Proverbs chapter number six we've got a lot of advice again mainly directed at
young people but obviously at all ages these things are applicable and this
chapter is chock-full of great advice wisdom okay understanding the wisdom
that the book of Proverbs has to offer you is gonna save you a lot of trouble
in life there are so many decisions that we have to make and we need to know you
know what do we do and the wisdom of the book of Proverbs is a lamp to our feet
and a light to our path as we navigate this world that we live in and so we
definitely want to make sure that we get all these Proverbs all 31 chapters and
just make this a part of our mentality this is just how we live this is like
the handbook for just living life often in the book it's it's not even always
heavily religious you know I mean obviously there are a lot of sections
about fearing the Lord loving the Lord but a lot of this is just plain and
simple just living your life wisdom for the here and now in this world in
addition to of course spiritual advice that comes throughout the book so we
start on verse number one my son if thou be surety for thy friend if thou has
stricken thy hand with a stranger thou art snared with the words of thy mouth
they are taken with the words of thy mouth what are we talking about here
what does this mean to be surety for thy friend now this is kind of an archaic
language although in the business world this type of terminology would be
readily understood even today in 2022 but being surety for someone is
basically co-signing on their loan as it were that would be the 2022 equivalent
of this so when the Bible talks about being surety for someone basically
you're putting your name your reputation your credit on the line for someone
else's debt someone else is borrowing money a friend of yours or a stranger
and you are on the hook for their financial obligations and the Bible is
warning you don't do it all right stay away from this it's a trap the word
snare means trap he says look if you are surety for your friend if you've
stricken your hand with a stranger he's saying thou art snared with the words of
thy mouth like you have just stepped in it big time you have put yourself into a
bad situation and the best thing that you can do is to extricate yourself from
this obligation verse 3 says do this now my son and deliver thyself when thou
art come into the hand of thy friend go humble thyself and make sure thy friend
he's saying look be humble realize that you've made a mistake because it takes
humility to realize that you've made a mistake and do what you can to somehow
get out of this and get your name off of that contract or get your name off of
that lease or get your name off of that loan or whatever now I could see
situations where maybe this would be appropriate to do for family so notice
he's saying you know don't be surety for a friend don't be surety for a stranger
and you say well friends and strangers are very different right but he's using
both because this is not really appropriate for a friend or a stranger
ok because let's face it friends are different than family so we might
cosign for family but we're not necessarily going to cosign loans for
friends ok because this is a good way to turn your friends into non friends ok
entering into financial agreements and especially one person owing someone
else money or getting on the hook for somebody's loan and they don't pay the
loan that's a good way to ruin that friendship so he's just saying look
don't do this don't be surety for a stranger don't be surety for your friend
I could see doing this obviously for like your spouse your child your parent
or something like that because that's a stronger bond it's a stronger
relationship you're kind of willing to put yourself out there and risk getting
hurt for the people that are that close to you ok but since you're likely to get
hurt you don't necessarily want to do this unless it's family and so he says
you know whatever you can do extricate yourself from this trap this snare and
so look what the Bible is saying is you know be careful about the things that
you commit to you know we need to do what we say we will do when we make a
commitment we need to abide by that commitment even if we swear to our own
hurt we need to change not and so it's important that we honor commitments that
our word is our bond and therefore we should be slow to make these kind of
commitments and guarantees unless we really really mean it because we don't
want to be the kind of person that reneges on something that we have
agreed to do so he's saying get out of this situation if you've made this
mistake but the smartest thing is just not to do it in the first place so again
he's dramatic about this in verses 4 & 5 give not sleep to thine eyelids nor
slumber that he's like don't even go to bed until you fix this verse 5 deliver
thyself as a row from the hand of the hunter and as a bird from the hand of
the fowler okay then in verse 6 he changes gears he says go to the ant thou
sluggard consider her ways and be wise to having no guide overseer or ruler
provide with her meat in the summer and gather with her food in the harvest we
should not need someone standing over us and forcing us to work and fulfill our
responsibilities all the time right part of maturity is just getting out there
and doing the work that needs to be done yourself you see if you go to your
job and somebody has to always be watching you all the time in order for
you to put out at the job well then guess what now they have to pay you but
then some of the money that they would be paying you they have to pay the
supervisor to watch you instead of you just getting all that money for actually
doing your job and supervising yourself so he's saying the ant is a great
example because the ant just gets in there and does the work that it's
supposed to do it doesn't need to be told it instinctively knows what needs
to be done and just gets it done and doesn't need someone always you don't
want to be the guy at the job where your boss has to tell you every little thing
you know be the guy at the job where you just see something that needs to be done
and you just get in there and do it and it's like oh wow I didn't even have to
tell you that and you got in there and got that done that's a great testimony
