Proverbs 10 (July 7, 2024)

Proverbs 10 and the Structure of Wisdom Literature

Can turn in your Bibles to Proverbs chapter 10. Proverbs chapter 10, we are continuing our series through the book of Proverbs this summer and we will go this summer as far as we can get the book of Proverbs and we'll hit a pause and we'll pick back up next summer.

But where we are today is chapter 10 and chapter 10 marks a division in the book. So chapters 1 through 9 kind of function as an introduction to the book of Proverbs. It was it was a call to wisdom and a contrast between wisdom and folly in in very general terms.

And now the following chapter beginning with chapter 10 it's going to continue to contrast the way of the wise with the way of the fool but it's going to do so contrasting righteousness and wickedness.

It's going to do so in the form of these pithy Proverbs that deal more with more specific situations across the spectrum of human life. And so that's what we'll do here beginning in chapter 10. You'll notice in verse 1 of 10 it has a heading for this section.

The Proverbs of Solomon. And these Proverbs of King Solomon they go from chapter 10 verse 1 through chapter 22 verse 16. And at that point the book transitions to the sayings of the wise there in verse 17 to chapter 22.

Later there'll be more Proverbs and Solomon and then some from Agur and then King Lemuel's mother. And it's interesting here in this section from chapter 10 to 22 there are 375 Proverbs that are listed which is the numerical equivalent to Solomon's name in Hebrew.

And that's just a fun detail that shows you how intricately the Bible is put together. These Proverbs are the fruit of much thought and reflection and meditation. They're the type of insights into the ways of the world that they don't come effortlessly but they come by paying very careful attention to God's Word, to God's world, and to people and to the patterns of the world.

Looking at things like cause and effect. Asking when this happens what usually follows. And this type of behavior brings this type of result. And then putting those patterns together in the form of Proverbs that distill wisdom for us.

They're usually stated without qualifications, without caveats, which can be tough on sensitive modern readers who don't like to think in generalities and want to make the exceptions or the tough cases, want to make those the rule.

But God in the book of Proverbs chose to give us generalities. Stated without qualifications, without caveats. And these are things that are generally true in life. It doesn't mean there's no exceptions.

These are things that are generally true of the world that God made. They're not mechanistic. They're not formulaic, guarantees, but they're Proverbs. Things that are generally true most of the time taking the averages and taking one thing with another.

And what they do is they help us discern the order of how God made the world to work. They help us navigate human relationships. They help us navigate the world in such a way that we can live the good life.

A meaningful and productive life with good relationships with others. These Proverbs take the revealed Word of God in the Scriptures. They combine it with careful attention to people and to the world in order to point us to a way of living well in God's world.

Which is another way to say they point us towards wisdom. Which is what we've been looking at this entire time we've been in the book of Proverbs. Now some of these Proverbs can be hard or difficult for Christians who have been trained to think only in very kind of spiritually or kind of pietistic ways.

Because the Proverbs often deal with very earthy subjects. Subjects like money and sex and political rule. But God did not make a fragmented world between the physical and the spiritual. The physical and the spiritual go together.

The heavenly and the earthly go together. And so the one who is well spiritually will live well in the earthly realm. Being heavenly minded they will do earthly good. So here's the thing about these next few chapters of Proverbs.

They're in the form of these seemingly disconnected Proverbs. It will bounce around from one subject to the next. And without careful attention it can be hard to sometimes discern the order. And even then it's sometimes hard to discern the order.

It's not like going through one of Paul's letters where he's building logically on this point and then builds upon that to make the next point. And then builds upon all of that that came before to make the next point.

It's seemingly a little bit more arbitrary. So what I'm going to do today is a little bit of a preaching experiment. I'm going to preach this a little bit differently than I normally would. Which means it may not go well.

It may bomb. And if it does come down to the fellowship hall after the service and we'll feed you and make it up to you. My wife made cinnamon rolls today. They're delicious. We'll make it up. But what I want to do is I want to go through chapter 10 kind of running commentary style.

We're going to look at a few verses at a time or maybe one verse at a time. Just kind of make quick running commentary as we go through it. Make practical application where we can. And then tie it all up together at the end.

Family Wisdom, Diligence, and Honest Gain

So let's begin in verses 1 through 5. Let me read these five verses. The Word of God says the Proverbs of Solomon. A wise son makes a glad father but a foolish son is the grief of his mother. Treasures of wickedness profit nothing but righteousness delivers from death.

The Lord will not allow the righteous soul to famish but he casts away the desire of the wicked. He who has a slack hand becomes poor but the hand of the diligent makes rich. He who gathers in summer is a wise son.

