Proverbs 20:1-30

The Folly of Strife, Etc.

Proverbs 20:0

"Meddling" is a word which might be rendered "showing his teeth"; then the text would read Every fool would be showing his teeth, snarling, threatening to bark and to bite, as if his dignity were threatened. The subject is strife, and the wise man is teaching that he who ceases from strife gets to himself a distinguished honour; he sees through the folly of striving and through its uselessness, and he perceives that life can only be wisely and beneficently conducted by a policy of conciliation and sympathy: on the other hand, the fool does not take this view; he proves his folly by showing his teeth, by asserting his dignity, by insisting upon his rights, by declaring that he will never have anything settled until he has it settled his own way. The Bible never hesitates to call such a man a fool. We have come to regard the word "fool" as a vulgarism, and we hesitate to use it; but in the Old Testament it is used with great freedom, and always in relation to moral shortcoming and perverseness. To call a man a fool in a vindictive spirit, or merely to accomplish his humiliation in the eyes of others, is wholly anti-Christian and positively wicked; but to describe a man as a fool who is always standing upon his rights and asserting his dignity is but to adopt the very spirit of the Bible. The great man will show his greatness by his love of peace: the fool will show his littleness by his love of controversy. In a life like ours it is impossible for every man to have his own way, or for each one to see as every other man sees; society is so constructed as to require the inspiration of mutual regard and mutual deference; otherwise society would fall to pieces. It is easy to get up a controversy; easy to show the teeth; easy to insist upon punctilious rights; easy to turn ceremony into a moral ordinance; but all this is opposed to the spirit of the revelation which we believe to be divine. It is indeed humbling to human pride to have to retire from some controversies; on the other hand it is a mortal insult to moral dignity to have to continue certain contentions. We may obtain our little and temporary rights, but in obtaining them we sacrifice the eternal right of love, conciliation, and peace. Never give away the greater for the sake of the less: never surrender the substance in order merely to seize the shadow.

"The sluggard will not plow by reason of the cold; therefore shall he beg in harvest, and have nothing" ( Pro 20:4 ).

The sluggard has his reason for not acting, and he thinks that reason of sufficient consequence to justify his abstention. He says it is cold, and he will wait until the sun shines. He forgets that the Very act of ploughing overcomes the inconvenience of cold, that if he would exercise himself he would soon be warm, and that it is within the power of man to do without the sun for a certain period and for certain purposes. The sluggard insists upon being warmed from the outside, and not from the inside; he will have his skin warmed by the sun, he will not warm his own blood by exercise. What is the consequence? He will not know the full issue of his conduct until harvest comes, and he finds in desolate fields the rebuke of his indolence and the condemnation of his neglect. Whatever we obtain in this life should be the result of labour: that labour may be of the mind or of the hand, but it must in some way be true labour; otherwise whatever is obtained will bring with it little of sanction and little of blessing. What applies to the sluggard in the culture of a field applies to the sluggard in all the relations and bearings of life. The student who will not study shall beg in examination and have nothing to show as the result of the expenditure which his schooling has occasioned. The man who will not think shall beg in the time of action, and shall have nothing; because his mind was neglected his hands shall be empty. This is the great rule which binds society in happy consolidation. In all labour there is profit, and the profit is oftentimes as surely in the labour itself as in the substantial advantages which it brings. The huntsman declares that it is not for the sake of the prey but for the sake of the exercise that he pursues his sport. Virtue is said to be its own reward; so is study, so is all painstaking, so is all real devotion of heart. If we could apply this doctrine in all its fulness we should destroy a good deal of religious selfishness. Sometimes men are good merely that they may obtain heaven. Where that is the motive goodness is impossible. We are to find heaven in the goodness itself, in the exercise of prayer, in the service of charity, in the cultivation of all virtue. There are many sluggards who are not known by that contemptuous term. He who does not give to philanthropic appeals is a sluggard. He who does not religiously watch the evolution of providence and apply its solemn lessons is a sluggard. He who does not spend the strength which is renewed in sleep in doing good to others is a sluggard. In all cases the issue is the same: the harvest will be a desolation, and in the end there will be emptiness, disappointment, and grievous shame.

"Most men will proclaim every one his own goodness: but a faithful man who can find?" ( Pro 20:6 ).

