Greetings everyone. Let’s begin the Bible Study today by turning to Proverbs 20:13.
Before we get to verse 13, I want to go back to verse 11 and just mention one more thing. Here’s yet another example in God’s word of the tremendous positive influence parents can have on children. One of the greatest responsibilities anybody can have is the proper rearing of our children. God gives us our children. They are a tremendous blessing, but they then become one of our priorities—in some cases, our number one priority—and certainly a very, very high priority.
And so if we really take time to invest our energy and our experience and our time with the rearing of our children, then they’ll be known by their doings and their doings will be excellent. They’ll be known as excellent children and have a wonderful reputation, and that’s going to be a wonderful blessing for them and the whole family.
So, all of us who are parents need to understand how rewarding and how thrilling and how big the responsibility, and important the responsibility is of taking care and instructing and properly rearing our children for their sake and for everyone’s sake.
Let’s begin now in this Bible Study today in Proverbs 20:13. Proverbs 20:13 says:
13 Love not sleep, lest you come to poverty; open your eyes, and you shall be satisfied with bread.
Now, obviously all of us need sleep and we hopefully can have good, deep, peaceful sleep. It’s one of the biggest requirements that our human bodies have is sleep. And so we must have sleep—eight hours if we can get it. And sometimes we do things that interfere with our sleep, and we toss and turn and pace and miss our sleep, and that’s going to start affecting our concentration. It’s going to start affecting our health. So there has to be a balance in this matter of sleep.
But the point that’s being brought out here in verse 13 is, we ought not love sleep to the point to where we do too much of it and we use it as an escape from responsibility or from what we need to face. We use it because we’re lazy. We use it to get out of this and get out of that, and in particular get out of work. We sleep too long or sleep too often. If we do that, then we are going to come to poverty.
13 —open your eyes, and you shall be satisfied with bread.
There’s a time to sleep and there’s a time to wake up and get busy. It’s a good policy or a good practice that when we go to sleep, to go ahead and sleep, but when it’s time to wake up, wake up and get up. If you wake up and lay there and toss and turn and snooze and put it off and dread getting up, you’re going to find a whole hour or so can be wasted.
What we need to do is open our eyes and get up and go to work, and then we will have our needs because God will bless us—especially if we are living life His way. But if we love sleep—obviously, we need sleep—but if we get to where we just love it and we do too much of it, it will lead to trouble, it will lead to poverty. We can count on that and verse 13 tells us.
14 It is naught, it is naught, says the buyer: but when he is gone his way, then he boasts.
Or a better translation is: It is good for nothing. In other words, “This car is a piece of junk. It’s a bucket of bolts. I’m not going to give you what you’re asking. It’s a broken down old piece of junk.” And so, then the person buys it and takes it home and shows his buddies and says, “Look what a good car I have here. I really put one over on that guy where I bought this car. I convinced him that it wasn’t worth anything and now I paid very little for it, but look at this car, it’s a good car. I beat him in that deal. I really outdid him in that transaction. I’m better than he is because I put one over on him.” Well, that’s not Christian. That’s lying. That’s selfish. And yet that’s done in so many transactions in this world today. You know that. You might have had it done to you. Maybe you did it and need to repent of it.
We need to be honest when we’re going to purchase something and say, “Well, you know, that’s a very nice house. This is a very fair price. I can give this if you’ll take that.” And then everybody’s happy and then we can say we have a nice house and he got a nice price for it, and God will bless us because we were fair.
But if we start picking at this and picking at that and picking the other thing and describe the house as a broken down structure, and “Why should we pay you that?” and somehow or the other chisel the individual down to where we don’t give them a fair price, and then once the sale is complete, bring our friends over or bring our family over and say, “Look what a tremendous house we got. I worked him down to where he didn’t get a fair price, but boy did we get a real steal here.”—that is not proper, and God will not look on that with favor, and blessings will not come from him on people who act that way. So there’s what verse 14 is warning us against.
15 There is gold, and a multitude of rubies: but the lips of knowledge are a precious jewel.
You know, when we begin thinking the way God thinks and we begin to really understand the tremendous blessings of Christianity, we’ll actually get to where the lips of knowledge is way more precious to us than gold and rubies. But we have to grow and mature spiritually before we come to that point. Because in all honesty, human beings will take gold and a multitude of rubies over the lips of knowledge anytime because they don’t understand that rubies and gold can’t do that much for you in the long run. But the lips of knowledge will just continue to benefit anyone who has lips of knowledge and follows and applies that knowledge the way God says.
