Hello everyone. Let’s begin by turning to Proverbs 23:19. We’ll continue through our Bible Study series through the book of Proverbs. Proverbs 23:19:
19 Hear thou, my son, and be wise, and guide your heart in the way.
You know, there’s a way to live. It’s God’s way. There’s a way to live that’s the wrong way too. That’s Satan’s way. And we have choices to make regarding those two ways. That choice between right and wrong is a theme throughout the Bible. Starts out with two trees in the Garden of Eden—one, the tree of life; one, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil—and follows all the way through the Bible to the end in the book of Revelation. Talks about two gates and two houses, and the right way and the wrong way, the righteous way, the evil way. And here we find in the book of Proverbs this way talked about.
19 Hear, my son, and be wise, guide your heart—
your mind, your thinking
19 —in the way.
Choose the right way. There’s a way to do everything. We need to make sure that we choose the right way to do whatever we do, including live our lives.
20 Be not among winebibbers; among riotous eaters of flesh:
Now God certainly provides us with wonderful food, but we must eat that food in moderation. And there are some foods that are good to eat and some that are not good to eat. You can find that out by turning to Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14 where it talks about clean and unclean meats.
But even when we eat good, clean meat, meat that is created to be eaten, we should practice moderation. We should not overeat. And the same is true with wine. A nice glass of wine, unless our body is intolerant toward alcohol, a nice glass of wine is a very tasty treat and it’s good for us. But if we take it too far, then we turn into a winebibber, and we turn into someone who drinks too much. And that can turn to alcoholism, and that can be our ruin. And so we are warned against that in verse 20.
Notice the results of doing that. See, when you read through this chapter of the book of Proverbs, you have to couple two and three and four verses together and get it all in context if you’re going to get the full meaning. Verse 20 ties directly in with verse 21. And verse 21 says:
21 For the drunkard—
the one who drinks too much
21 —and the glutton—
the one who eats too much
21 —shall come to poverty:—
For several reasons:
1. They spend too much time eating and drinking.
2. The food and the wine cost too much. Therefore it impacts their budget.
3. It begins to affect their health. They’ll get way overweight and they’ll injure their system with too much alcohol. Therefore they won’t be able to work as hard, and therefore then they’ll drink more and eat more, and it’s a vicious cycle that one gets into and they shall come to poverty.
21 —and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags.
You know, when someone starts drinking too much and eating too much, they also want to sleep too much, and it’s a vicious cycle that leads to poverty and ruin. And if you find yourself in that vicious cycle, if you’ll cry out to God, if you’ll repent deeply, if you’ll look to God for deliverance, and if you’ll begin to reverse that cycle and start to drink less and eat less and sleep less, and practice moderation in all those areas of your life, then you can start the right cycle of living life God’s way and of eating in moderation and of having wine in moderation, and of sleeping in moderation and of working hard, and then begin to really achieve things.
God will help you do that if you really want to. But if you don’t want to, or if you can’t be bothered to, or if you don’t think you can do it, and you just kind of sink down into that vicious cycle of drunkenness and gluttony and drowsiness, then poverty—both spiritual poverty and physical poverty—is going to set in.
The Bible has a lot to say about this subject and I’ll just turn to one verse regarding drinking too much. Over here in 1 Corinthians 6:10. This is a very powerful verse here, one that we ought to give some thought to if we think that drinking too much is not that serious.
And of course, you might say, “I don’t drink too much.” Well, we can talk ourselves into that. But if we drink too much wine or too much beer or too much liquor, and we drink to the point to where we start feeling a buzz and we start finding our thoughts and our words affected by it, and we have a change of personality—we’re drinking too much. A nice glass of wine occasionally or a nice cold beer or something like that, that’s one thing. But then another glass and another glass and another glass, you’re going to find yourself in trouble pretty quick.
It says here in 1 Corinthians Chapter 6, and we’ll begin reading in verse 9.
9 Know you not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God?
Paul says.
9 —Be not deceived: neither fornicators,—
or sexually immoral people
9 —nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,
10 Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.