and so it says that she provides her meat in the summer she gathers gathers
her food in the harvest and then verse nine says how how long would thou sleep
oh sluggard when wilt thou arise out of thy sleep yet a little sleep a little
slumber a little folding of the hands to sleep so shall thy poverty come as one
that travelth and thy want is an armed man
now here's the thing about this I preached a whole sermon on this a few
months ago we don't want to go too far with this
verse some people take this verse a little too far
and think that we need to sleep as little as possible okay
but what I did in that sermon a few months ago is as we looked at a whole
bunch of other scriptures and we got a more balanced view by
looking at the entire bible what the whole bible teaches and what
the bible is teaching is that we shouldn't be sleeping when it's
time to be awake shouldn't be sleeping like in the daytime
you know sleep at night I do believe that it's important to get
adequate rest I'm a strong believer in sleeping eight hours a night you know
and a lot of people think like oh man pastor Anderson you get a lot
done and everything how do you do it they think I'm burning the candle at
both ends but the truth matters I'm not because I'm a strong believer in
sleeping at night now there have been times in my life
when I had to do what I had to do and I had to work all
night you know for the first like five or six years of our church here
I was working insane hours at my job to try to make ends meet financially
and I was working for the church obviously the church didn't have money
to pay me because of the fag is a new church you know we're
running 20 30 then 40 50 60 people and so I had to work a full-time job and
pass to the church and I didn't work a full-time job I had
to work like a lot of overtime and extra hours just because I'm trying to
make it with all these little kids and one income you know the struggle
because you're doing it as well and so you know sometimes you got to do
what you got to do and I've had to work all night I've had
to miss sleep sleep in my car I've literally slept in my car hundreds
of times and so you do what you got to do but in
general sleep is good for your health and
usually it makes the most sense if at all possible
to get a good night's sleep now some people don't need eight hours of sleep
some people need six hours and they're totally fine after
six hours well then great but just get the sleep that you need
especially for me as a pastor I have to be able to think straight
so you know you don't want me getting up here
and I haven't slept and I'm just saying all kinds of wild things from the pulpit
and I'm teaching all kinds of strange things because I'm in like a half dream
state or something you know I find that by sleeping eight
hours I'm more productive when I'm awake so I can actually get more done than if
I spent that three hours of burning the
midnight oil so I only sleep five you know that three extra hours is
usually an unproductive time for me because I'm old you know I'm in my 40s
now and you know I get tired if I don't sleep
at night okay when I was in my 20s I could you know
push through a little better than I can now
and so anyway you know obviously we need to sleep but what we're talking
about is people that are just sleeping
through the day okay when they're supposed to be working
when they're supposed to be out there harvesting
you know the the slothful son the foolish son
he sleeps in the harvest there's all this work to do he's asleep
here's the thing about people that sleep in the daytime you know what that means
it means that they didn't sleep at night and so typically what this involves is
staying up at night partying staying up at night with video games
staying up at night surfing the internet wasting time
goofing off binge watching whatever the videos
and then in the daytime when you're supposed to be working now you're
sleeping that's the problem so we want to sleep
at night sleep for rest so that we can be effective in the
daytime and in the daytime we work and we don't
be lazy sitting around in the daytime so when he says here that the sluggard
is sleeping and and a little slumber a little folding
of the hands to sleep you know this is talking about sleeping
in the daytime because you know if you think about it at night
you don't get a little sleep you get a lot of sleep at night
am i right you just do a little sleep at night
no do you do a little folding of your hands to sleep is it who sleeps in this
position right here nobody i don't sleep like this i don't
sleep in the coffin pose either some some people do sleep like that but
you know i don't sleep like this but you know what i'll tell you what
though when i'm asleep when i'm sleeping in the daytime though
like let's say i'm on an airplane and go to sleep you know you do this kind of
you know this kind of stuff i mean i've slept like this
in the daytime but i don't sleep like this at night
so i i believe that the context here when we compare scripture with scripture
when we're talking about a little sleep a little slumber that doesn't sound like
your normal eight hours at night this is a folding of the hands to sleep
this kind of number you know this kind of stuff not the proper
sleep that you're supposed to be getting at night but anyway i don't want to
preach a whole sleep sermon because i actually i i do think that
preaching a whole sleep sermon is important
that's why i already did it three months ago so
download that if you haven't listened to that i encourage you to listen to that
uh because i i think it's pretty important to get a well-rounded view of
this subject all right so if you you know if you
are lazy and sleeping in the daytime your
poverty will come as one that travelth and they want as an armed man what does
that mean well poverty come as one that travels
anybody who travels knows what this means because of the
fact that traveling ends up being the biggest waste
of your money that you can imagine because when you travel
you end up spending way more than you think you're going to spend
because it's just every little stop at the gas station
and you know you've already got your home that you're already paying for
that doesn't go away it's not like oh you're going to be on vacation
don't worry about sending the house payment this month you still have to
