanding him, but he does have initiative. He does have work ethic. He's diligent. And over and over in Proverbs, diligence is commended and commanded. There's a lot of value in diligently plotting over time, doing little by little consistently.

The great cathedrals of Europe were built little by little. The pyramids in Egypt were built little by little. A Picasso masterpiece is painted little brush stroke by little brush stroke. And you can do great things a little at a time, plotting diligently over time.

I interviewed a pastor one time, and he talked about the original settlers of Idaho. And he said when they first got there, there were no jobs, but there sure was a lot of work to do. There were no jobs, but there was plenty of work.

And they got to it, and they built something. They built a society. They were like the aunts. They didn't need somebody to tell them to. They just did it. And the future belongs to those who show up and build it, to those who show up and work, who don't need to be told to do something, who aren't afraid to take risks, who don't need to have their hand held, who don't wait around for somebody else to take action.

So this is how we're trying to raise our kids, parents, grandparents. This is something that you want to try to instill in your kids and your grandkids. Because we need a new generation of aunts to rebuild the West, to rebuild America.

And I hope that as part of that, I hope we get a slew of young men like this in our church. I pray that God will bring us young, ambitious, zealous young men, godly young men. And if that happens, we need to know, if that happens, they're going to go overboard in their zeal sometimes.

We just need to be warned. But it's a whole lot easier to channel zeal in the right direction than it is to try to stir up zeal. And so in our current cultural moment, when too many men are too passive and too lazy and too busy with trivial things to be bothered with lasting things, things that matter, I'd much rather have to pull the reins back and say, whoa boy, to an overzealous young man than to have to say giddy up to a passive one.

And so let's pray that God will stir up in our young men that we have here and that He will bring young men who are zealous for good works. Because if we're going to win glory for King Jesus, and that's what we say we're about here, worshiping God and winning glory for King Jesus, then we're going to need men zealous for good works who are diligent to put their hands to good work.

And so we say with the Father in Proverbs, go to the aunt, learn her ways, and be wise. Verses 12 -19, then warn us against worthless men. Let me read these verses. A worthless person, a wicked man, goes about with crooked speech, winks with his eyes, signals with his feet, points with his finger, with perverted heart devises evil, continually sowing discord.

Therefore calamity will come upon him suddenly. In a moment he will be broken beyond healing. There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to Him, haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood.

A heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers. Amen, this is God's Word to us. First thing I want you to notice in this part of the passage is that there's such a thing as worthless men.

You see, we're socialized into a certain type of politeness that's not supposed to notice or at least say out loud that certain persons are worthless. Yet here it is in the Bible. What are we to do with it?

The other translations have it as a naughty person or a wayward man. It's not that this person has no value at all. No, all people are made in the image of God and have inherent value and dignity. So I don't mean that at all.

But it's rather that this type of person that Proverbs is warning against is actively warring against that image and against that God. And he does not have and does not value and pursue righteousness which is what God values.

So in that way the Scriptures say worthless person. And notice that he puts his whole body into service of unrighteousness specifically with the goal to stir up discord and division. He goes about with crooked speech.

He's deceptive and devious with his words. He lies about others. He twists events to suit his narrative. Then he goes on and speaks of his eyes, his feet, his fingers. They're all involved in the wickedness.

But as we saw a few weeks ago, his body does the bidding of his heart. What Bridges calls the laboratory of evil. The perverted heart devises evil, verse 14. With the perverted heart he continually sows discord.

The worthless men because of their perverted hearts are rabble-rousing troublemakers who go around instigating conflict and stirring up trouble. With their words, with their lies, they pit one person against another in such a way to gain a personal advantage.

So we need to learn how to recognize such people. Because especially in a church, such a person can wreak havoc. Just heard a story this week from a pastor at another church in the upstate. Had a couple that joined their church and within short order they began scheming and sowing discord in their church.

Eventually they left because they got their feelings heard about something that the Bible said. And that's when the whisper campaign began. And they recruited others in their small group to leave too.

Those who instigate conflict, those who continually are sowing discord among their brothers, they can destroy a church. They can destroy a family. They can destroy an office environment. They can destroy a sports team that a student might be on.