Now, that’s just dogmatic. That is outright truth being spoken there. It’s not vague at all. It simply says, people who settle into doing those things, and continue to do them and do not repent and change, are not going to be in the Kingdom of God. And that includes drunkards—people who drink too much and develop into a drunkard. So we need to take heed and we need to realize that this is no small matter, this matter of a drunkard and a glutton and drowsiness mentioned in Proverbs 23:21.
Now let’s go back to Proverbs 23:22:
22 Hearken unto your father that begat you, and despise not your mother when she is old.
It ties right in with the fifth commandment which says, “Honor your father and mother that your days may be prolonged on this earth and things will go well with you.” It tells us that in Exodus 20, Deuteronomy 5, and in Ephesians 6. It’s keeping the fifth commandment. And there are people today who do that very well and everyone is happy, and the one that’s blessed the most is the one who honors his father and mother.
But there’s a growing trend and a growing proclivity and a growing practice in our society today of neglecting father and mother, or rebelling against father and mother, or even abusing father and mother. And that is going to bring tremendous pain and suffering and punishment on the one that’s doing that. It also is going to bring tremendous hurt and disappointment on the father and on the mother of the individual that does that. We are to love our father and mother, and as we do that, we learn to love our Father in heaven and our savior, Jesus Christ. There’s a direct connection.
23 Buy the truth, and sell it not; also wisdom, and instruction, and understanding.
In other words, acquire the truth, seek the truth, obtain the truth, but don’t sell it. Let’s turn to Matthew 10:8 with that in mind. It’s brought out very nicely there by Jesus Christ Himself, and certainly something that God’s true church practices. Matthew 10:8:
8 Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons: freely you have received, freely give.
We are given the gift of the truth, and we’re given the gift of repentance, and the gift of forgiveness, and the gift of the Holy Spirit—and the gift after gift after gift after gift of tremendous spiritual blessings—and we receive all of that freely. Well, Jesus Christ says, “Freely give it back, freely share it with others.”
And so when we preach the gospel of the Kingdom of God to the whole world, we make all of these things available to anyone who wants them just for the asking. We never charge anything for them and we never will. They are totally free without any obligation, without any follow up, without any strings attached. We received this truth freely. Well, we’re going to turn around and give it back out freely to anyone who wants it, and that’s what Proverbs says we are to do. We’re not going to sell it. We’re not going to put a price on anything that we send to people who ask for them. We’re going to send them free. Freely we have received, freely we will give. And it says here: Acquire
23 —the truth, and sell it not;
Give it out. Give out the wisdom. Give out the instruction. Give out the understanding that God has given you. Give it out to others and share it.
24 The father of the righteous shall greatly rejoice: and he that begets a wise child shall have joy of him.
Delight in him. I can speak from personal experience. That’s absolutely true. And I don’t know of anything that’s more rewarding, more thrilling, and that will give a father or a mother greater happiness than for a child to grow up and live his or her life in a responsible wise way. It’s almost unspeakable the joy that that brings. And that’s what verse 24 is talking about.
And of course that’s going happen if fathers and mothers will take time from the birth of that child to rear them God’s way and to rear them in the right way and to teach them the virtues and principles, the standards and ethics and values that lead them in the right path of wisdom—and putting God in the picture very early in their lives so they will begin to understand and know the true God and will walk with Him early on in life and for the rest of their life.
25 Your father and your mother shall be glad, and she that bare you shall rejoice.
And I’ve tried to live my life that way and see my father and mother rejoice as well. We all make mistakes and have to repent and apologize and change and go the right way. But overall, if our attitude and our actions and our intentions are right, things will go well, and our parents will truly rejoice over the success that will come our way. And it comes their way too because, after all, they’re the ones who brought us up and pointed us in the right direction.
26 My son, give me your heart, and let your eyes observe my ways.
God says. He has to have our full undivided attention. To me, one of the greatest things that happens in an individual’s life is for them to come to the point in their life to where they totally yield to God and they give Him their undivided attention. They are focused on God. They’re concentrating on His word and they are very, very attentive to what God says. And they have an attitude of, “Yes Lord. What would you have me do? Not my will but your will be done.” If we will do that, He will give us knowledge and understanding and guidance and blessings and we can live the abundant life now and eternal life later.
