Proverbs 13

Proverbs 13:20

THE FOOL’S FRIENDS— Proverbs 13:20THIS text is detached from Scriptures, which, when read, tend to emphasize its truth, “He that walketh with wise men shall be wise; but a companion of fools shall be destroyed. Evil pursueth sinners; but to the righteous good shall be repaid” (Proverbs 13:20-21).Solomon is here emphasizing the fact that men are not only known by the company they keep, but that company emphasizes their characters.The wise prefer to be with the wise, the foolish with the foolish; and this is the truth not only in the things of the intellect, but in morals as well, for the greatest folly known to this world is not mental imbecility, but moral instead; and such moral lunatics prefer bad men for their friends.You remember the old story of the crowds rushing on board the steamers. One steamer was chartered for a prize-fight, and the other for a camp-meeting, and the late comers made a mistake, some of the meeting people going on the prize-fighting boat, while some of the prize-fighters rushed up the gang plank into the Methodist excursion boat. The man with his Bible began to search for his Christian friends, but everywhere he found only gamblers and sports, and groups of profane, card-playing, and drinking men. Instantly he went to the Captain and begged of the Captain to put back to port and let him off; while at the same time the prize-fighter who went on the Methodist boat saw that the people had Bibles under their arms, heard them talk of religion and Christianity, while some were singing Gospel songs. He sought in vain for a bar from which to get a drink, and presently he went to the Captain and cursed the whole establishment and said he had no use for any such companionship and wanted to be put off on a rock, or an island, or anywhere.

His moral nature made it impossible for him to be happy in the company of good people. He preferred the companionship of the gamblers and prostitutes who were speeding away to the prize-fight. And Solomon says of the end of these two men, “He that walketh with wise men shall be wise; but a companion of fools shall be destroyed”.Now, I have been looking into the Bible, somewhat, to see who is regarded as foolish, and in consequence thereof unfit to be made a friend, because the friendship of such is destruction.I find the Bible mentions a large number, and out of that number I have selected four of the most dangerous.THE One of the most dangerous of men to be made a companion of is the lazy man—the man of leisure.Solomon calls him a fool, saying, “The fool foldeth his hands together, and eateth his own flesh” (Ecclesiastes 4:5). Writing of this same individual Solomon says,“I went by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding; “And, lo, it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken down. “Then I saw, and considered it well; I looked upon it, and received instruction. “Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep; “So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth; and thy want as an armed man” (Proverbs 24:30-34). I do not hesitate to say that to keep company with such a man is to be reckoned the companion of fools, for every unoccupied mind is open to the incoming of evil spirits. I often think of that parable of the man out of whom was cast a devil, and the house was cleaned and garnished, but the rooms thereof were left empty, and that evil spirit returned and brought with him seven other devils, and the second state of that man was worse than the first. The unoccupied mind of the indolent is a temptation to every devil who has been wandering over the dry places of the land seeking rest.I recall some faces that were familiar to me in my youth, the faces of indolent men—men who sat about the little town on the dry-goods boxes in the summer, and about the stoves of the stores in winter. The most of them were profane. They were given to playing cards. They were addicted to the tobacco habit in all its forms; unclean stories gave expression to their wits; and I do not hesitate to call them corrupters, every one—destroyers even.

I think in that little town there were few more baneful influences than the companionship of these same men; and as I look back now to the young men who grew up in that village and have gone down degraded, despised, destroyed by sin, I say the text has the truth illustrated in their destruction. They made companions of these older men who were foolish enough to do nothing; and, by those companions they were corrupted and destroyed.I don’t know but Dr.

Talmage was about right when he said, “There are a good many trains running from earth to destruction. They start all the hours of the day and all the hours of the night. There are the freight trains. They go very slowly and very heavily. And there are the accommodation trains going on toward destruction, and they stop very often and let a man get out when he wants to. But idleness is an express train.