send the house payment but then you're buying hotels you're
putting gas in the tank you stopping to buy food out which is
expensive so poverty comes as one that travelth
and then they want as an armed man you know it's like
basically armed robbery is what the idea is there
like somebody basically taking all your money
uh you go on a trip and you end up spending all your money
this will put you into poverty you know you're you're in lack
and so traveling will do that to you getting robbed will do that to you and
being lazy will do that to you right so we want to work hard make sure we
keep that pipeline of money coming in on a daily
weekly monthly basis so that we can pay our bills
meet our obligations and take care of our family
verse 12 is again another gear change because we're hitting a bunch of topics
in this chapter tonight a naughty person
a wicked man walketh with a froward mouth
now this word froward is kind of a tricky word
sometimes i feel like it's just a synonym of wicked
or ungodly or bad but then when i look at it i also get an idea of
of being like contrarian with your mouth because i think of things like
going to and fro and froward seems like deviant
like going out of the path and you find that in the context of
scripture when you see this word sometimes
and so when i see here that the that the wicked man
walks with a froward mouth the idea that i get here from this
is that basically he says one thing but he kind of means something else okay
and that's why it says he winketh with his eyes
he speaketh with his feet he teacheth with his fingers so what it's saying is
that this dishonest guy you can't really go by what he says
because he's constantly lying but he has little tells that he's lying
right where his hands will do something his
eyes will do something his feet will do something
and you know there are body language experts that study people
and obviously everybody's different so you never want to just start accusing
someone of lying because of the way they move or something but
once you've sort of normed someone and you sort of know how
someone normally acts and then they start acting fishy
hey sometimes that can be a red flag that they're lying to you
and a lot of times people's hands or their feet
or their eyes will tell a different story
than what they're saying to you okay so like one of the one of the things that
when i when i've studied body language in the past
that i've learned is that you know your feet
are pretty accurate about how you feel about something
so you'll notice people they'll be in a conversation that they don't really
want to be in and their upper body is a little more
consciously under their control so like let's say i'm talking to you and i don't
really want to be in this conversation then basically like my you know my upper
body i'm facing him but sometimes the feet will be like this and i'll kind of
be like that where my feet are over here because my
feet are like get me out of here i'm done here and then like my my you
know i'm like hey how you doing you know whereas if i
really want to be there it's more like this you know so your
feet tell a pretty truthful story often
because usually you're not really thinking about your feet whereas you're
consciously thinking more about your upper body
so your feet can be a big tell and so it says here that he speaketh with his feet
okay he teaches with his fingers you know uh your hands
can also reveal a lot about what's going on
in your mind so for example uh brother baron you want to come up here for one
second so here's let me just explain something
to you real quick too there are an infinite number of wrong
ways to shake hands and there is one correct way to shake
hands only one okay the right way to shake
hands is like that that's a good handshake okay
here's what you do your hand is straight up and down like this
okay you get a nice firm grip couple shakes and then you move on okay
now we could go on and on about all the wrong ways here are some of the wrong
ways okay uh putting my hand like this this is
basically i'm dominating this guy or you know
you'll like come at me with a straight up and down
and i kind of turn you this way it's like i'm
putting you down and then there's the overly submissive handshake
where the hand goes too far this way all right
so you know you don't want to be this overly submissive
flatterer type and you don't want to be just domineering over everybody
you know and sometimes you'll have people kind of fight you for it
okay the right way is straight up and down
right just on the level couple of guys brothers in christ right
boom yeah nice firm handshake here's another wrong way the limp fish
handshake okay you got to give a nice
firm handshake but then the opposite of that is the bone crusher like ah
you know where again it's obnoxious it's it's arrogant it's putting you
down and here is my all-time worst okay
because you know as a pastor you shake a lot of hands right so i've
studied this the worst of all time is the guy who just holds on too long
and the people who do this where they hold on too long i'll tell you what go
ahead and sit down thank you i'll tell you what they're trying to do
is they're again trying to dominate you
and put you off balance and make you feel
awkward and trying to show you that they're in some kind of control or
something you know it's it's not right it's an
arrogant prideful boastful move don't do it
okay and and when i've had people come at me and do this thing where they grab
my hand and just don't let go and they just keep talking to
me while they're just squeezing my hand i just automatically know this is a bozo
and i guarantee you my feet are not facing toward this guy because i'm like
get me out of here because this is a bozo okay
so look you say well why would you teach this pastor anderson because
you know don't you want people to keep just doing it and then you can
know what they're up to well but here's the thing though you know for me
understanding these things i'm not really trying to just figure out what
everybody's up to because honestly ignorance is bliss you
know i just want to believe that everybody loves god and that everybody's
happy and that you know i just want to go through my life just loving everybody
in the church and and loving visitors and whatever you
know the reason i'm teaching this to you is
