The Borrower is Slave to the Lender

 Read Proverbs 22

In the second half of this chapter, there is a section that is called the sayings of the wise.  We won’t address it today, but it will be our focus for the two weeks to follow.  For now, we will start with a little verse by verse.

There is God’s Way and there is everything else:  blessings-minefields, wise-foolish, righteous—wicked, press on towards the goal—wander aimlessly. Let’s not forget life—death. Narrow and wide.

Solomon prompts us to consider many dichotomies, but he is not exclusively an either/or sort of guy.  He has some literary versatility.  Sometimes he does the A-B statements. It’s a one thing builds upon, sets us up for, or intensifies the argument with another statement.

Here’s one thing that builds upon another.

A good name is more desirable than great riches;

    to be esteemed is better than silver or gold.

We have been here before.  Wisdom is good.  It is more desirable than silver or gold. We have seen that thought built upon several times thus far.

We understand that God sees the heart, but people see your example.  We have talked earlier about how the simple see the negative example of the wicked and foolish to include some very severe punishment, and they notice the positive examples of the wise as well.  The simple are not lost.  They can learn.

We have used other terms for the simple—naïve and vulnerable.  They were likely not brought up in the way they should go, but they are not lost either.

They probably were not brought up in the way they should go, but they see our examples. We have been down this road before, but this quip of wisdom tells us that our good example brings us blessings as well. 

Our good example is not only for the simple, but a blessing for us as well.

While our esteem is truly vested in the Lord and who he made us to be; living as the person he made us to be reinforces this Christlike model.  When someone mentions your name and the words godly, loving, righteous, wise, generous, truthful, or other such attributes are attached, that reinforces the self-esteem that we know in being a child of God.

It’s an affirmation that we are on the right track.  Here is one that’s hard to debate.

Rich and poor have this in common:

    The Lord is the Maker of them all.

The Hebrew language falls short in that it doesn’t have a word for Duh.  Solomon threw out some easy ones here and there. The Lord is maker of them all.

The thought can be pursued to reinforce our understanding of God’s sovereignty, but for most who are pursuing wisdom, that’s not an issue. We have long accepted God’s sovereignty.

Solomon can’t go too long without proffering another dichotomy.

The prudent see danger and take refuge,

    but the simple keep going and pay the penalty.

The experienced point man immediately notices the terrain ahead that has great potential for ambush.  He stops the patrol and awaits orders from the patrol leader.

The inexperienced point man just knows that nobody is shooting at him now, not realizing that he is heading for the kill zone.  In fact, he may start singing a song as he walks into a very bad situation.

I know that I promised more car wreck and stroke examples in my sermons, but I got this one as a Black Friday special.

The simple can’t see existential risk.  They are vulnerable to the adulterous woman, the woman known as Folly, and danger in general.

Solomon does offer a parallel for the wicked.

In the paths of the wicked are snares and pitfalls,

    but those who would preserve their life stay far from them.

God’s way – Everything else

Blessings - Minefields

It’s the whole concept of all of the minefields are in the everything else.  There may be struggles and even suffering in doing things God’s way.  Jesus told us ahead of time that we would have trouble in the world.  Being persecuted for following Christ reminds us that the world knows that we have chosen Christ and rejected the evil that governs the world.

Jesus said when we find ourselves being persecuted by the world, we find ourselves in good company.  The prophets were in the same boat.

Now it’s back to another A-B statement.  You may or may not have noticed but you are very familiar with this concept of the A-B statement.  We faithfully say one aloud every Sunday.

What am I talking about? We will jump to John 3.

The background is that Jesus has been lecturing Nicodemus.  He told him that everyone who believes in the Son of Man may have eternal life in him.  We get that.  But it is the follow-on that we know best.  It begins with the Greek word Gar.

It’s a word that tells us a thought is continued.  In the context of this gospel, the thought intensifies.  You know it.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Now for some of you, you might realize that Tom is not as crazy as you thought.  Others will never be convinced, but consider the next verse.  What’s the first word?  It’s Gar. It’s For.

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

You know this A-B pattern.  You have seen a lot of couplings.  You see them in the Psalms some but you find many in the proverbs.  Some are dichotomies given in a positive coupled with a negative.  You got these from the beginning.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge,

    but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

Considering the proverbs in full context, the wise love knowledge, wisdom, instruction, and discipline.  Fools don’t.

Those are what we have seen the most of, but Solomon has some more of the A-B couplings.  Here’s one.

Humility is the fear of the Lord;

    its wages are riches and honor and life.

We know the fear of the Lord brings us to knowledge, wisdom, discipline, and instruction.  It’s good stuff.  We know that the fear of the Lord is the beginning, not the destination, but if we start out on God’s way, we will get to perfect love casts out fear.

Solomon goes on to note that our fear of the Lord will be manifest in our humility. Because we know the Lord is sovereign—there are none that are like him or come close to him—we are humble.  God made us and loved us more than we can comprehend, and when we had fallen, he redeemed us. 

We have talked many times about thankfulness being a part of who we are as this new creation in Christ.  Now consider that while we are bold in our faith and ministry, we remain humble knowing all that the Lord has done for us, even when we didn’t deserve it.

As is often the case in our relationship with God, humbling ourselves before him produces a bounty for us.

its wages are riches and honor and life.

We know this concept.

But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

When we put God first in all things, he blesses us with things that the godless people have made into their gods. I have given you the theological term for that before—cool beans.

Now we come to 2 verses that our American society has skipped or glossed over or just ignored on purpose. You know them.  You are blessed to know them.  Your children are blessed that you know them.

Start children off on the way they should go,

    and even when they are old they will not turn from it.

