Proverbs 6

CHAPTER 6This chapter covers many different subjects. It starts with some advice that is good for the business world today, for Christians or non-Christians. These are simply some good business principles. You see, God has given a lot of good advice for all mankind, the saved as well as the unsaved.

Proverbs 6:1

GOOD BUSINESS PRINCIPLESHe mentions two things which are good advice any time. Beware of signing a friend’s note. And never become a partner with a stranger. The unsaved man can follow this advice in his business, and it will be helpful to him. The second verse would indicate that the fellow has been boasting. Apparently one of the reasons a man will co-sign a note with another man is that he wants to be the big shot. He wants to appear outstanding in the financial realm. We are to beware of that.

Proverbs 6:3

Don’t be afraid to go to him and get things straightened out. Be sure that you hold on to your friends, and be sure that you beware of your enemies. That is exactly what he is saying here and will repeat it in other places.

Proverbs 6:4

Don’t sleep on it; get the thing straightened out. You are just like a bird caught in a trap if you have signed a note. That is the warning. Now he will present the positive side. Not only should one be prudent in what he does in his business and prudent in what he says in the business world, but he is also to learn something from the ants.

Proverbs 6:6

The little ant is quite a teacher. Aunt Ant can reveal great truths to us. One truth is that she is as diligent in business as anyone possibly can be. This is something that the child of God can learn from the little ant. The ant is busy doing what is the most important thing in her lifeshe is getting food for the winter, caring for the future, and she is busy about it. I think one of the great sins among Christians today is laziness, and many of the lazy ones can be found in full-time Christian service. All of us need to ask ourselves what we do with our spare time. Do we read the Word of God? Do we study the Word of God? I think that laziness is one of the curses of the ministry today. A young man came to me and said, “I feel like I’m through as a preacher.

I’ve been a pastor here at this place for three years, and I have run out of sermons. I feel like a dried-up well.” Of course, then he became very pious, “I’ve spent a lot of time in prayer and meditation.” Well, I asked him, “How much time do you spend in the Word of God? How much time do you spend studying it?” I couldn’t get a very definite answer from him, but he inferred that he spent less than an hour a week in the study of the Bible! He was a great promoter, always out doing something while the important business remained undone. I told him, “Unless you change your ways, you ought to get out of the ministry. It is a disgrace to go to the pulpit on a Sunday morning unprepared.

You should have something to say from the Word of God.” The ant has a lesson for that boy. “Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise.”

Proverbs 6:12

THE WICKED MANWe come now to a description of a wicked man, a son of Belial. Have you ever noticed this in a person? Everything he does and every gesture he makes is suggestive. Everything he says has a filthy connotation. There are Christians who are borderline cases in this respect. I knew a preacher like that, and I got away from him years ago. I have known some laymen who are the same way. Everything they said had a double meaning. I know of a so-called Christian group of folk who, at their meetings, tell jokes with a double meaning. There is always that little suggestive thing in them. This is something that God is speaking against.

Proverbs 6:14

“Frowardness” is perverseness. Notice that he “soweth” or casts forth discord. Here is a person who is supposed to be a child of God, and yet every movement of his body is suggestive. In my office I have a picture of a man who has meant a great deal to me. He was not a great preacher, but he was a great man of God. I have spent many hours with that man in the past. He always reminds me of the pureness of speech. Never have I heard him say anything that was suggestive or that had one bit of smut in it. His life was just as clear and clean as the noonday sun. That is the type of men we need today. We don’t need more of the bright young fellows with the latest thing in haberdashery and the latest haircut. You see them eyeing the girls even though they are married. Their wives cannot be quite sure about them. But we say, “My, they have good personalities!” May I say something to you, and I am going to say it very clearly. We are loaded with folk in Christian service today, and we are getting nowhere. Do you know why not? Because God is not mocked. “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting” (Gal_6:7-8). God is not fooled.