obviously because you know you can kind of be aware of this in other people
okay that's part of it but you know you also want to present your best self to
this world as well okay i'm teaching you
not how to be deceptive but how to actually present your best
foot forward your best self to this world you know do you want to talk to
people and for them to think that you don't
want to be in the conversation then make sure that your feet are facing
them because otherwise you're you're sending a subconscious message
to them they're going to pick up on the fact that you're not really engaged
in the conversation right so you want to be a good listener right
so you know you want to make sure that you're all tuned in with your whole body
and also you know you don't you know maybe you've just developed a bad habit
with your handshake this this you know i'm teaching you how to do it
right so that you don't make people feel bad or feel uncomfortable
or or just subconsciously feel weird about you
okay so you want to have a good handshake you want to have good posture
you want to bear yourself right but you know we all know that
shifty people are sometimes dishonest right even in like a cartoon or
something there'll be some shifty villain or whatever i mean
that's just kind of the way human nature works and so that's what
the bible is talking about here right it's talking about this guy like
he's speaking with a forward mouth he might be saying the right things but his
body language his hands are telling a different story
his feet his eyes he's shifty he's not looking you
in the eye he's not giving you the right handshake
his feet aren't facing the right direction
something weird's going on and again never use what i'm teaching you here to
falsely accuse someone don't be like oh be watch out for that
guy he's got a bad handshake that's not the
point that's not right to judge people like
that okay but what it is is that you
can make sure that you're projecting the right body language
and you can at least just be aware that when someone comes at you like that
hey this guy might be ready to waste a bunch of my time
or really has a weird agenda because he's just not letting go of my hand
you know it's just kind of a smart thing to know i'm not saying you know go
around and tell people and criticize people but just in your
heart it's just kind of good to know who's putting forth signals of being
trustworthy and who isn't okay so anyway
that was kind of a little commercial break but it is
in the bible here you know that these are
a thing he winketh with his eyes he speaketh with his feet
he teacheth with his fingers forwardness is in his heart he deviseth mischief
continually he soweth discord therefore shall his
calamity come suddenly suddenly shall he be broken
without remedy so you know god's gonna punish this guy
this guy's gonna come to ruin cheaters never prosper
but in the meantime they can hurt a lot of people so beware
that people like this are out there and be careful
now one of the things he mentions here is that he soweth discord
he's so at discord behold how good and how pleasant it is
for brethren to dwell together in unity isn't it a beautiful thing when we see
like a staff that's working together in concert
as a team and they they love the lord and they have the same goals they love
one another and they you know they're just a team
and isn't it great when you see the church and
everybody loves one another and they're happy
and we're getting along you know this is a beautiful thing
it's it's good and pleasant for brethren to dwell together in unity it's it's
it's a beautiful thing when a marriage works like this when brothers and
sisters can behave like this when co-workers at the job can behave
like this church whatever right this is how we
want to be we want to have peace want to have
unity concord and so this is a beautiful thing
but the wicked person seeks to separate chief friends
and to sow discord among brethren you know i am good friends with pastor
roger jimenez he and i have been friends now for 21
years which it's pretty rare to have those kind of lifelong friendships you
know i mean there have been uh very few
friends like that in my life and and you're going to have a few friends like
that hopefully god willing and it's a blessing but it's not
something that you have every day somebody that you've been friends with
for 21 years okay but man there have been so many
people that have tried to drive a wedge between pastor jimenez
and myself over the years and that's that's a
wicked thing to do to try to pit us against one another or to try to get us
to fight with one another or take shots at one another
now no friendship is going to be perfect but
we should not seek to just sow discord among brethren
sowing discord in a church this is bad because
unity is such a blessing okay and having
good friends is rare you don't want people you want you don't want to allow
other people to ruin your friendships right
and so that kind of rolls into the next thought when it says he sowed discord
this wicked person uh who's who's got all the weird body
language tells probably because he is
a back biter he's a whisperer so he kind of tells you
that somebody else said something bad about you and he kind of tries to just
stir the pot and get different people at each other's throats
but that kind of rolls us into verse 16 about the six things that the lord hates
right and the seven that are an abomination
unto him and again this is a common thing in the bible
this is a common thing in poetry in general to do this thing of like well
there's six yeah there's even seven you know there's three there's even four
you know this is the fancy word for this is n
n plus one numeric parallelism but anyway that's meaningless
so the point is here that there are seven things that god hates and that are
an abomination to him by saying six and then seven this is
basically just like a fancy way or a poetic way of
saying that because you know proverbs is a poetic book these are
the seven things a proud look a lying tongue
and hands that shed innocent blood an heart that deviseth
wicked imaginations feet that be swift in running to mischief
a false witness that speaketh lies and he that soweth
discord among brethren these are things that god
hates he hates that guy who sows discord among brethren