Satan is the stoker and Death is the engineer, and though one may come out in front of it, and swing the Red Flag of Danger, or the Lantern of God’s Word, it makes just one shot into perdition, coming down the embankment with a shout and a wail, and a shriek, crash-crash.“There are two classes of people sure of destruction; first, those who have nothing to do; secondly, those who have something to do, but are too lazy or too proud to do it.”I think he might have added a third class; namely, those who are foolish enough to make friends with the first and second.As long ago as the time of the Egyptian Dynasty, the degrading, demoralizing, destructive influences of indolent men were recognized by law-makers. In consequence the old Egyptian law declared that after a person was thrice convicted of idleness, he should be adjudged infamous.

Solon required the council of the Areopagus to investigate every man’s means of living and to chastise the idle, while Draco punished idleness with death.Ah, young people, as you love your lives, don’t make friends of them that are foolish enough to be indolent.THE One hardly needs to argue the destruction in the companionship of drinkers and drunkards.Solomon said, “Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging; and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise?’ (Proverbs 20:1)Again he wrote,“Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes? “They that tarry long at the wine; they that go. to seek mixed wine. “Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright. “At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder” (Proverbs 23:29-32). Is it possible that men can associate with these and not be stained; yea, even destroyed? It hardly seems necessary to raise that question in America, where every year we have slaughtered thousands of men by strong drink, where the army of the slain, by such associations, is thirty or forty times as big as our killed on the battle-fields of Cuba, Porta Rico and the Philippines and Flanders; and where it is perfectly known that nine-tenths of all the young men that drink, do it not so much because of an uncontrollable appetite, as to please their companions, and prove themselves boon-fellows. “Fools!” that is what God calls them, and He is right.A Hindu monk speaking to the W.C.T.U. convention held in Chicago the World’s Fair year, said that the Brahmins of India taught that if a man meet in the street a wild elephant, and his only chance of escape from him was through a wineroom, he should take his chance with the beast, rather than pass through that place of peril. We would that the Brahmin teaching might become the practice of young America. We would that the strong youths of this land might see in every companion who tempts them to drink, Satan incarnated, and realize that the very invitation condemns those that give it as unfit for companionship.A few years ago, in Chicago, a man called at my study and asked for help. His face was so intelligent, his language so evidently that of an educated man, and his bearing indicated so much of quickness and energy, that I wondered what had brought him to beg. And so I said, “What have you been doing that has degraded you to this level?” “Well, Sir,” he answered, “When I was twenty-four years of age, I was clerk on the New York Stock Exchange.

I was in high favor with one of the wealthy men there and he paid me a $1,500 salary. But every noon, as we were leaving the office, my young men associates used to go down in the basement and pass out through the saloon and take a drink.

They almost always invited me to go along. For quite a time I declined their invitations, but they seemed nothing the worse for it, and so finally I accepted, and commenced to go in with them and tone up before taking our mid-day lunch. It was only a little while, sir, before this appetite for drink was a master of me. I lost that position, but got one of $1,200. Afterward I had to give that up and take another at $700. From that I went down to $500, and you know the rest.

Oh, it was the invitation of those companions!” That is what Solomon says, “A companion of fools shall be destroyed” (Proverbs 13:20).In Wyoming, Ontario, when the local option law, known as “The Scott Act”, was up for discussion and decision, a meeting was held in the village of Beamsville, Ont. It was addressed by two speakers, and then an informal vote was taken to see how the audience stood on the question of liquor, or no liquor.

To the query, “Shall we shut up the saloons?”, nearly every one in the audience rose, voting “Yea”. When those who were opposed to closing the saloons were asked to rise, one solitary man stood up, and a small boy began to laugh. “What are you laughing about?” asked the chairman of the meeting. “Why”, said the boy, “that man is the grave-digger!” His vote was an intelligent one. He knew what was good for his business.Would that every young man could see as he saw it, and understand, if you go into a saloon or keep company with those who are intemperate in habits, that the time is not far distant when there will be an opening for you into which they will put your bloated body, your blasted mind, and your blinded soul, for “a companion of fools shall be destroyed” (Proverbs 13:20).Do you remember in Elizabeth Stuart Phelp’s book, “A Singular Life”, Captain Hap tells the story of the little vessel that was lost, saying, “There was the Dare-devil over on South Shore. She was launched about a year ago. She went on a trial spin one day, and everybody aboard was pretty jolly. They put all their canvas up to show her off.