He who sleeps in harvest is a son who causes shame. See verse 1 is a general overview verse that speaks to the importance of wisdom in the life of the family. You see verses 1 and 5 mention the wise son and this shows us that family relationships and family duties are a primary concern of living with wisdom.

We are born into families. We have family obligations and so fulfilling those duties to one another as well as living an upstanding life out in the world as we bear our family name. This is important.

We do not exist merely as individuals but we exist as those who are part of families. We exist as those who are part of churches and so verse 1 taps into something that's deep in human nature which is that we want to make our dads proud.

We want our dads to be glad of us. Some of us have really good relationships with our fathers and we want to make them proud for all the obvious reasons that would go along with that. Some have poor relationships with their dads.

Maybe he just wasn't a very good man or a very good dad and that's caused a gaping hole in their life but still they really deep down want to please dad in spite of the type of man or dad that he was and they want to make him glad.

Father hunger is a real thing. It's that innate desire to please one's father. Now again the exceptions don't become the rule. Some dads just will never be pleased but Proverbs tells us what is generally true and that desire that you have to make your dad proud, make your father glad, verse 1 tells us how and that is by being wise.

By living well in God's world according to God's Word, the art and skill of godly living will make your father glad. Another universal desire is to not cause your mother too much heartache. The foolish son, Proverbs says, is a grief to his mother but the wise son is her delight and so we need to give ourselves to getting wisdom.

Verse 2 warns against unjust gain. The treasures that you get from wickedness will never prosper you. It never benefits to steal to get wealth, to lie to get what you want, to cheat because the chickens always come home to roost and unjust gain always backfires and God's Word tells you profits nothing.

Charles Bridges in his commentary on Proverbs said it something like this, he said, what profit was Naboth's vineyard to King Ahab when he lived under God's curse? Or what profit was that 30 pieces of silver to Judas as he fell headlong into the field of blood?

Or you take the teachings of Jesus, what does it profit a man to gain the whole world but lose his soul? The answer of course is nothing for the treasure of wickedness profits nothing. We're gonna skip verse 3 and come back to it in just a minute but verses 4 and 5 warn against laziness and commend diligence to God's people.

The slack hand becomes poor but the diligent hand makes rich. Now poverty in and of itself is no shame. The poor, as we've seen in other weeks, the poor who have wisdom they have something more valuable than choice silver, they have something more valuable than very fine gold.

But poverty due to laziness is shameful. It says there in verse 5, he who sleeps and harvests is a son who causes shame. Therefore the lesson for us is to to put our hands to the plow, to put our hands to good work, to work diligently.

But our trust, even as we put our hands to the plow, our trust is not in our own hands. Now the Lord is the one who provides. Verse 3 says the Lord will not allow the righteous soul to famish. The Lord will provide and keep the righteous from hunger.

Therefore we neither try to gain the system through underhanded means, that is the unjust game, the lying, the stealing, the cheating, nor do we squander God's blessings through laziness. Rather we work diligently asking and trusting the Lord to bless our labors and to meet our needs.

This is wisdom. Let's move on read verses 6 through 11. Blessings are on the head of the righteous, but violence covers the mouth of the wicked. The memory of the righteous is blessed, but the name of the wicked will rot.

The wise in heart will receive commands, but a prating fool will fall. He who walks with integrity walks securely, but he who perverts his ways will become known. He who winks with the eye causes trouble, but a prating fool will fall.

The mouth of the righteous is a well of life, but violence covers the mouth of the wicked. See this section here is booking in verses 6 and 11 with that phrase, but violence covers the mouth of the wicked.

So it shows these verses, this section kind of goes together contrasting the righteous and the wicked. The righteous receive blessings on their head, verse 6. That is they receive the goodness of the Lord.

Now this is a fairly open phrase. It can be broadly applied across life. Generally it will go well for the righteous. Of course this doesn't mean that the righteous never suffer. The Bible addresses that in books like Job and Ecclesiastes, but generally speaking things will go well and the righteous will receive blessings and we can be sure that what it, though earthly blessings are going to vary, we have eternal blessing in Christ.

And so blessing is on the head of the righteous ultimately in Christ and eternal life. See in verse 7 that the memory of the righteous is blessed. This refers to the memory of him after after death. So in this subject I want to ask you a Do you think about years from now how others will reflect on and look back at your life?

Do you think about how you'll be remembered after you're gone? Or after 50 years? Or after 500 years? Most of us will be long forgotten in 500 years, but maybe some of you won't be. We should at least consider that.

We should consider what our great-great-grandchildren will discover about us when they research their family tree. So for example, on my dad's mother's side, she was a Parris, and so we're down the family line from Richard Parris.