27 For a whore is a deep ditch; and a strange woman is a narrow pit.
Or in other words, a harlot is a deep ditch. It falls a long way down and it’s very hard to get back up out of that ditch.
27 —and a strange woman—
or a seductress
27 —is a narrow pit.
Like falling in a well. This temptation might seem so interesting and it might seem so exciting. But we’ve got to understand, whether we are a man or a woman, that lust in any form is going to end up a disaster. We are hemmed in, we’re closed in, we can go nowhere and now we’re done for. So we just have to simply decide ahead of time, “I’m not going to make that mistake. I’m not even going to get close to that situation. I’m not going to be around women or situations or circumstances that could lead to such a disastrous decision or mistake.”
28 She also lies in wait as for a—
victim or
28 —a prey, increasing the transgressors among men.
You know, one person, one harlot, one whore, one man that is a criminal—the grief and pain that that one individual can cause is almost indescribable. The ripple effect just goes in every direction, and yet they’re just one person. So that’s a seamy side of life we want to stay away from. We need to walk down the right path and enjoy life the way God designed it.
29 Who has woe? who has sorrow? who has contentions? who has—
complaints or
29 —babbling? who has wounds without cause? who has redness of eyes?
Well, if you didn’t keep reading and you only read Proverbs 23:29, how would you answer all those questions? It sounds like a sorry situation to be in. It sounds like problem after problem, heaped on top of more problems that none of us want to have. So who has those problems? And why do those problems exist? And what causes those problems?
You know, there is a law in effect that has to do with cause and effect. There is a cause for every effect. What is the cause of woe here in verse 29? What is the cause of sorrow? What is the cause of contention? What is the cause of babbling? What is the cause of wounds? What is the cause of redness of eyes? Is it other people? Is it air that we breathe? Is it the clothes that we put on? What’s at the bottom of what’s being described here in verse 29? Well, verse 30 answers that question.
30 They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine.
People who drink too much and keep on drinking too much and then drink too much over and over again—and first thing you know, they begin to lose everything. They lose their health. They lose their family. They lose their jobs. They lose all their money, and they go down, down, down and out. And all the way along that slide down into the abyss and into the pit, they’re going to have woe, sorrow, contentions, babbling, wounds, and redness of eyes.
31 Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it gives its color in the cup, when it moves itself aright.
Don’t be taken in by the smell of wine, the beauty of wine, the nice taste of wine to the point to where it takes over your life and you can’t control it. That’s all it’s telling us in verse 31.
31 Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it—
Sparkles in the cup and when it goes down smoothly. Don’t be taken in by that. A nice glass of wine is pretty to look on and it is nice to smell and it is nice to taste and it is smooth, but that’s it. We don’t need to have more than a glass or half a glass.
You start having two glasses, three glasses, four glasses—and I’m not trying to police this or give a definition here of how much you should drink. I’m talking about a principle. But if you start having yet another glass and then another glass, even though it looks pretty and smells pretty and it loosens you up and relaxes you and you just seem to be funnier, and you seem to be smarter, and you seem to be more pleasant, some people, of course, get angry and mean. Alcohol affects different people in different ways. But if we’re drinking to where it alters our mood and alters our personality and begins to impact the way we are, and yet we feel like we are really empowered and we’re better drivers and better thinkers and better speakers—well, we’re not. When we start drinking too much, we are dangerous behind the wheel, and we’re silly when we talk and our thinking is foggy, it is not clear. It’s such a deceptive thing.
And so verse 31 is telling us, “Don’t be taken in by the beauty of the wine and by the smoothness of the wine and by the nice feeling that it gives.” Don’t just keep going back for more. Don’t be taken over by any kind of alcohol. Here’s what happens if we do that. And by the way, verse 30, it says:
30 They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine.
There’s wine that can be mixed with water or mixed with spices or mixed with other types of drink. But the alcohol is still there nevertheless. That doesn’t dilute it down and diminish the negative impact it will have on us if we drink too much of it.