The rich rule over the poor,

    and the borrower is slave to the lender.

Many of us have lived through the I will let the kids decide for themselves if they will go to worship or Sunday school.  I will let them decide for themselves.  It’s their lives, right?

Yes, these are their lives but for a time those lives have been entrusted to you.

Many of you were blessed to have gone through drug programs as a child.  Your parents drug to Sunday school. They drug to worship.  You were drug to VBS.

Yes, I know the correct tense is dragged, but we don’t have drag programs.

The promise for bringing up a child in the way he or she should go is later on they will be on the right path.  Later on, they will be living in the God’s way and not the everything else.

That doesn’t mean that they get to skip the teenage years.   We have read many proverbs about how our children are such blessings and how living in God’s way honors us and how they are our joy.  For those whose children live in the everything else, they can also bring trouble to our households.

The benefit of this proverb is not only for our children but for us as well. Living out this proverb gets a little tougher each year.  When my kids were in their formative years, nobody would have dared to say, let them pick their own gender.

This thought process has not overtaken us, but the fact that it is given a voice in the public domain is disturbing.

For those raising children now or who know they will be in the near future, this proverb requires your commitment now.  I know that sometimes children are a surprise, but the commitment to bring them up in the way they should go is something you need to embrace now.

If I haven’t offended anyone yet, standby.

The rich rule over the poor,

    and the borrower is slave to the lender.

The rich ruling over the poor sounds so mean.  Why does Solomon want the rich to rule over the poor?  He is not advocating.  He is simply communicating a fact of life.

We have talked before that there is nothing wrong with money.  The love of money leads to all sorts of problems that get you out of the living God’s way mode into the everything else, but money is just money.

It’s sort of like the admonitions against drunkenness.  There is nothing evil about alcohol.  Jesus enjoyed wine with his close friends.  He made the best wine ever when his mom put him on the spot.

It’s not the alcohol.  It’s the relationship with alcohol.  Who is the master?

It’s the same question for money.  Who is the master?

Solomon is saying here’s a fact of life.  Money gives you influence.  More money gives you more influence.  Money talks. Watch a crime show:  Follow the money.  Wonder how your politician voted the way he did:  follow the money.  Money talks. It’s not a modern concept.

Now we come to another fact of life that we have ignored for too long.  The borrower is slave to the lender.

We don’t talk about slavery anymore.  That’s old news.  Nobody can own another person.  If that’s what you believe then know that you have been brainwashed.  People own people even in this modern century.  It’s considered indentured servitude, but essentially people have sold themselves into slavery.

Want to see it in person?  Go to an oil-rich country in the Middle East and see who the servants are.  Now after a dozen years or so of being a servant, they might be set free to make it on their own, if their owners were so inclined.  It’s real, but that is not really our application of this verse.

In this country, we are addicted to debt.  We want it now and we get it now.  Credit cards and store accounts are easy ways to get things that we can’t afford and they have been around for decades.

We want something and we want it now and then suddenly it's no longer a want, but our minds have turned it into a need.  Oh, I need that.  We need that. We don’t have the money to get it but we have a credit card.

I have counseled people with 3 payday loans who were angry that they couldn’t get another one.  How could anyone make a regulation as to how many payday loans you can have? They were not angry at me, at least at first.  They were angry that someone had imposed a restriction on their easy money.

Easy money is all around us and we can lose sight that one day, someone will come to collect, yes, with interest. 

Throw student loans on top of that and let the fun begin.  I am not against student loans.  They can be helpful.  When I went to college, I took out a loan from my hometown bank and paid my tuition.  I paid off the loan by the end of the semester and then took a new one and by the time I graduated, I had no debt when I graduated.

Today, we see kids with $50,000, $100,000 and a quarter million dollars of student loan debt.  How can they have so much debt?  It was too easy to get.  There was no sanity check on either end.

Did the lender even check to see that the student’s degree was in Underwater Basket Weaving?

The problem is that the lender wants his money back with interest and from what I have seen the rates are not that great, but the loan is easy to get.

Credit cards are just as bad.  If you max out one card, just use another, and another, and another. It’s easy money, until it’s time to pay up.

It’s the same question.  Who is master?  If you are not master over your money, it will master you.  Debt will enslave you. 

The only debt we must have is to God and he tells us to repay it by loving one another.

We must understand that there is liberty in desiring less.  We don’t desire less righteousness.  We don’t desire less wisdom.  We don’t desire less mercy and favor.

We desire less selfishness.  We desire to be less self-centered and more self-controlled.  We want the liberty that comes from desiring what we need to meet our needs, tithe, and bless others.  We want to put immediate gratification behind us.  It is too often that first step towards debt.

Sometimes, just when you think you are the master in your relationship with money and don’t buy things you can’t afford, you come to that Amazon One-Click button.  It’s just so easy.

We desire a heart that seeks God and his kingdom and his righteousness and trusts God to bless us for seeking him above anything else in our lives.

We desire less of the things that the godless have made into their gods and more of what God has called us to seek.  There is liberty in seeking less of the world and more of God, and just for good measure, God throws in those worldly blessings anyway.

Here is what I want you to chew on over lunch today.  Is there a relationship between these 2 proverbs similar to what we have seen elsewhere or are they just stand-alone quips of wisdom?

Start children off on the way they should go,

    and even when they are old they will not turn from it.

The rich rule over the poor,

    and the borrower is slave to the lender.

By the fact that I challenge you with this, you might think that I suspect there is a strong relationship between bringing up a child God’s way and the godly mastery of money—which includes debt. 

Think on it.  Pray on it.  Act on it.

Amen.