It was a nor’wester that day, and they driv her right before the wind. She jest plunged bows down, and driv straight to the bottom, the Dare-devil did.

Some said it was her name. But, Lord; rum done it.”And, if it were only the vessel built of wood, and rigged with sails, that rum sent down, it would matter little; but when we remember the immortal crafts that have gone down under the same power, we count him foolish indeed who puts himself into such touch with its patrons, that they will drag him into the same maelstrom in which they themselves are being drowned, for “a companion of fools will be destroyedTHE IMPURE It seems essential that the impure should be pointed out as companions to be avoided if one would escape destruction. That is a searching thing, and as true as inspiration which Solomon penned, when he said,“For at the window of my house I looked through my casement, “And beheld among the simple ones, I discerned among the youths, d young man void of understanding, “Passing through the street near her corner; and he went the way to her house, “In the twilight, in the evening, in the black and dark night; “And, behold, there met him a woman with the attire of an harlot, and subtil of heart. “* * With her much fair speech she caused him to yield, with the flattering of her lips she forced him. “He goeth after her straightway, as an ox goeth to the slaughter, or as a fool to the correction of the stocks; “Till a dart strike through his liver; as a bird hasteth to the snare, and knoweth not that it is for his life. “Hearken unto me now therefore, O ye children, and attend to the words of my mouth. “Let not thine heart decline to her ways, go not astray in her paths, “For she hath cast down many wounded; yea, many strong men have been slain by her; “Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death” (Proverbs 7:6-10; Proverbs 7:21-27). There seems to be an impression on the part of some excellent people that the minister has no occasion to speak against sins, unless it is likely that some of his audience are already being stained by them. If that were true, there would still be occasion for every minister who addresses any considerable company, to discuss the dangers of the social vice. But, as I understand my ministry, its preaching ought to be more to prevent sin than to correct it; more for the purpose of keeping people from ever making their friends of fools, than to bring them to reform when once such companionship is chosen. Sin, in its later and larger developments, is not so dangerous as in its earlier and more insidious suggestions. You go back to the Pentateuch, and you will find that leprosy—that great type of sin—in its perfect development, when it was full out upon the sufferer’s body, was no longer reckoned ceremonially unclean, and its victim no longer cast utterly away from all society. When the whole body was covered with it, the disease was uncommunicable, and in itself so utterly loathsome that people need not be warned to keep away from it.

But, in the earlier stages, it was not so. Those who had upon them the smallest “scab, or bright spot” must be brought unto the priest, and the priest, must make careful examination, and if he was uncertain as to whether it was leprosy, he must shut him up seven days more; and if it spread, he must be seen of the priest again; and if again the scab spreadeth in the skin, “then the priest shall pronounce him unclean; it is a leprosy”.And I tell you, beloved, that it is the little evil thought that is to be guarded against; the unclean speech that is occasion indeed of warning; the impure purpose, that must be watched for seven days, and seven more, and yet another seven; and all such as are afflicted by these are dangerous companions.Dr.

Theodore Munger says the ancient words are as wise as ever, “He that toucheth pitch shall be defiled therewith”. To permit oneself, even in the way of curiosity, to approach the precincts of the evil, is to tread the crumbling edge of hell. One step in that direction is to enter a path from which there is no return. Fools venture upon it thinking to retrace their steps—such is always the excuse— but the little way, and the little while, lengthen into a journey that is never retraced. Let this separation go so far as to exclude from your company even the man who speaks lightly of these paths. Moral contagion is as direct as physical, and the man who comes into close contact with such evil carries it with him wherever he goes and makes an atmosphere that no pure mind can breathe.Some years since, a man was found dead, near Saltsburg, Pa.

It was rumored next day that Barley Black had committed suicide, but the Coroner’s investigation proved that Black was a manufacturer of counterfeit coin, which was effected by an amalgamation of brass and copper through the use of nitric acid. The poison fumes arising out of his crude crucible had filled the room in which he was working, and he breathed it until it took effect, resulting in his death.

