Focus Verse: Prov 4:7 Lesson Verse: Col 1:27,28
A. Much of the Book of Proverbs is filled with valuable warnings to the wise seeker of truth.
B. The warnings will be directed at those who are doing right, to keep them right, and also directed at those who are “out of the way” so to get them back “in line.” It is called “correction” (2 Tim 3:16).
C. We come to Proverbs, chapter 6. There are four warnings given in this chapter
1. Against suretiship
2. Against Sluggardness
3. Against the Wicked Person
4. Against Adultery
D. All of these warnings are so up-to-date it is scary! In the words of the Bible, let us “take heed!”
A. Warnings Against Suretiship (6:1-5; 11:15; 17:18; 20:16; 27:13)
1. Surety – a pledge to be responsible for someone else’s debt. A co-signer, a person pledging bail. Making an “under-writing.” Insurance companies are called “under-writers.” Taking the burden from off someone else’s shoulders, and placing it on your own.
2. Stay out of binding contracts where you are the “fall guy” if anything goes wrong
a. So many parents are far to trusting of their children. They need to establish their own credit and track-record without you always “bailing them out”
b. Co-workers will make you lie for them on Monday, but it is YOU that will get into trouble!
c. Those who rely on you to be responsible for their bills will feel little responsibility
d. They will avoid seeing you!
3. God says to make sure of your friend’s commitment to paying off the bill – stay on him, and make sure he pays, because he could skip town at any time!
4. Don’t sleep when you are entrapped – get out of the bondage
a. By humbling yourself – say you were wrong to commit yourself
b. By not having a falling out with your “friend” (not a great friend if he uses you like that)!
5. Jesus is the surety for the New Testament (Heb 7:22). He is the guarantor for when you fail to PAY! But only HE could be that!
B. Warnings Against Sluggardness (6:6-11)
1. Sluggard is someone who sleeps when there is work to be done, or, sleeps because he would rather stay in bed instead of being diligent (Pr 10:4; 12:24, 27; 13:24; 22:29)
2. Study the Ant
a. No guide, overseer, or ruler that maintains motion and order among the ranks –just instinct – all creatures have instinct built-in
b. No insect is more laborious than the ant – not even the bee
c. The ant provides for the future – constantly working to stay ahead – invests
d. They work according to their ability – that’s how Christianity is supposed to operate
1) Engineers
2) Carpenters
3) Stock keepers
4) Harvesters
5) Soldiers
6) Diggers
e. They work harmoniously –persevering in the face of ANY enemy
3. Study Yourself – evaluate yourself. Better yet, allow someone else to check you out
a. Too much sleep
b. Too little discipline – having so many things to do and yet sleeping
4. Study the Consequences
a. Just a little too much sleep will ruin you
1) People won’t trust you – certainly won’t pity you
2) People won’t care what else you do, when all they remember is the fact that you sleep a lot while others are working!
b. Poverty and want (desperate need) will control you – take over your life – become your undoing
c. Disaster will overwhelm you (because you are unprepared for it) like an armed robber – no getting out of it – too late
d. Instead of all that, work hard to be what God wants you to be (2Pet 3:13,14)
e. And follow the example of the ant, who in the summer and harvest they work, and in winter they sleep. Work in the day, and sleep in the night! GET RID OF THE TV if it is ruining your schedule!
C. Warnings Against the Wicked (6:12-15)
1. Naughtiness is a bad word – made into a light word today – it is wickedness. This is the description of two people
a. A plain old wicked person
b. And the anti-christ
2. The wicked person lives at a different level than Christians – as such, he or she adversely affects the people around him
a. Froward mouth – gossip, flattery, misrepresentation, exaggeration, manipulation
b. Winking eyes – always meaning something different than what was being said (politician)
c. Loud feet – telling others that he has other plans than being there at that moment
d. Noisy fingers – mind is elsewhere
e. Crooked heart – perverse, twisted
f. Conniving imagination
3. The goal of the wicked is to cause discord and division among God’s people, and between husbands and wives (TV programmes!)
4. These are all the marks, not of a Christian, but of anti-christ
5. Thankfully, they will one day be destroyed – they won’t plague this universe for all eternity
D. Warnings Against Abominable Sins (6:16-19)
1. Pride – haughty eyes (Cf Isa 2:11) – pride in the way they look, and what they look at – won’t see us “low-lifes” below them
2. Lying tongue (Jn 8:44)
3. Murder – hands shedding innocent blood
4. Wicked imaginations from the heart (2 Cor 10:5; Gen 6:3-6). Out of the heart proceeds all the evil we have today!
5. Constant desire to get into mischief – civil rights demonstrations, protest rallies seem to usually end up in the destruction of both private and public property – constantly seeing “opportunity” in calamity
6. False witness – against others – lie for advantage. Deceivers
7. Sowing discord – gossip (1 Cor 1), and running down everyone else
8. God hates every one of these sins with a passion! Because they are the fruits of the anti-christ, and they are being constantly promoted on TV, radio, everywhere!
