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.