Our God demands a holy life. Do you know why? Because He is holy. He is that kind of God. And that is the kind of person God is going to be interested in and bless. Oh, we need to recognize that we are dealing with a holy God!

I have a wonderful preacher friend who is in what is known as the holiness movement because the emphasis is on holiness of life. I said to him one day, “The criticism I have of you folk is that you have lost your holiness, and you are the ones who should be bearing down on that for the benefit of us who have gotten very far from God.” My, what an emphasis is needed on holy living among God’s people today!

Proverbs 6:16

SEVEN THINGS GOD HATESIt is unbelievable to some folk that God could hate. They consider Him as only a God of love. The reason they have this kind of reaction is the result of following a deductive reasoning based on the syllogistic method of reasoning. The major premise is that God is love. That is true. The minor premise is that love is the opposite of hate, and that is also true. Then the conclusion they draw is that God cannot hate anything, but that is not true. God is love, but He hates evil. We can see this same thing in our human relationships. You love your little child, but you hate the fever that is racking his little body. You love your child, but you hate the mad dog with the frothing mouth that comes into your yard and attempts to bite your little child. If you love your child, you will hate the mad dog. As long as there is a world of contrasts, a world in which sin has entered, we will love the right and hate the wrong. Or, on the other hand, if you love sin, then you will hate righteousness. The Word of God tells us to love the good and hate the evil. When we get to the Book of Ecclesiastes, we will find that it says that there is “A time to love, and a time to hate …” (Ecc_3:8). Now we find that there are seven things God hates. This is His list: God definitely says that He hates these things, and we ought to put them on our “hate list” also. This isn’t the first time God has stated that He hates something. If you will turn back to Deuteronomy, you will read, “Neither shalt thou set thee up any image; which the LORD thy God hateth” (Deu_16:22). God hates any kind of idol or anything that would take His place in our hearts. God’s hate is mentioned again in Psa_45:7, the great millennial psalm: “Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest wickedness …” One follows the other as the night follows the day. God said to the early church in the Book of Revelation: “But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate” (Rev_2:6).

You see, my friend, God loves, but also God hates. It is like the flavor of sweet and sour developed by Chinese and European chefs to a fine art. God is love but, by the same token, God is hate. And Scripture adequately states the case. The number seven in the Bible indicates not perfection but completeness. God has a complete hatred of these things, and they are all the works of the flesh. They are things that reveal the total depravity and the utter degradation of the human species. God has gone on record that He hates them. God denies the thesis of liberal theology that He is some sentimental and senile old man who weeps but never works, that He simply shuts His eyes to the sins of mankind and is tolerant of evil, that He forgives because He hasn’t the intestinal fortitude to punish sin. God says, “I love,” but He also says, “I hate.” The idea that we are to be charitable to the guilty is abroad in our land because we don’t have the courage to go through with a strong program of punishment. That is the thing that is corrupting and wrecking our society today. God is willing to punish the guilty. God is not afraid of public opinion. God doesn’t run from any appearance of offending men. God is no coward. God says that by no means will He clear the guilty. His laws are inviolate and inexorable. Now let’s look at this ugly and hateful brood. These belong on the hate side of God’s ledger:

1. “A proud look.” The literal is eyes of loftiness. It is the attitude that overvalues self and undervalues others. This is pride. It is that thought of the heart, that little look and that turn of the face, that flash of the eye which says you are better than someone else. God says, “I hate it.” It is number one on His listHe puts it ahead of murder and ahead of drunkenness. God hates the proud look. It is strange that in churches today one can get by with a proud look and no one would say a thing about it. Do you know that the first overt act of sin in heaven, the original sin, was pride? It was when Satan, Lucifer, son of the morning, said in his heart, “… I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High” (Isa_14:13-14). And he is the one who came to man in the Garden of Eden and said,"… ye shall be as gods …" (Gen_3:5). It is quite interesting that behind all psychological disturbances and psychosomatic disease there is the trunk of tree from which the abnormality springs. Do you know what that is? It is a lack of being a complete personality. It is wanting to be somebody important, wanting certain status symbolsone of which is independence of God. It is wanting to be one’s own god. It is making the little self to be God.