he hates that guy who's just swift in running to mischief
the false witness who speaks lies the one who devises
wicked imaginations hands that shed innocent blood
the lying tongue the proud look right these are these are
people that are an abomination of the lord okay it says it says seven things
but some of these are actually people because it's like a false witness that's
a person right he that so at discord among brethren
is a person okay and so these are wicked sins that we
want to stay away from god hates pride god hates lying
god hates violence god hates people who hurt
the innocent people who lie under oath people commit perjury people who are
false accusers who bear false witness against
their brethren people that sow discord among brethren
they're super wicked in the sight of god verse number 20 another gear change
here my son keep thy father's commandment
and forsake not the law of thy mother bind them continually upon thine heart
and tie them about thy neck when thou goest it shall
lead thee when thou sleepest it shall keep thee
and when thou awakest it shall talk with thee for the commandment is a lamp and
the law is a light and reproofs of instruction
are the way of life now this is what we would have expected at the beginning of
the chapter because chapters one two three four and
five started out with this kind of admonition
then got into the advice this time we got a whole bunch of advice
and then we're getting this in the middle then we're going to go back to
the advice okay but i love what it says here
about the the father's commandment the law of thy mother
obviously it's about what our parents teach us good doctrine that we get from
our parents but also you could apply this to the
word of god the teachings that we got from
our father which is in heaven and normally in a christian home these
two things are kind of the same aren't they because
hopefully our parents are teaching us biblical truths
and the stuff that our mom and dad have given us as rules
is derived from the bible and so it says bind them
continually upon thy heart tie them about thy neck when thou goest
it shall lead thee right and again it's a jungle out there
and we have so many decisions to make god's word
our parents teachings can guide us through
this minefield of life and then it says when thou sleepest it shall
keep thee right it's going to keep you safe and protect you
so that you don't make fatal mistakes in your life
and then i love this last part when thou awakest
it shall talk with thee it shall talk with thee
you know isn't that kind of an odd thing to say
about our parents commandments the law of our mother
maybe the law of god by extension that when we wake up
it will talk to us you know the the christian who loves the lord
and meditates on god's word and has been taught
godly teachings by his parents is not ever really alone because the
lord is always with him and also just the word of god is always
with him and just these teachings are always with him so that
let's say you know i were locked in prison or something right
which you know god forbid that would ever happen i hope that i
can live my whole life out in freedom enjoying the sunshine of arizona until
the bitter end but you know let's say i were locked up
in prison or even like locked up in solitary confinement you know
and that would be pretty lonely it would be
pretty hard to just get through days and nights like that
but yet i would have god's word as a companion and you know people who
really memorized a lot of bible or studied the
bible a lot or or at least thought a lot about the bible they
understand that you know even when we have no
entertainment or nothing going on we we kind of have something to think
about all the time you know um like for example uh one of
my favorite non-fiction books of the 20th century
probably one of the greatest works of non-fiction of the 20th century
is the gulag archipelago by alexander solzhenitsyn
it's a little bit dark reading but it's good stuff
all right and in the gulag archipelago he talked about how there are the people
who do well in prison and the people who do well in the work
camps the forced labor camps and and how like even though the forced labor
camps are so much worse some people actually did better in
those than they did in prison and what he was talking about was how
you know unintelligent people people that were not very smart people are
dumb you know they kind of went crazy in
prison because they don't really have anything to think about
because their brain's a little bit empty and so they're kind of just in there
just losing it does everybody understand what i'm
saying so they kind of needed the social interaction of being in the work camp
even though it was like physically brutal and torturous at least they're
kind of constantly around other kind of brain dead types that
they could just kind of talk about meaningless garbage with whereas
people that were more intelligent or intellectual they actually did better in
prison because even if they're just locked in a
cell they had a lot to think about and they could you know sometimes even
get access to books and things and and at least their brains going so you know
those of us that that love the lord and study the bible
we kind of always have something to think about if you think about it because
i mean we we've always kind of got the lord to
think about so we never get to a point where our
brains just kind of empty and we're just super bored and there's
just kind of nothing going on because we can always be thinking about
bible stories and we can be thinking about uh what is
god's will for our life what are we going to do with our life
and what does god want from us and we could be kind of communing with god
or even just kind of going through god's commandments in our mind
going through the life of jesus christ in our mind going through
paul's epistles in our mind even if we don't even have a bible
and so it's like you wake up and the doctrines of the bible the doctrines of
your parents they kind of talk with you you know the things that your parents
taught you are something to think about you know i
wake up in the morning and i can think about god's word i can
think about what my mom taught me i can think about what my dad taught me
and i've got sort of a companion in those good