Parris Mountain is named for him. And so I am proud that he was one of the founders of modern Greenville. He was a founder there. Less so was I proud to find out that he was something of a swindler who may have forged some deeds, took an Indian mistress, and sided with the Loyalists in the War for Independence.

But you look back on a life, what will your legacy be? Too many of us have a have a too short-term view of our own lives here in this world. We only consider the present, but what legacy will you leave?

What will you build to leave for your descendants? What trees will you plant that you'll never sit under its shade? You'll never eat fruit from its branches, but your grandkids will. The memory of the righteous is blessed, verse 7, but the name of the wicked will rot.

Then move on to verse 8, tells us that the wise receive commands. We talked about this last week, about being coachable, about being teachable. You see the wise, they're teachable, they're grateful to be instructed in the ways of God, because they want to please God.

They know their frame, they know their sin, they like course corrections, because the goal isn't their own pride, it isn't feeling good about themselves, the goal is godliness, the goal is wisdom. And so they're grateful for instruction and receive commands, because the commands that we find of God in Scripture are for our good.

They point us towards how to live rightly and to cut with the grain of reality of how God has made the world, but the prating fool falls. He does not receive commands, he is not teachable or coachable, he does not like course correction, his goal is not godliness and wisdom.

He is a babbler who doesn't know when to stop talking and to start listening and heeding the wisdom of others, and he's worse off for it, stumbling and falling. Verse 9, he who walks with integrity walks securely.

He is unafraid because he's righteous, but he who perverts his ways will become known, that is, his deeds will be found out. Everybody thinks that they can get away with it, but what's done in the dark will be brought to the light and he will be disciplined by God.

His ways will become known. Verse 10, we see that those who speak lies, they don't speak straight. Liars don't speak straight, they don't communicate directly, they talk about winking the eye here in verse 10, or excuse me, chapter 6 verse 13 talks about the same thing, talking about liars, they wink with their eye, they signal with their feet, they point with their finger, and so through veiled speech they sow distrust.

They cause trouble with their sophistry and they're slippery with their nuance, and so the application for us here is to speak plainly, to say what we mean and mean what we say, to resist flattery and speaking in such a way to be purposefully misunderstood.

Speak straight. Verse 11, the mouth of the righteous is a well of life, that is, that those who are righteous, their words bring life and nourishment to those around them, they build others up, they are blessing to others, they refresh others with their speech and with their life, by their behavior and by their words, but violence covers the mouth of the wicked.

The righteous reveal God's blessing to others, the wicked conceals the harm that that man intends to do to others, and so question for you, do you bring blessing to those around you, specifically with your words, by your mouth?

Are you a well of life? Are you like a spring in the desert to others, bringing life and refreshment and nourishment? If not, why not? And if not, what could you do? What small change could you make in your speech towards others to be life-giving?

Could you incorporate encouragement into your daily speech to others? Could you find the things that other people do well and draw attention to it through your words? Are you a blessing to others through your words?

Hatred, Love, and the Discipline of Wise Speech

Verses 12 through 18, let's read, hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all sins. Wisdom is found on the lips of him who has understanding, but a rod is for the back of him who is devoid of understanding.

Wise people store up knowledge, but the mouth of the foolish is near destruction. The rich man's wealth is his strong city, the destruction of the poor is their poverty. The labor of the righteous leads to life, the wages of the wicked to sin.

He who keeps instruction is in the way of life, but he who refuses correction goes astray. Whoever hides hatred has lying lips, and whoever spreads slander is a fool. Verse 12, we see hatred. Hatred stirs up strife.

Hatred is the rejection of good order in relationships. It's the choosing of oneself over the good of another, and this leads to strife. This leads to the breakdown of relationships, and ultimately, when that's kind of writ large, it leads to the breakdown of society.

So is disorder in society. Love, however, covers sin. Love is doing good to another, as God defines good, often at expense to oneself with affection. Love is doing good to another, and this is the key important part of that, as God defines good, not how anybody else, but as God's Word defines good, and often to do that good to another, it's going to cost you something.

It's at expense to oneself. It's with affection. Love orders society rightly. Love makes society possible. When hatred is the rule, everyone is out for themselves. It's like the Chronicles of you ever read that?

The dwarves are for the dwarves, and that means they're not for anyone else. They have not love, and you can't build a functioning society that way, but love makes it possible because love seeks the good of another, again, as God defines good, often at expense to oneself with affection, and where there is sin, as there will be in a fallen world, love deals with the sin.

Love covers the sin. This is seen most clearly at the cross of Christ, where Jesus loved us while we were yet sinners, dying in our place to cleanse us from all sin and make peace between us and God. Love is seen clearly at the cross.