That is the reason a salvation by works appeals to men. Little man likes to say, “I’m going to earn my own salvation. I’ll do it myself, and I don’t need You, God. I certainly don’t need to have Your Son die for me. When I come into Your presence, I want You to move over because I am just as good as You are, and I’m going to sit down right beside You.” My friend, a work-salvation is the result of folk who are psychologically sick. God resists the proud, and He has respect unto the lowly.

He says that He will bring down the high looks. God said to Job, “Look on every one that is proud, and bring him low; and tread down the wicked in their place” (Job_40:12). In the beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Mat_5:3, italics mine). This is what the psalmist says: “LORD, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty: neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for me” (Psa_131:1). We need to take the lowly place and say, “Oh God, I am weak. I can’t make it. I need You.” The other day I saw a young man walk into a group of young men. He was a big, swaggering, baby boythat is what he was. He wanted to be accepted by his peers; so he walked in, looked around, and began to curse like a sailor. I thought, Poor little fellow! What a poor little baby he is, trying to make himself acceptable with the other fellows. Why doesn’t he simply go before God and tell Him the truth?

Psychologically man adopts all this phony stuff. How much better off he would be to say to God as the psalmist said, “Lord, my heart is not haughty. I don’t want to make claims that are not genuine. I don’t have any righteousness.” When you go to God for His salvation, that is when you become a real, full-fledged personality. Listen to what God said through Isaiah: “…but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word” (Isa_66:2). If you are willing to come to God on that basis, God will receive you.

He hates a proud look. 2. God hates a “lying tongue.” Have you ever noticed that there is far more said throughout the Bible about the abuse of the tongue than is said about the abuse of alcohol? The abuse of the tongue is something that is common to all races and all languages. People talk about a tongues movement. There is a big tongues movement today. Do you know what that is? It is the lying tongue. How tragic it is! The psalmist (probably David) said, “I said in my haste, All men are liars” (Psa_116:11). Dr. W. I. Carroll used to tell us in class, “David said in his haste that all men are liars. I’ve had a long time to think it over, and I still agree with David.” I’ll admit that I agree with David, too. Again the psalmist said, “Deliver my soul, O LORD, from lying lips, and from a deceitful tongue” (Psa_120:2). In David’s prayer of confession, he said, “Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom” (Psa_51:6, italics mine). God is the God of truth. “Into thine hand I commit my spirit: thou hast redeemed me, O LORD God of truth” (Psa_31:5, italics mine). How wonderful that is. How different from the lying tongue! 3. The third thing God hates is “hands that shed innocent blood.” A murderer is particularly odious and objectionable both to God and to man. God says the murderer should be punished because he took that which God said is sacredthe human life. The popular idea today is completely opposite. After a man has been killed the murderer is brought to trial, then suddenly the murderer’s life is considered to be precious. God says that human life is precious and that when a murderer kills a man, he is to forfeit his own life. That is the teaching of the Word of God. 4. The fourth thing God hates is “an heart that deviseth wicked imaginations"thoughts of iniquity. I think all mankind has evil thoughts. The Lord Jesus said, “For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies” (Mat_15:19). It is an ugly brood that comes out of the human heart. By the way, have you ever confessed to God what you have in your mind and in your heart? We all need to do that. We need to be cleansed. God is dealing with the anatomy of evil and iniquity. It includes the eyes, the tongues, the hands, the heart, and the feet, as we shall see next. 5. “Feet that be swift in running to mischief.” The heart blazes the trail that the feet will follow. Isaiah put it like this: “Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their paths” (Isa_59:7). These are the things on God’s hate list. 6. “A false witness that speaketh lies.” It is not an uncommon thing today for people to perjure themselves. It seems to be one of the common sins of our time. It is a thing which God hates. 7. “He that soweth discord among brethren.” There is a beatitude, given by our Lord, that looks at it from the positive side: “Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God” (Mat_5:9). There are multitudes of folk sowing discord, and they are not all politically motivated. They are in your neighborhood, and chances are they are in your church. You may even have one in your home, and there is a possibility that he even may be sitting where you sit. My friend, causing trouble between family members or brothers in Christ or fellow workers is something that God hates. This list of seven sins is like a mirror. We look into it, and we squirm because we see ourselves. May I ask you to take a good look at yourself in this mirror of the Word of God. After you and I see ourselves as we really are, let us go to God and make a confession of these things. Let us be honest with Him and ask Him for His cleansing.