doctrines okay and so i think that's what he's
saying here when he says when thou awakest it shall talk with thee
right these are good things to think about
when you wake up in the morning just kind of thinking about
okay what is right what is not right what does the bible say
what did my parents teach me what should i do with my life
thinking about deep thoughts not just waking up and it's like ooga booga
food ooga booga tv ooga booga morning radio
coffee food sugar you know like you know you you want to wake up
and think about something with a little more depth
okay because that's what's going to be a companion with you throughout your life
and god forbid that any of us would ever end up in prison
but you know what we're going to do better in prison than
the brain dead amen so it says for the commandment is a lamp
and the law is light and reproofs of instruction
are the way of life the way of life as opposed to what the way of death
okay the way of life meaning the way that leads to long life prosperity
blessing reproofs of instruction what is a reproof
a reproof is when someone tells you that you're wrong
so the instruction that we want is not an instruction that says
hey good job no matter how bad you did you're doing great keep it up looking
sharp you know that's not really you know
basically joel osteen that's not the way of life my friend you
need the instruction that says hey change this fix this i mean look
anybody who's ever done sports if they have a coach they don't want to coach
it's just a yes man so what do i do coach oh man just keep
it up man you're killing it you are awesome you rock you go girl
you know just is that really a helpful coach
you need the coach say okay here's what you're doing wrong
fix this don't do this do this that's real coaching
okay well that's also real preaching is getting up and saying hey here's what
we need to fix here's what we need to tighten up
here's what we can improve here's what we should avoid
here's what society is wrong about here's what america
is wrong about here's what many christians are wrong about
reproofs of instruction are the way of life
to keep thee from the evil woman and this is a theme that comes up over and
over again in proverbs the evil woman the flattery of the of
the tongue of a strange woman so again there are sort of two warnings
in a lot of these chapters like the the evil male companion
right who's like a buddy that leads you off into sin
he gets you to co-sign on his loan he's uh got all the weird body language
because he's trying to mess with you and and pull one over on you and then
because again proverbs is being directed toward young men
although obviously young ladies can learn from it and apply it
and then of course there's the flattery of the tongue of the strange woman
the strange woman is trying to get with you physically
okay strange woman is the one who's trying to seduce you
and entice you with her body to get physical with her okay that's what's
being warned about here and it says lust not after her beauty in
thine heart neither let her take thee with her eyelids
for by means of a whorish woman a man is brought to a piece of bread
and the adulterous will hunt for the precious life what does that mean
that a man is brought to a piece of bread
now obviously a human isn't really going to turn into a piece
of bread and and really i i can't even think how
this metaphor would even work how like a person could become like
bread and that that would be a bad thing because bread is a pretty good thing
so i think it makes a lot more sense to interpret this as a man is brought to a
piece of bread meaning that all of his wealth all of
his substance comes down to here's all i own in this
world this piece of bread that's what he's saying when he says a
man's brought to a piece of bread it means as his only possession that's
left because she has taken him for everything
else that he's got okay
and then it says that the adulterous will hunt
for the precious life okay so the adulterous
is out to seduce men and she is married because otherwise
she wouldn't be an adulterous okay the adulterous here
is a married woman who's out trying to seduce men and trying to be with
men outside of marriage can a man take fire in his bosom and
his clothes not be burned can one go upon hot coals and his feet
not be burned so he that goeth into his neighbor's wife
whosoever toucheth her shall not be innocent men do not despise a thief if
he steal to satisfy his soul when he's hungry
but if he be found he shall restore sevenfold he shall give all the
substance of his house but whoso committed adultery with a woman
lacketh understanding now stop right there and what i want to show you here
is that we were just talking about adultery
and then we switched over to this talk about a thief
and then we're back to adultery okay so what i want to understand is that the
part about the thief is part of the the adultery teaching
okay we did not leave the subject of adultery
we're still on it but he has this little side
note where he says look men do not despise a thief if he steal to satisfy
his soul when he's hungry you know if somebody saw somebody who's
starving and they stole something to eat
when they're starving look god is not pleased it is still a sin
it is still wrong but men we're getting we're not talking about god's
perspective we're talking about humans people will go soft on that
god's not necessarily going to go soft on it but people will won't they
people be like hey the guy's starving you know
he's stealing to satisfy his soul and they're going to have sympathy
but even in spite of that sympathy if they get busted by the police
the judge isn't going to be like oh well you know you're having a hard time
he still is going to get nailed in the criminal justice system for stealing
he's going to be found guilty that's what the bible is saying here it's
saying look people not god but people
will sometimes condone or maybe not quite condone but just kind of
not despise the thief when he steals to satisfy his soul
but if he be found he shall restore sevenfold he shall give all the
substance of his house but again it's the same it's the same
thought here my friend it's the same sentence right but who so
committed adultery with a woman lacketh understanding he that do it that
destroyeth his own soul a wounded dishonor shall he get and his reproach
