Proverbs 23
McGeeCHAPTER 23Our young man has been attending the school of wisdom for quite some time now. I think we will have a graduation ceremony soon.
Proverbs 23:1
I can state this in very commonplace language: Don’t make a pig of yourself when you are invited out to eatespecially if you are invited to a place that serves you gourmet food, the type of food that you are not accustomed to eating. In fact, it would be better, he says, to cut your throat than make a pig of yourself! In other words, be temperate in all things. Use moderation and self-control, even when you eat. In our day the theory is that some folk eat, not because of real hunger, but because of a psychological factor. Some people eat when they are under tension, when they are uptight. We should be relaxed and enjoy our meals but eat in moderation.
Proverbs 23:4
You have probably noticed that the United States dollar has an eagle on it. Believe me, that eagle will fly away if you’re not careful with it. I find that the eagles on my dollars take off all the time. We cannot depend on riches. The whole thought here is this: There is nothing wrong in being rich. There is nothing wrong in working to be rich. However, don’t make that the goal in life. Wealth should not be the very object of our hearts. Some men have a lust, a thirst, a covetousness to make the almighty dollar, and the dollar becomes their god. A child of God is not to do that. A wealthy man told me, “I do not make money for the sake of money. I make money for what it can do. At first I made money for what it could do for me. Now I make money for what it can do for God.” There is nothing wrong in a man becoming wealthy. The wrong comes when there is the overweening desire of the heart for money. That is covetousness; actually it is modern idolatry. In the United States we do not find people bowing down to worship idols. However, we do find people busily engaging their whole lives in the worship of the almighty dollar. When I pastored a church in the downtown financial district of Los Angeles, I found that men, even including some Christian men, were far more zealous in coming down early on a Monday morning to watch the stock market open than they were on Sunday morning to attend church service. I met such a man rushing to the stock market display at the brokerage on a Monday morning. He met me, greeted me cordially, and told me what he was going to do. I mentioned to him that we had been missing him at church.
He said, “Well, you know, I haven’t been feeling very well.” That is interesting. He didn’t feel well enough to come to church, but he was well enough to worship his god very early on a Monday morning. That’s covetousness, and that is what the proverb is talking about. That is a false god, and that false god is an eagle that will fly away at any moment.
Proverbs 23:6
Here is good advice for the young man, especially for the young preacher. On several occasions I have been warned by ministers with whom I have had Bible conferences. They have said something like this: “Now you will be invited to dinner by so-an-so, but you be very careful what you say if you go there because they are name-droppers, as you will find out. They will ask you certain questions, and they will use your answers against you later on.” Well, when I am relaxed at a meal and talking with friends, I can easily say something that can be misconstrued. Not too long ago I had such an experience. A couple used certain things that I had said about a personal friend of mine. I was just kidding, because I love that man. He is my brother in the Lord, and we play golf together. He said to me, “What in the world are you saying about me?” I told him, and he laughed. He said, “Those people took what you said and gave it a twist.” But he said that he had been over to see them and had said something about me that would be coming back to me.
And it did! He kids me too, and they had twisted what he had said about me. These were the kind of folk that Solomon had in mind when he wrote, “Eat thou not the bread of him that hath an evil eye.” When you are invited out to dinner, make sure that you know the people with whom you are to dine. They may not be as cordial as you think they are.
Proverbs 23:10
Now we have this remark about the old landmark again. If you have lost your faithwell, you’d better not pass that on to your children, because they will really pay for it. You probably had a good background and Christian parents, but your children will have no background to protect them. Dr. J. Gresham Machen once said, “America is coasting downhill on a godly ancestry.” I agree with him, and it was my generation that had the godly ancestry; but we did not pass it on to our children. It was my generation that produced the younger generation that we are blaming for everything.
Proverbs 23:13
Now we have been over this before. Remember that Paul adds to this that the parent is not to correct the child in a fit of anger. The correction is to be for discipline, not punishment. If the discipline doesn’t help to develop the character of that child, it is no good. We should not tell our children that we are punishing them. It would be better to tell them that we are disciplining them. Paul tells the fathers not to provoke the children to wrath, but “…bring them up in the instruction and discipline of the Lord” (Eph_6:4). We need to remember that it is the discipline and the instruction of the Lord. That is important.
Proverbs 23:19
Be very careful of the company you keep, young man. Birds of a feather flock together. Evil companions produce evil manners. This is a special warning to the young people.
Proverbs 23:22
The young man is almost ready to graduate from the school of wisdom. His parents may be getting old. His dad may be a square, he may even be a bit senile, but the old folks still have a lot more sense than the young man has. You would hear an example of this if you could only talk to Absalom. He would tell you that his dad had more sense than he had. He thought he could win a rebellion against his father, King David, but old David was a warhorse. When that boy moved out to the battlefield, he made a mistake. He should never have left Jerusalem because David knew his way around on the battlefield, and it was fatal for that boy.
Proverbs 23:23
You and I do not need to buy truth with money. It is available to us without money and without price. “Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price” (Isa_55:1). Christ is all of this for the child of God. He is truth and wisdom and understanding. The brilliant young Pharisee, Saul, who became the apostle Paul, tells us about it: “But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption” (1Co_1:30).
Proverbs 23:26
Someone may say, “Dr. McGee, I thought you said that God doesn’t want our old dirty, filthy hearts.” That’s right. He can’t use them. But when He says, “My son, give me thine heart,” He is not talking to the unsaved man; He is talking to His son. He is talking to the one to whom He has given a new heart, a new nature, who has been born again. Now He says to that one, “I want you to come to Me and I want you to yield yourself to Me. If you love Me, keep My commandments.” If you have been redeemed by the blood of Christ, you can sing: Take my poor heart, and let it be Forever closed to all but Thee. Take my love, my Lord; I pour At Thy feet its treasure-store.
Proverbs 23:27
If anyone thought I was wrong in saying the stranger was a harlot, then here is a parallelism that shows the two are synonymous. That should answer that question.
Proverbs 23:28
The lives of two men illustrate this. There is the story of Judah in the Book of Genesis. That is a sorry chapter which tells his story when he went in to a harlot. Then there is the story of Samson. If he were here today, he would say, “I found out that a harlot is treacherousshe can betray you without a qualm.”
Proverbs 23:29
Here again is a warning against this matter of drunkenness. We have heard many warnings about wine and womenbut there is no song. Because
Proverbs 23:32
What a picture of drunkenness this is!