16 Take his garment that is surety for a stranger: and take a pledge of him for a strange woman.
In other words, it’s not a real good thing to be a guarantee for other people. It’s not a real good thing to cosign for someone else. You need to be aware that if you choose to do that, you could end up paying off the loan, paying off the car, paying off the house. And if you didn’t plan for it to turn out that way, you can end up losing the car, losing the house, and losing your house and losing your car. So the best thing to do is, if you’re going to do that or if you’re going to loan the person money or if you’re going to back up somebody who is going in debt for somebody else, the best thing to do is to get some insurance, to take a pledge or to hold something in a safe place against the deal falling through, because it could very well fall through.
The actual better decision is just not to get involved in business deals like that. If you do, be prepared to really take a beating. It may not turn out that way, but quite often it does. And so if you do decide to do that, the advice in verse 16 is to take something as a guarantee. Take something to hold in a safe place. Take something against the deal not working out, and at least you won’t end up with nothing.
16 —and take a pledge—
Or hold it as a pledge for a seductress. Someone who is coy and someone who is deceptive and someone who is smooth and can talk another individual into doing something—you better have some insurance there. You better have something, money or a possession, to hold as a guarantee in case it doesn’t work out. It’s just talking about wise practices as opposed to foolish practices in business matters.
17 Bread of deceit is sweet to a man; but afterwards his mouth shall be filled with gravel.
Isn’t it a quirk in human nature that there’s a rush in doing what you’re not supposed to do? There’s a rush and a thrill and a charge in trying to get away with something. Now once we have the mind of Jesus Christ and once we are trying to live by God’s way and once we are true Christians, we don’t want that rush and that charge doesn’t do anything for us. We get our jollies and we get our fun and we get our happiness and we get our good feelings from doing the right thing, and that’s fun that has no kickback. That’s fun today, tomorrow, and forever.
But the “fun” that the bread of deceit brings might titillate our fancy and give us some twisted kind of physical pleasure for a while, but the kickback is devastating. And there’s a price to be paid that’s far greater than whatever little bit of pleasure sin might have brought us. And so—
17 Bread of deceit is sweet to a man;—
Oh yeah, for a little while
17 —but afterwards his mouth shall be filled with gravel.
You have to pay the piper and the penalty is coming, and it’s like cooking a meal over ashes and the ashes get in the bread. And then when you eat the meal, you’re eating the ashes. You just spit it out, it’s disgusting. Well, that’s how bread of deceit ends up being. It’s not so sweet. It’s more like eating a meal and you’ve got dirt in it or you’ve got gravel in it or you’ve got ashes in it.
So we need to be honest in all of our dealings, and get our jollies and get our rush and get our charge from doing the right thing because that’s the kind that brings blessings and no penalties—that kind of charge, that kind of happiness, that kind of good feelings and that kind of stimulation. That brings good things when it’s the right kind of stimulation based on the right actions with the right attitude—not wrong actions based on deceit and trying to get around what we’re not supposed to do. That kind of action turns out in the end to be very painful and very unpleasant. So let’s avoid it. That’s what verse 17 is telling us.
18 Every purpose is established by counsel:—
Every good purpose, every successful purpose, every worthwhile achievement.
18 —and with good advice make war.
If we end up just being—you know, no man is an island as the old saying goes—if we’re a lone wolf, if we just lean unto our own understanding and we think we know everything and we don’t need any advice or any counsel or any input or any feedback from anyone else, we’ll find ourselves not really being that successful.
But if we do seek counsel from people who have wise things to say, no matter what the decision is that we’re making, the outcome will be more firmly established. Now, of course, we want to come to the point to where we don’t practice violence or war. But we are in a war, and that is we’re in a spiritual war. We’re in a war against the pulls of this world. We’re in a war against the pulls of our human nature. And we’re in the war against the pull of Satan the devil. And we need advice to fight that war, and this book is full of that advice, and God has ministers and God has a work that will certainly give us guidance and counsel and advice free of charge.