that's the key word reproach shall not be wiped away reproach has to
do with being made a fool of yourself in front of
other people reproach is when other people look at
you and despise you so this is the opposite of the the thief
who steals to satisfy his soul when he's hungry people don't despise
him the adulterer gets mega despised
even by society does everybody see that
he gets dishonor and his reproach shall not be wiped away
here's what the bible is saying look people can make excuses
about why they steal even though stealing is wrong
and it's not okay to steal and there are other ways to fix your problems when
you're hungry but there's absolutely no
excuse for adultery adultery is inexcusable in the eyes of god
and it's inexcusable in the eyes of any normal society now obviously we have
super perverted societies now arising in the west and we have places like france
now where the majority of the population by
some polls think it's okay to commit adultery and
huge percentages of french people are saying hey
it's not morally wrong to commit adultery to cheat on your
spouse okay but any normal society
is gonna frown on that even if it's not even christian
even if it's hindu buddhist whatever pagan whatever okay
because adultery is inexcusable okay there's never any reason why it
would be justifiable to lie with another man's wife
this is heinous okay it is wicked and it is reprehensible
to any normal society and in the eyes of god
and to any church and any normal group of people whether christian or
non-christian because here we're even talking about the worldly
view that says well we're going to justify what this thief did over here
we're not going to justify that sleeping with this dude's wife
are you serious it says the wounded dishonor shall he get in his reproach
to not be wiped away for jealousy is the rage of a man
therefore will he not spare in the day of vengeance
he will not regard any ransom neither will he rest content though that give
give us many gifts what's the bible saying here there are
some crimes that you commit where you could pay a ransom
as opposed to being put to death but then the bible specifically says
that there are certain crimes where you cannot take a ransom
you cannot take satisfaction for example if someone commits
first degree murder which is defined in the bible as that
you hated that person in time past and you have premeditated murder first
degree murder the bible says there shall be no
satisfaction or no ransom taken for someone who commits first degree
murder meaning no matter how rich this person is
they can't pay the family and say like okay
yeah i committed first degree murder but here's this huge amount of money
to basically satisfy you so that you won't press charges
you know the bible's saying no like that person has to be put to death
the person who commits first degree murder but there are
other crimes in the bible that are punishable by death
but where satisfaction or ransom could be paid in certain situations where
someone could ransom their soul by basically paying and and and giving
some kind of a of a of making things right financially
basically for a crime that they've committed
okay this is not allowed when it comes to first degree murder but in other
situations it could be allowed okay but what the
bible is saying here is that you know this isn't typically going to
work when it comes to adultery okay now
here's the thing about this okay the book of proverbs
is always speaking in generalities right so we need to be careful that we
don't think that when the book of proverbs teaches us something
that it's going to never have an exception it's going to be 100 of the
time exactly as that's a wrong way to understand this genre
of biblical book because in proverbs it's generalities
right you know a little sleep a little slumber a little folding of the hands to
sleep so shall that poverty come as one that travels
that doesn't mean that there's not some rich dude somewhere who's lazy
and he's everything's being handed to him and he
he takes a lot of naps and sleeps a lot in the day and parties and he's just
he's okay in general is how these things work
right and i'm not going to belabor that point because we've already talked about
in other weeks obviously you do have some dudes out
there that don't care if you commit adultery with their wife
now is that guy normal no he's a weirdo any dude who's just
like i don't really care what anybody does with my wife
is a weirdo and a pervert you know he's like
these guys that are in like an open marriage or something he's just like hey
just whoever wants to just be with my wife that's no problem and i'm gonna do
whatever i want whatever that's not normal so when the bible
says here jealousy is the rage of a man he will not spare in the day of
vengeance he'll not regard any ransom neither will he rest content though
that give us many gifts this is in general the way it's gonna go
most dudes are not going to accept a ransom because here's the
thing if you get brought before the authorities
in ancient israel with adultery what's the punishment
death right leviticus 20 verse 10 says that the man that lies with his
neighbor's wife even he that commits adultery with his
neighbor's wife both the adulterer and the adulteress
shall be put to death so the unfaithful wife
and the man who is committing adultery with her both
are executed they're both put to death so you can see how
let's say some dude busts another dude with his wife
that basically that guy could try to wiggle out of these and say hey
let's not bring this before the judge let's not make a big deal out of this
here why don't i just pay you ten thousand dollars
okay i just gave you thirty thousand dollars let me just give you many gifts
the bible is saying that that's typically not going to work
because jealousy is the rage of a man he'll not spare in the day of vengeance
he'll not regard any ransom neither will he rest content though that'll give us
many gifts now here's the thing about that
is that obviously today in 2022 there's no death penalty on adultery is there
you know there should be but there isn't
obviously in 2022 america not only is there no death penalty on adultery
adultery is not even illegal it's 100 legal
unless you're in the military because in the military they could actually