E. Warnings Against Adultery (6:20-35). God knows what this modern world needs to hear better than we do – may God deliver us from this “love God – God loves you” lie of the devil! This world needs to hear truth! (Ex 20:17; 2 Sam 11:2; Mt 5:28)
1.
The Power of Adultery –it is such a filthy and wicked sin – it
only leads to ruin! Listen to GOD! He spends a whole lot of time warning us (Col
1:27,28)! That is what I have to do tonight!
a. Meaning: Returning from Sunday School one day, where the Ten Commandments had been the topic, our young son asked his father, "Daddy, what does it mean when it says, 'Thou shalt not commit agriculture'?" There was hardly a beat between the question and my husband's smooth reply: "Son, that just means that you're not supposed to plow the other man's field," an answer satisfactory to both of them. -- Reader's Digest, July 1979, p. 87.
b. There is a strangeness to it – a thrill never experienced
c. There is a darkness about it – mysterious and evil, like a black hole
d. There is a challenge to it – a chance you might get away with it
e. There is a momentum with it – everybody seems to be doing it
f. Adultery is something that mainly MEN had a problem with up until recently – but it is equal today! No real difference anymore in this modern world! Like a plague!
g. The Christians in Russia rejected the coming of American televangelists and charismatic groups because they came in mini-skirts, fancy suits, and tons of make-up, and with fancy hair-dos (including the men), and they saw it destroying their kids and families!!!
2.
Preventative Measures Against Adultery (Pr 6:20-24a)
a. Treasure Commandments – things that are absolute, not subjective! God has SO SO MUCH to say about this subject!!!
1) The commandments of your parents – they know a bit more, and have probably seen the ruin that flirting and fornication do
2) And of God – can’t say that you are obeying God if you are disobeying your parents!
3) It will keep you away from filthy mags, and TV progs and the Internet!!!
b. Bind them – interweave them all throughout your heart and life
1) It must be in your thoughts – your inner life!
2) And it must be in your outer life – the way you dress and act and speak – be straight up – no nuances. No filth!
c. Rely on the commandments – part of the original 10!
1) They will guide (like a lamp in the night – night life)
2) They will provide rest – because of their protection
3) They will comfort – you are not just NOT doing something, but you know WHY and you know that Christ walks with you
4) They will give you long life – the commandments are the way of LIFE, not death!
5) All by keeping you away from someone you do not belong with! A whore, or a harlot. Today, they call them: actors, and performers, and dancers, and artists, and models, and writers. A rose by any different name, is still a ROSE!
3.
The Pull of Adultery (Pr 6:24-25)
a. Flattery (Pr 2:16; 5:3; 7:5) Somebody is flat-out lying, and people will believe it all! All the posters are LIES! They are not real!
b. Beauty – sin has to be beautiful – Cf the angel of Light!
c. Attention – eyelids – signals (we all want attention, and think we are more special when we have someone’s attention)!
4.
The Pain of Adultery (Pr 6:26-35)
a. Poverty – brought to begging for bread – she will take all your money
b. Desperation
1) Once you are in it, you will desperately want out
2) Want to be clean again, and to be back like you used to be
c. A burning (1 Cor 7:1,2,9)
d. God’s judgment
1) We all pity those who steal when hungry
2) But there is no pity for an adulterer
a) He has asked for ruin
b) He has destroyed his soul
c) He has only dishonour and reproach (shame – it out to be a whole lot more shameful today
(i) Millions of men each night commit adultery with other men’s wives
(ii) Millions of married women commit adultery with men other than their husbands
(iii) And we wonder why our world is not responding to the Gospel! Their minds are burned out!
(iv) It vastly affects people down through to the third and 4th generation!!!
d) Every adulterer should die – those who stay in sin will die young! Those who repent will find loads of mercy!
3) And then you have the jealousy of the husband – God offers no help to you there!!! There is no stopping that!
II.
Conclusion and Study Questions
A. Our TV programmes and magazines are so full of adultery, and encouraging adultery only because there is a market for it all
B. There just can not be a market for it among Christians – it is a no tolerance issue! Just like NO DRUGS! And NO DRINK! There is NO DISLOYALTY to your mate!