And if we go to Him and ask Him for help and strength and guidance and direction and then we dig deep in His word and we talk to people who are trying to obey God, we can get good advice and we can make good decisions and we can go in directions that will be established and be successful and achieve what we’ve set out to accomplish.
19 He that goes about as a talebearer reveals secrets: therefore meddle not with him that flatters with his lips.
Isn’t it ridiculous the way some people just love to go around gossiping and spreading tales and passing along all kinds of juicy little tidbits about others. Our advice here from God is not to associate with such people. That’s what it means when it says, “therefore meddle not with him that flatters with his lips.” Don’t associate with people like that. There are those who will flatter you. You better ask yourself: What’s the hook? What’s the catch? Where are the strings that are attached to this flattery? What do they want from me? They’re setting me up. They’re flattering me so that they can get something from me—get some information, get some money, get a decision, get a possession. They want something.
So a compliment that is sincere and paid at the right time, that’s good, that’s positive, that’s encouraging. We are to give honor to whom honor is due. But when it turns into flattery, just pouring it on and piling it on and overdoing it, and obviously doing it in order to get something from us, we better go far from people like that and we better not associate with them because they’re setting us up for a fall. So don’t associate with those that flatter us in any way, shape, or form when you see that that’s what’s happening. That’s what God says in verse 19.
20 Whoso curses his father or his mother, his lamp shall be put out in—
deep or
20 —obscure darkness.
There’s a lot in the Bible and a lot in Proverbs about children mistreating their parents, instead of honoring their parents the way the fifth commandment tells us to do. And, you know, I’ve heard this, it’s so disgusting and repugnant to hear it where children will make fun of their father and mother. And they’ll tell stupid jokes about their father and mother, or they will use foul language and even curse their father and mother. And they will get up in their father and mother’s face and even push and hit and abuse them.
Well, I’ll tell you, God sees that. He certainly knows when that happens and He looks upon that with great anger and He does not like that and what He says here is, “Whoever is doing that, his life is going to go out. His life is going to be one of deep darkness.”
Instead of having a life full of joy and happiness and success and a life that’s just illuminated with tremendous accomplishments, his lamp is going to be snuffed out and he’s going to go through life in obscure darkness because of the way he or she treated their father and mother. We better honor our father and mother and be blessed, instead of cursing them and being cursed.
21 An inheritance may be gotten hastily at the beginning; but the end thereof shall not be blessed.
The attitude of get, the attitude of finagling, finding a loophole, maneuvering around, getting something, getting most of the inheritance, getting it quick, getting this, getting that, getting the other thing—and instead of it coming in the right way and for the right purpose and to the right individual, and therefore being used properly and being a blessing, it’s gotten in the wrong way and it comes at the wrong time. And the person might just sit there smugly thinking, “Look what I just got!” But, you know, how is it all going to turn out? That’s the question. When it’s obtained or gotten or finagled in that way, gotten hastily, gotten in the wrong way for the wrong reason and the wrong attitude
21 —the end thereof shall not be blessed.
Why? Because God is not pleased with anything that isn’t done right, and therefore He won’t bless it. But when, no matter what it is, it’s handled in the right way, including an inheritance, then it will be blessed.
22 Say not thou, I will recompense evil; but wait on the Lord, and he shall save you.
It’s tempting to get vengeance. It’s tempting to get back. It’s tempting to treat others the way they treat you. I mean, if somebody yells at you, it’s tempting to yell back. If somebody gyps you or if somebody steals from you or if somebody deceives you, it’s tempting to get them back to straighten them out.
And so people want to get vengeance or they carry a grudge or they want to vindicate themselves or they want to pay back an individual but do it double what the individual did to them. They might have done something wrong to them. They might have even punched them or hurt them or lied about them or stabbed them in the back, and so the temptation because of human nature is, go get them, pay them back, set it straight, square it up.
Well, you know, a Christian who really is trying to live life the way God wants it to be lived, a Christian who is trying to be more and more like Jesus Christ with each passing day, an individual who actually practices Christianity will not do it that way. Verse 22 says:
22 Say not thou, I will recompense evil;—
Or I will pay it back.
22 —but wait on the Eternal, and he shall save you.