Move it on, verses 13 and 14, we see that foolish talk causes strife, so foolish nature causes strife, foolish talk causes strife. The fool thinks he knows everything, and he's not teachable. He's marked by an undisciplined tongue that doesn't know when to speak and when to be quiet.

As James says in the book of James, his tongue is like a small spark that sets the forest ablaze. The wise, however, has understanding. He knows when to speak, and he knows when to shut up, and this too is wisdom.

The wise stores up knowledge. He keeps on learning, never thinking he has arrived at the fullness of the truth. He knows that wisdom functions a lot like compound interest, that you just keep adding to it exponentially, and so wisdom begets wisdom, and the wise stores up knowledge.

Verse 15, we see that there are many uncertainties in life. We see the hard time, we know the hard times come, that bad economic times come, where groceries triple in price, and the gallon of gas jumps up to four dollars a gallon, and we're very familiar with these things, right?

Well, the rich man's wealth is his strong city. His foresight in good times to have worked hard, to have saved, to have invested, that gives him protection in the hard times, and what we see here is that it is, it's not bad to build wealth.

In fact, Proverbs commends it here, and so too often, young men especially, are guilted into this kind of poverty mindset that says that poverty is more holy than great wealth, which is not the teaching of the Bible.

Now, the Bible does teach, and we've seen it in recent weeks, that there are things more valuable than money. Wisdom is more valuable. Godliness is more valuable than money. That wealth is not ultimate.

It is not the measure of one's worth, but the teaching of the Bible is not that it's bad either, and so too often, these young men, they're told they're unholy for their ambition to go out and do well, and the result is either that their ambition is stifled, or they're just driven from the church by it.

I remember reading lots of books and articles on radical Christian living in my younger years that would make you feel like this, but it's good to go out into the world and conquer and build and acquire.

The trick is to not do so by unjust means, and the trick is to not do so for selfish or vain reasons, but rather to go out and conquer and build and acquire as a way to win glory for King Jesus, as a way to provide for their people, to provide a strong city for their wives and children.

I've heard it said like this, that when it comes to money, a man ought to make as much as he can, save as much as he can, invest as much as he can, and give as much as he can, and this too sounds like wisdom.

Verses 16 through 18 teach us that you reap what you sow, verse 16, that we must be teachable, verse 18, that lies and slander are serious sin that are not to be treated lightly, verse 18. We don't take those things lightly, and so failure to abide by these principles, they contribute to the deterioration of society, break down trust in relationships, and the purpose of this section, verses 12 through 18, as one commentator said, is that what people pursue and how they pursue it is more important than what they possess.

What you pursue, how you go about it, is more important than what you have, and so the question for you then is, what are you pursuing? How are you pursuing it? For some people, are you pursuing anything?

Do you have godly ambition? Verses 19 through 21 then teach us wisdom regarding our speech. Let's read these verses. In the multitude of words, sin is not lacking, but he who restrains his lips is wise.

The tongue of the righteous is choice silver. The heart of the wicked is worth little. The lips of the righteous feed many, but fools die for lack of wisdom. See, the more you talk, the more opportunity there is for you to sin with your words.

Gossip, lies, curses, coarse jokes, and the like. This is just statistics. The more you talk, the more opportunity there is. It's just math at that point, but self-control is the fruit of the Spirit, and when applied to one's speech, God calls this wisdom.

Restraining speech, one who knows when to shut his mouth and can actually do it, that person is wise. Or the person who knows exactly what to say and is willing to open his mouth and say it and build somebody up and encourage them.

God calls this wisdom. Verse 20 reminds us that any problems with our mouths is really a problem with our hearts. It's connected there in verse 20. The tongue of the righteous is choice silver, and then the parallel part of that verse, the second part of that, the heart of the wicked is worth little.

We see that mouth and heart go together. Jesus said that as well, for out of the heart the mouth speaketh. Verse 21 shows us that the wise are not beneficial just to themselves, but their lips feed many.

They have positive effect on those around them, and they lift others up by their wisdom, but fools can't even help themselves. Do you see the difference between the righteous and the fool? Now for time's sake, I'm going to move very quickly through the rest of these 11 verses, reading them and making quick commentary, and then tying this all together.

The Fear of the Lord, Covenant Faithfulness, and the Hope of the Righteous

Verse 22, the blessing of the Lord makes one rich, and he adds no sorrow with it. We see that wealth is never the goal of wisdom. We're never just pursuing wealth, pursuing wisdom in order to get wealth, but often it will be the reward of it because you're living in concert with how God has made the world to work.