Any kind of group of people. You get somebody that's just wanting to sow division. You can destroy it, but it can destroy a church. Now thankfully, in the year I've been here, I've seen nothing of this.

And so I want to commend you. I've witnessed incredible unity in our church over this last year. And I am grateful to God for that. Still, I think we need to hear the warning. It's right here in our passage.

And so we need to hear the warning so that we can recognize it if it ever begins to happen. And so that we can protect ourselves against it. We can protect our unity. And so the first way we protect against this is to protect ourselves from becoming those who stir up strife and sow discord.

So let's hear the warning in verse 15. It says, Therefore calamity will come upon him suddenly. In a moment he will be broken beyond healing. Like poverty and want come upon the sluggard, in verse 11, calamity will come upon the worthless man suddenly.

We see in verse 15. Now the text doesn't specify how, what's going to happen. But we can make some guesses, as one commendator suggested, that perhaps he gets caught in his troublemaking. Others find out what he's doing and it brings about his ruin.

Or maybe others conspire against him in the same way that he's conspired against others. Or maybe he gets caught up in the discord in such a way that brings calamity. We don't know exactly how it happens.

We know that it happens. Because verse 15 tells us it does. It's like Jesus said, With the measure that you use, it will be measured to you. Therefore, a little later on in Matthew 7, Jesus says, Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

And so let's guard our hearts so that we do not become the worthless man who stirs up trouble. Rather, let us practice the golden rule and treat others the way that we want to be treated. Another way the church is protected against worthless men sowing discord is by the work of the pastor.

So a pastor is a shepherd underneath the great shepherd. And a shepherd both feeds sheep and chases away wolves. And so it's my job to protect the flock of this church from the wolves who would sow discord and cause trouble among us.

And again, I'm glad that over the course of this last year we haven't had anything of the kind. But I do want you to know that if that situation presents itself, I do see that as one of my duties, and I will.

I'm willing to protect the flock in that way. So if someone were lying and gossiping and devising evil within our church, turning one against another, I'd confront him. I'd stop him. I'd stop her. Because Jesus prayed in John 17 that we would be one.

We see that the unity of the church matters to Jesus. And therefore it matters to me. Therefore it matters to us. And so I hope you hear this in the comforting way that I mean it. That is, we have a really good thing going here at First Baptist.

And I just want you to know as your pastor, I won't stand idly by if someone were to come in and try by force of personality or smooth words to stir it up and sow discord. And the reason for that is what we see in the latter part of this passage.

It's because God hates the sowing of discord among the brothers. It's an abomination to God. And so we don't want to tolerate it. See, in verses 16 -19, we're told of six things the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination.

And if you go down the list, you'll see a few things. One, you'll see how the things in this list, they compare and complement verses 12 -15 as it talks about eyes and mouths and hands and feet. Then you also notice as you go down the list, the Father in this list, He works downward throughout the human body from haughty eyes to lying tongues, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil.

And then in verse 19, that list of six culminates speaking of the whole body which just breathes out lies and how God hates a false witness because bearing false witness is an abomination to God because it is a perversion of justice.

But notice that list doesn't end with the six. No, the Father says, there's six things the Lord hates, no, seven that are an abomination. And that phrasing, six, no seven, it's a numerical device that's meant to highlight the very last thing in the list.

And what's highlighted there at the end of verse 19? And one who sows discord among the brothers. God hates it. Now look, we're not always going to have unity of opinion, right? That's not what we're talking about, that we all have to think the exact same way about everything.

We're not always going to have unity of opinion. You get five Baptists in a room, you're going to get eight opinions. But we can have unity of spirit. We can have unity of spirit. We can love one another.

We can believe the best about one another. We can disagree kindly with one another. We can forgive and forbear one another. And we can stick with one another. Verse 133 says, Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity.

It is like the precious oil on the head running down on the beard of Aaron, running down on the collar of his robes. It is like the dew of Hermon which falls on the mountains of Zion. For there the Lord has commanded the blessing, life forevermore.

Let's pray. Our Father, I ask that You would protect the unity of our church.