Just put it in God’s hands. “Vengeance is mine, I will repay,” He says. Leave it up to God. He’ll do it in love. He’ll do it very effectively. He’ll do it when the time is right, and He’ll do it at the best time and the best way. And when He gets done, it will truly be taken care of and it’ll be taken care of much better than any of us can take care of the problem. So let’s take the advice in Proverbs 20:22.
23 Divers weights are an abomination unto the Lord; and a false balance is not good.
Once again, it’s talking about being honest in all of our dealings and being fair and not trying to get the best of somebody else and lying and stealing and cheating them in business practices. And notice here:
23 —a false balance is not good.
A better translation is: Balances of deceit. Because once again, it’s breaking the commandments and God despises that, and punishment will be meted out to an individual who does that. They may think, “Well, you know, I cheated them on that pair of shoes or I overcharged them for that piece of furniture.”
Well, I’ll tell you, they’ll pay for that somewhere down the line in some way. God wants us to treat one another with respect and love in every way including our business transactions.
24 Man's goings are of the Eternal; how can a man then understand his own way?
To really understand who we are, what we are, how we work, why we are the way we are, what we ought to do and how we ought to go through life—we can’t figure that out on our own. We can figure out a few things but not really figure out the bottom line truth about who we are, what we are, where we’re going, where we came from, where we ought to end up, etc. We have to get that from God. And I want to turn to a verse that points that out. It’s over here in Jeremiah 10:23. It says:
23 O Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walks to direct his steps.
24 O Lord, correct me, but with judgment; not in your anger, lest you bring me to nothing.
In other words, what Jeremiah is saying here is, “It’s not in me to direct my steps. I don’t know how I ought to go, I don’t know how to accomplish what I need to accomplish. I need help from you. I need guidance from you. I need strength and direction from you. So please give me that direction. Please correct me, please instruct me, but please correct me with mercy and justice and patience and not in your anger lest I just be brought to nothing.”
I hope we can pray like that and I hope we will. I hope we’ll go to God and ask Him to direct our paths and to give us guidance and to help us and correct us where we need it. Because of and by ourselves, we can’t understand the way we ought to go, but we can want to go the right way and then God will show us the right way and help us to go down the right path. We have to go to Him and talk to Him about it. He will listen to us and He will help us.
25 It is a snare to the man who devours that which is holy, and after vows to make inquiry.
We need to leave holy things alone. We don’t want to be dipping into the tithes that we’re supposed to give to God. We need to give Him those tithes and then leave them there. If we dip into them and say, “Oh well, we’ll make it up later,” that’s unacceptable to God. Or to translate this in a different way in other translations, it should read: To devote rashly something as holy and consecrated, and then later reconsider that devotion or that setting apart of that holy thing—that’s a snare.
We need to think through what we’re going to give to God and then give it and be thankful we gave it and move on. Don’t give it and then regret it or don’t give it and figure out how to get some of it back, or don’t give it and then be sorry that we gave it because we didn’t think it through. Realize it’s part of worshipping God. Give it cheerfully and gladly, and then don’t start going back and wondering or figuring out or questioning whether or not we ought to have done it. Just be thankful and move on. That’s what we must do according to verse 25.
26 A wise king scatters the wicked, and brings the wheel over them.
Somebody in position of power and authority who’s supposed to be looking after others needs to make sure that they are taking care of their responsibilities. And one of the responsibilities is to deal with the wicked, deal with the troublemakers, deal with those that will harm others and harm the property of others. And a wise leader will do that and if necessary will take drastic measures, and even punitive action, in order to stop the wicked from harming others. And here the example of bringing the wheel over them is a very drastic example of taking a threshing wheel, and running it over them, and stopping them in their tracks.
In other words, somebody who’s responsible for looking after people and property needs to take care of them and take whatever action it requires to stop those who would do harm to the people or their possessions short of, of course, violence. But sometimes the authorities can be called and they will take care of the punitive action because it’s their responsibility to do so. But don’t just sit by and watch the wicked take over. Take proper action, even calling in the civil authorities to take care of the penalty and punishment part of it, and certainly God will intervene when necessary to protect those who are trying to do the right thing and to take care of the wicked.
But we as human beings when we have that responsibility, we have our part to play in that also, and a wise leader will sift the wicked out and away, and even take strong action when necessary to see to it that the wicked are dealt with.