What we see here as well is that God does not give begrudgingly. He adds no sorrow with it. God gives freely and with joy. He is a good father who delights to give good gifts to his people, to his children.

He gives with joy. Verse 23, to do evil is like sport to a fool, but a man of understanding has wisdom. You see, sin to the fool is fun and entertaining, but the wise know better. The wise know where that road leads.

They're not entertained by evil. Verse 24, the fear of the wicked will come upon him, and the desire of the righteous will be granted. See, judgment is inevitable. We live in a world where you don't get, you don't get away with sin.

You might get away with it for a little while, but you don't ultimately ever get away with it. The thing that, the very thing that the wicked dreads will happen. We see here in Proverbs generally true, that thing will happen.

It's like the old Johnny Cash song. You can run on for a long time. You can run on for a long time, but sooner or later God will cut you down. Judgment is inevitable, but God will grant the righteous the desires of their heart.

Verse 25, when the whirlwind passes by, the wicked is no more, but the righteous has an everlasting foundation. Like the grass of the field, the wicked will ultimately fade away. They are not deeply rooted, but the righteous are in Christ, and the righteous in Christ will outlive the sun.

There is permanence. There's foundation there. There's an everlasting foundation, for there is everlasting life. Verse 26 says, vinegar to the teeth and smoke to the eyes, so is the lazy man to whom, to who sinned him.

The lazy man is an irritant. You ever, you ever stepped into a, you know, you're at the campfire and then the wind shifts and this blows right into your eyes, and kind of, y 'all probably had that this week up in Cherokee, didn't you?

Alright, you just kind of turn and it really hurts. Like that, that's what a lazy man is to his employer. Like vinegar to the teeth. And so we, we want to be diligent and faithful workers, not irritant, lazy workers.

3 verses 27 through 32, the fear of the Lord prolongs days, but the years of the wicked will be shortened. The hope of the righteous will be gladness, but the expectation of the wicked will perish. The way of the Lord is strength for the upright, but destruction will come to the workers of iniquity.

The righteous will never be removed, but the wicked will not inhabit the earth. The mouth of the righteous brings forth wisdom, but the perverse tongue will be cut out. The lips of the righteous know what is acceptable, but the mouth of the wicked what is perverse.

These last few verses, they show the blessings of living in covenant with God. Long life, gladness, strength, immovability, wisdom. We see that covenant faithfulness and obedience brings good things, blessings to the lives of God's people, but the days of the wicked will be shortened.

Their hope will perish. Their end is destruction. They will not inherit God's promises. Their perverse tongues will be cut out. And again we see the contrast between the righteous and the wicked. Now how do we put all this together?

How do we train our tongues? How do we put our hands to good work? How do we build a legacy? How do we crown our lives with righteousness and walk upright? How do we tell the truth plainly and cover sin with love and store up knowledge and build wealth rightly and bless those around us?

How do we inherit the the promises of God and prolong our days? How do we make our Father glad? And the answer to that is what we see in verse 27 is the fear of the Lord. It's what the end of Ecclesiastes comes to.

Fear the Lord and keep his commandments. He has revealed to you the way of life in the Scriptures. And our problem is not that we don't know what to do. Our problem is that often we don't want to do it.

We don't want to keep his commandments. And that's why these last few verses that speak to life in covenant relationship with God are so important. If we're going to keep his commandments and live, if we're going to get wisdom, we must do so by abiding in Jesus Christ.

Because it is only in covenant relationship with God through his Son Jesus Christ that we have a new heart, that we have the Holy Spirit by which we can obey God. Please God, walk uprightly with God in wisdom and make our Heavenly Father glad.

And so remember Jesus Christ. Abide in Jesus Christ. Cling to Jesus Christ and live fully, rightly, and under God's blessing. And be wise. Let's pray together. Our Father, for each of us in this room, Lord I pray that you would let us cling to Jesus Christ and be made new.

That we would be continually conformed into the image of Christ as we seek Christ in prayer, as we seek to obey your word, as we turn from sin and confess it and repent of it. That we would be conformed to the image of Jesus.

That we might get wisdom. That we might live with wisdom, securing our own good and that of our neighbor. Help us to speak plainly and truthfully. Help us to work diligently and deal honestly, walking with integrity.

Let us let love cover a multitude of sins. Let us store up knowledge, looking to your word for everything that we need for life and godliness. Father, keep us from evil, from doing evil. Keep us from sinning and from being sinned against.

Keep us from the evil one. And by your grace, Father, may we live in the fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of knowledge and wisdom. And let our days be long. And in those days, may we live in such a way to bring you maximal glory.

Living not for ourselves, but for you. And we ask all of this in the name of Jesus. Amen.