Let’s go down to verse 32 now. Here’s what happens when we start drinking too much alcohol. In the end or
32 At the last it bites like a serpent, and stings like an adder.
Or a viper. Oh yes, there’s a little period of time there when everything just seems so rosy. But then the wine or the drink or what we’ve consumed in alcohol that’s too much, if we’ve consumed too much, begins to exact its penalty. We begin to feel not so good. We begin to say poor things. We begin to think in a bad way. We begin to act in an unaccepted manner, and first thing you know, here comes the pain, here comes the woe, here comes the sorrow, here comes the contentions, here comes the babblings, here comes the wounds, here comes the redness of eyes. And so the hangover sets in and then we think later, “What in the world did I say? What in the world did I do? What have I done now?” And it could be horrible what we did and said, and yet it’s too late because it’s already been done.
33 Your eyes shall behold strange women, and your heart shall utter perverse things.
And you can’t just say, “Oh, well, I said that when I was drunk.” The point is, you said it. And not only that, you were drunk. So now there are two problems. The best thing to do is just not ever allow yourself to get in that condition. And if you can’t even handle one drink, then don’t have that one drink. Be careful who you are around. Don’t get in a setting where it invites you to do this. Don’t be around people where it kind of stimulates you to do this. Be around people who won’t do this and be in settings that don’t lend itself to this kind of activity or conduct, drinking too much and talking in a perverse way and acting in a dumb manner.
We have choices. We have minds. We can make those choices and we can just keep on driving by establishments that specialize in that kind of action and that kind of results.
34 You shall be as he that lies down in the midst of the sea,—
You can think, “Oh well, I think I’ll just stretch out here on this ocean,” and then go under the water and drown. Another aspect of what it means there in verse 34 is when you’re in the midst of the sea and you start moving back and forth with the waves, you can end up getting very dizzy and very sick. And it’s a very pitiful outcome of what started off so rosy and there you are just as sick as a dog.
34 —or as he that lies upon the top of a mast.
You get on the top of a mast, that’s where the most action is. If you’re down on the ship and the waves are tossing back and forth, there’s some action, but if you’re up on the top of the mast, that’s where the most agitation and the most action is. And so therefore, once again, you drink too much and now you are sick and you’re dizzy and you’re falling down and you’re making an absolute fool out of yourself. And then notice what verse 35 says:
35 They have stricken me, shall you say, and I was not sick;—
Or I was not hurt. I didn’t even feel it when they hit me. And quite often that is what happens when a person drinks too much. They end up getting in a fight and getting beaten up and sometimes really injured. But they don’t feel the injury because they’re drunk.
35 —they have beaten me, and—
I didn’t even feel it. I got away with it. But then you wake up the next morning and there’s a bruise and there’s a cut and maybe there’s a broken bone. Now, people who get into this condition and get locked into it, if they don’t get help and come out of it, it’s a downward spiral that just takes over their life.
The best thing to do is don’t ever get started in that, and if you find yourself in that condition, cry out to God to help you and get help and you can actually overcome it. Otherwise it will ruin your life and destroy your life and then it will create big problems in the lives of others, especially in the lives of your loved ones. So take the courage to come to God about it and do something about it and He’ll help you. But here’s what a lot of people do.
35 They have stricken me, shall you say,—
I was not even hurt by it.
35 —they have beaten me, and—
I didn’t even feel it. And here’s what they say.
35 —when shall I awake? and I will seek it yet again.
I’ll go get another drink. I’m over the hangover; I’m heading for the pub again. I’m heading for the bar again. I’m heading for my buddies and telling jokes and tying one on and getting drunk again and spending all that money to feel good for a little while and to get sicker and sicker and sicker, and finally be in big trouble.
So let’s take the admonitions that we read in the book of Proverbs, and in particular today, in Proverbs Chapter 23. And let’s apply it to our lives. This is talking about practical Christian living. If we heed these words, we can have a wonderful life. If we don’t heed these words, we can make decisions that will put us in the wrong place around the wrong people and then we end up doing the wrong thing and it leads to our ruin. Let’s heed these words that God Himself inspired.
We’ll pick it up next time in Chapter 24 of the book of Proverbs.
This is Charles Bryce with the Enduring Church of God.