Now notice verse 27. It says:
27 The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord, searching all the inward parts of the belly.
And there is a spirit in man. It’s that component that combines with our brain and gives us mind power to be able to think like God thinks in a limited way. We then have creative ability and we have capabilities that rise far above any other part of creation including the animal kingdom. Animals have brains and instinct. Mankind because of the spirit in man have mind power and intelligence and intellect, and so therefore we then have a conscience to search the inward parts of our lives and see what is right and wrong. And guided by God we then can do the right thing and resist the wrong thing, and when that spirit in man, which combined with our brain gives us mind power, is combined with God’s holy spirit, then we have more of the mind of Jesus Christ and can be more like Him.
So that’s a very important understanding that God has placed in His church through guiding Mr. Herbert Armstrong years ago to understand that, and of course it’s a big subject. We don’t have time to go into it in detail now, but understand that verse 27 does point out that there is a spirit in man and that spirit does give us the qualities of God in a limited way by combining with our brain and giving us mind power and intellect, as opposed to animal brain that does not have that spirit and therefore does not have mind power and intellect, but rather has instinct.
28 Mercy and truth preserve the king: and his throne is upholden by mercy.
A person can have mercy but not have truth and they will not accomplish what they ought to. And a person can have truth but not have mercy and they will not achieve what they otherwise could. But when you combine mercy and truth—whoever we are, whoever you are, whatever position you hold—you then will be successful.
28 —and his throne is upholden by mercy.
When you get a cruel king or a cruel individual in a position of authority, everybody suffers and he himself is going to have to pay for that. But when you get someone in a position of authority and power and they practice mercy, then they’re going to help other people and care for other people. And combine it with truth—that will preserve the leader and preserve those under the leader.
29 The glory of young men is their strength: and the beauty of old men is the gray head.
It’s just natural for a young person who is growing up and beginning to feel his oats and they see that they’re getting more and more muscular and more and more athletic and more and more coordinated, and they can lift things and run and jump and do things that otherwise they couldn’t do without this youthful strength that they have. It’s a wonderful thing. It’s a great feeling to be young and to be growing and developing and becoming athletic and becoming balanced and coordinated and stronger and stronger.
Now, it can be misused and turn into something that’s just macho and braggadocio and obnoxious. That’s not the way we ought to use it. But when a young person recognizes that they do have strength, they do have speed, they do have adroitness, they do have balance and skills and they’re happy about that and they have fun with that and they share that with others, that’s a wonderful thing.
29 —and the beauty of old men is the gray head.
If the elderly person tries to do the right thing, if the elderly person has learned some things and has good experiences and good wisdom, it’s not something to be ashamed of. It’s something to be happy about that you have that experience and that wisdom that is indicated by having years behind you and gray hair on your head. So just like—
29 The glory of young men is their strength:—
But they don’t yet have that gray hair and that wisdom. The beauty of old men is that gray hair and that wisdom, even though their strength might be waning. But God has taken care of all ages if we’ll do everything His way. When we’re young, we have that strength and we grow in wisdom. When we’re old we have that wisdom and we lose the strength, but we still have that wisdom and enough strength to live a happy life.
30 The blueness of a wound cleanseth away evil: so do stripes the inward parts of the belly.
This is simply saying that sometimes it takes severe punishment to knock the evil out of someone even to the point of the law of the land taking action, and even to the point of making sure that you have the individual’s full attention. We ought not go around beating up on people. We ought not go around doing violence to anyone, but there are laws in the land that do take care of evil doers—just like in ancient Israel, there were laws that took care of evil doers, and in the Kingdom of God, there’ll be laws that take care of evil doers.
In our land and in our society today, the laws are not fully implemented and are not as just as they ought to be, but you will notice that if someone is practicing evil and they are arrested and they are put through the system where they have to pay a price—and sometimes it’s rather severe—sometimes it gets their attention and has a way of cleaning out the evil, and sometimes it enters down into their innermost being because of the pain that comes from hard labor or the pain that comes from being severely punished. And so that’s what it’s talking about.
There are consequences to being evil and sometimes the consequences are pain. And that pain, if it’s paid attention to, can have a good effect by driving away the evil and by getting the person’s attention.
Okay, that finishes chapter 20 of the book of Proverbs. We’ll begin in chapter 21 next time.
This is Charles Bryce with the Enduring Church of God.