Proverbs 6:20

The young man has grown and has gone away to school, but he is reminded not to forget the things that were taught him by his father and his mother. The things He has learned in the home are very important. He is to keep them constantly before him.

Proverbs 6:24

WARNING AGAINST SEX SINSNow he comes back to the great sin in our contemporary societythe sex sins. The warning again concerns the strange woman, the prostitute. It is that which can wreck the life of a young man more than anything else. The sex sins, the sins of adultery are the great sins of our day. No one can calculate the lives that have been absolutely wrecked and ruined because of them. Oh, how many marriages are broken up today because of them! Hollywood, novels, popular songs all play on the same old theme, the triangle. There is the married couple and the third party, man or woman, who is breaking up the marriage. Proverbs has much to say about them. Notice that the young man is not to lust after her beauty in his heart. We have just learned, “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life” (Pro_4:23). Also notice how the young man is warned against her flattery, her beauty, her fluttering eyelids. Jesus said, “Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart” (Mat_5:27-28). The whole sinful thought begins down in the human heart.

Proverbs 6:26

How many men have been ruined like that? I think we would all be shocked if we knew how many office “wives” there are. We have no idea of the number of people who are blackmailed today because of illicit sex. We hear of only a few. Just recently it was disclosed that a doctor in San Francisco had another wife and family in Southern California. Everyone who knew him thought that he was leading a moral, upright life. All the while he was keeping up two homes. This same kind of thing has happened in the lives of ministers! How does it all get started? The Lord says it begins in the heartHe made us and He knows us. “Lust not after her beauty in thine heart.” It begins there. Now he asks a few pointed questions:

Proverbs 6:27

The answer to that is obvious.

Proverbs 6:28

We know of fanatics who try this, but it always burns their little tootsies to walk on hot coals.

Proverbs 6:29

If a man commit adultery, he is not innocent. He has no plea whatsoever. Now notice the illustration

Proverbs 6:30

If a man steals because he is hungry, our sympathy goes out to him. A man was arrested for stealing in my community recently, and it was found that he had some little children at home who were hungry. In a case like that you don’t judge him, you want to help him. “Men do not despise a thief, if he steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry.”

Proverbs 6:31

He can mortgage his house to repay it.

Proverbs 6:32

Again I draw an illustration from my own locality. A man walked into another man’s room the other day, drew a gun, and shot the man dead. Why? Well, when the story came out, the man was exonerated. His home had been absolutely destroyed by the lust of the man he killed. “Whoso committeth adultery with a woman lacketh understanding: he that doeth it destroyeth his own soul.”

Proverbs 6:33

Committing adultery is something that will scar his soul for life. As a pastor (and I’m sure many other pastors know cases like this) I know a wife whose husband had an affair years ago; he repented of it, came back to her, and asked to be forgiven. She forgave him. But I happen to know the home, and I can see that it is not a happy home. Adultery is something you don’t rub out. If you commit it, you lack understanding. You’ll wreck your home; you will wreck your life.

Proverbs 6:34

Oh, my friend, what tragedies result from adultery!