But there are atmospheres more poisonous than were these fumes; and of the criminals that breathe them, it may be justly said when they die, “They suicided.” And the suicide will not only be one of body, but one of soul, for “a companion of fools shall he destroyed”.THE INFIDEL Long ago the Psalmist wrote, “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God” (Psalms 14:1).I do not hesitate to say that to keep company with such unbelievers is to make friends of those guilty of the greatest of all folly.Some people seem to think it is no sin to be an unbeliever. But the Word of God declares unbelief to be the sin of sins. “He that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the Name of the only begotten Son of God” (John 3:18).The Apostle Paul tells us that it was unbelief that kept the Jews from entering the promised land, and the same heinous offense will keep him who endorses it out of Heaven. When we remember what unbelief does for man, we can understand why the unbeliever is associated with “the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone; which is the second death” (Revelation 21:8).You remember that on one occasion Henry Ward Beecher and Col. Ingersoll were thrown together. After they had profoundly discussed many subjects, a third man of the party thought to see a tilt between these two orators, so he introduced the subject of religion. At once Col.

Ingersoll waxed eloquent in defence of infidelity. Beecher listened until this third man said, “Have you nothing to say upon your side, Mr. Beecher?” He slowly lifted his white head and answered, “Nothing. In fact, I was just engaged in thought about that poor lame man who, with crutches, was slowly and carefully picking his way through a cess-pool, when a big, burly fellow, himself bespattered, rushed up to him, jerked the crutches from beneath him, and left the lame one sprawling and helpless in that pool of liquid dirt”.“Where is the man?” said the Colonel, “what a brute he was”; and the five or six companions echoed his words.“Yes”, said Beecher, “that is the way I feel about it; and Col. Ingersoll, thou art the man!“The human soul is lame, but Christianity has furnished it crutches, and is helping it through the cesspools of this life, and has promised it perfect health in the life to come. But you, by your teachings, are trying to rob men of their crutches, to strike from beneath the soul its only support, and if you like the business, ply it to your heart’s content, but remember it takes an architect to erect a building; an incendiary can easily reduce it to ashes.”“Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly” (Psalms 1:1). The man who counsels you into infidelity is the man who leaves you flat and helpless in the moral cesspool of life. Choose no such companions, for “a companion of fools shall be destroyed” (Proverbs 13:20).May I conclude this address by pleading with you to be wise, and to make companions of the wise, of them that are wise unto salvation, for “he. that walketh with wise men shall be wise?” (Proverbs 13:20).One thing impressed me in reading “Quo Vadis” and that was the elevating influence exerted upon that worldly, wicked, lecherous man, Vinicius, by reason of his association with the early Christians, and especially through his love for Lygia; and in one passage of the book I saw a great and wonderful truth.It was after he had listened to Peter the Apostle preach, the time when that Apostle had been telling how they took his Lord, and bound Him, and carried Him away to crucify Him, that Vinicius dreamed a dream. The author calls it “a new, feverish, waking dream.”It seemed to him that Peter was in a boat and was sailing away toward the land. “There were multitudes of people about them; waves covered their heads with foam. In the whirl only the hands of a few could be seen; but Peter saved the drowning time after time, and gathered them into his boat, which grew larger, as if by a miracle. Soon crowds filled it, as numerous as those which were collected in Ostrianum, and then still greater crowds. Vinicius wondered how they could find place there, and he was afraid that they would sink to the bottom.

But Lygia pacified him by showing him a light on the distant shore toward which they were sailing. These dream pictures of Vinicius were blended again with descriptions which he had heard in Ostrianum, from the lips of the Apostle, as to how Christ had appeared on the lake shore.

So that he saw now in that light on the shore a certain form toward which Peter was steering, and as he approached it, the weather grew calmer, the water grew smoother, the light became greater. The crowd began to sing sweet hymns; the air was filled with the odor of nard; the play of water formed a rainbow, as if from the bottom of the lake lilies and roses were looking; and at last the boat struck its breast safely against the sand. Lygia took his hand then, and said, ‘Come, I will lead thee!’, and she led him to the light.”And, beloved, that Light is Christ. Oh, that we could lead you there to-night, for then the temptations from the indolent, the intemperate, the impure, the infidel, would be at an end, and your whole spirit, soul and body safe forever. Will you come?