court-martial you for committing adultery but when it comes
to the general population of civilians this isn't even against the law which is
kind of stupid because it means that marriage isn't really worth anything in
the side of the law now thankfully as christians marriage is
worth something to us and we honor and we respect that covenant
but this world and the law doesn't and so it's literally legal to be a
sodomite it's legal to commit adultery these
things that god punished by death now they're just legal
let alone being punished the way god punished them
at that time and so even though there's no death penalty on adultery
that doesn't mean that you're not going to get killed
if you commit adultery you still might get killed
okay you know for example i had a buddy and he caught his wife
committing adultery in the very act and he he was a big guy and he grabbed
this dude and and the guy was naked and he
hurled this naked dude through the front window of the house
he grabbed because he's just in a rage and so he just grabbed the guy and just
hurled him through the front window and the guy got majorly lacerated from
that window he got this isn't like movies or
something those are fake windows they're made out of sugar or something
you know what i'm talking about where they you know they have the the old
westerns or something where they you know
you know in real life if you get thrown through a window
it's pretty serious and so this guy had lacerations all over his body
he was in the intensive care unit for weeks
and thankfully the guy survived and the reason i say thankfully
i don't you know hey i'm fine if the guy would have died but
here's the thing the reason why it's good that he survived though
is so that my buddy didn't get nailed for manslaughter
or second degree murder or something like that for killing this guy
so he was glad that the guy was okay because then
he didn't end up going to prison or anything like that
and so he was able to tell me the story and so
you know that's not and and you know this was
this was a story that he only told me because he and i were very close
this is not something he went around telling people because it's kind of
embarrassing and whatever but he told me this story and this guy
you know he was kind of a meek individual
you i i couldn't really picture him doing something like this
he's not the kind of guy that would do things like this or brag about doing
things like this he did it because of just being
overcome with rage and this is kind of a normal reaction
to find your wife you know in flagrante delicto
and so you know even if there's not a death penalty it
doesn't mean you're not going to get killed
you know i mean oj simpson anyone but anyway you know again i'm not trying
to open that can of worms but the point is dudes kill
their wives when their wives commit adultery or
dudes kill dudes who commit adultery with their
wives this is something that happens not
saying it's right i'm saying it happens okay and guess what
you're gonna find out in this world a lot of things that aren't right
and aren't legal they still happen
right you know you you can't go through this life with surgery
you can't do that
that's not legal that's not allowed you can't do that to me that's not gonna
guess what people do stuff that's not allowed
and that's not legal or that's not even right
and so guess what you commit adultery with some other dude's wife
it doesn't matter what the law says that dude might find a way to kill you maybe
even a year later maybe even two years later
you know and he might just hide the body really well and get away with it
and i'm not saying it's right i'm not saying it's legal
i'm not saying that you know this is something that our society
would accept but guess what stuff happens every day that's not legal or
not right or not allowed or not accepted by society
people do stuff and what the bible is saying is
if you commit adultery you are playing with fire
and you know what you're doing you're playing russian roulette with your even
life because people will kill you people
kill people every day in this country in major cities of america people are
killing someone every day like in chicago somebody's dying like every day
i don't know how often somebody gets murdered in phoenix
but i mean places like washington dc gary indiana
chicago illinois atlanta georgia i mean there's a lot of murders going on
people get killed you you mess with the wrong person
you might get killed and so if you're smart you'll follow the book of proverbs
you keep your nose clean mind your own business
do what you're supposed to do and run screaming in the other direction
from adultery okay because it's not only is it wicked in the sight of god
and you're going to incur the wrath of god it's super dangerous even humanly
speaking because some dude is going to kill you
in many situations and again you could say well there's an exception
many of the teachings of the book of proverbs have exceptions the exception
proves the rule but these are generalities and in
general dudes are super jealous about their wives
it's our nature as dudes to be jealous and obviously some jealousy could be
over the top but when some dudes committing adultery
with your wife that's not an over the top
jealousy that's actually an appropriate jealousy where you're like okay
this isn't right and in the bible days that person would be put to death
obviously it's not right for us to take the law into our own hands
we're supposed to obey the laws of the land but guess what people do what
they're not supposed to do all the time so you better just watch
your back and if you're smart you won't even commit that wicked sin in the first
place let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer
lord we thank you so much for your word lord thank you for the wisdom
that we found in proverbs chapter 6 tonight i pray that all of the teachings
of proverbs 6 we would apply lord and lord god i pray that this series on
wednesday nights wouldn't just be a sermon
that we listen to one time but that rather
this would just kind of be food for thought and then we would spend the rest
of our lives actually physically reading the book of
proverbs over and over again and constantly being reminded of the
principles that we've learned tonight in the message lord in jesus name we
pray amen