The "faithful man" is one who carries out what he has promised to do. If he has sworn to his hurt he will still fulfil his vow. He has determined not to preach his goodness, but to realise it, to embody it, to make it the principal fact of his life. Most men will claim theoretical goodness, or acknowledge some philosophy of virtue, or prate about the shortcomings of other men, and thus indirectly magnify and glorify themselves: many men can talk about religion, can enter into controversy respecting its doctrines, and display great zeal and eloquence respecting its dogmas; all this amounts to nothing unless it be followed by that faithfulness which realises, executes, embodies the goodness that is talked about. The wise man in his day found it difficult to discover a faithful man. The question which he asks is proposed in a tone that is deeply pathetic. Who can find a faithful man? Where is the man whose action is equal to his word? whose heroism is equal to his theory? whose self-abnegation is equal to his professions of obedience? Although the wise man asks the question and leaves it without reply, we are not to suppose that it is incapable of being answered. Truly it cannot be answered unless there be a motive higher than any known within the limits of human nature: there must be inspiration from on high: direct action of the Holy Spirit upon the human mind and heart: this is the miracle of Jesus Christ, and it can only be wrought within the shadow of the Cross. It is time men had done talking about goodness. One action is better than a thousand theories. To lead the blind by a way that they know not, to be a helper of the helpless, to give shelter to those who are houseless, is better than to talk fluently and copiously about theories of virtue, philosophies of goodness, and airy schemes of impracticable reformation. One act of charity will outweigh ten thousand romantic dreams of amelioration.

"Divers weights, and divers measures, both of them are alike abomination to the Lord" ( Pro 20:10 ).

Not here only, but elsewhere, is this doctrine laid down in the Bible. It is indeed laid down in this very chapter, in the 23rd verse, wherein we read, "Divers weights are an abomination unto the Lord; and a false balance is not good." The meaning of this declaration is evident: it cannot be right to have one weight for the rich and another weight for the poor, one weight for those who can test our honesty, and another weight for those who must take our honesty on credit. Men must not tamper with the standard weights and measures of the country. Such standards are not human and social only, they have a direct religious significance, as we infer from the fact that any violation of them is an abomination to the Lord. We need not limit the doctrine actually to weights and measures of a commercial kind; there are weights and measures in speech, in criticism, in moral judgments, in rewards and penalties, and indeed in all the economy of social life. In society we must have certain standards common to the whole body, otherwise disorder will ensue, and misunderstanding may lead to war. Take the doctrine, for example, in the matter of language: there is a national language with which no man may tamper; we must not have words used in other than patent and well-established senses; otherwise we shall have a system of criticism which may lead to endless confusion and practical difficulty of every kind. The English language must be interpreted by the English lexicon. It will not do for moralists to employ common language in uncommon senses, otherwise the populace will be unable to follow their teaching or to determine their meaning. As a man must not interfere with the metallic currency of his country, so he must not interfere with its verbal currency. We can have no mental reservations, no reading between the lines, no saying one thing and meaning another; private glossaries must not be allowed; our Yea must be yea, and our Nay, nay. To this frankness and simplicity and reality of life will the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ conduct us. Many a man who would shrink from the idea of giving short weight in a mercantile sense may be guilty of giving short weight in a moral sense or in a verbal sense. He will so curtail his speech, or reserve himself in the declaration of his vow, or avail himself of recondite criticism in the construction of his utterances, as to destroy their meaning, and turn them in a direction precisely opposite to that in which they are accepted by the common mind. Words are given to us that we may speak the truth, not that we may conceal it or serve a lie.

"The hearing ear, and the seeing eye, the Lord hath made even both of them" ( Pro 20:12 ).

The meaning would be, that therefore he who made the ear can hear, he who made the eye can see. Our faculties are all numbered, and their force is precisely determined by the Judge of all the earth. He knows how much we can hear, how much we can see, how much we can do, and when the evening comes and the hour of reckoning strikes he will only expect little from those to whom little has been given, and much will be expected from those to whom great gifts have been entrusted. It is curious to observe how continually the Bible refers to the fact that the ear and the eye are of God's making. There is a great moral conveyed by this fact, namely, the moral just stated, that he who made our faculties understands them, controls them, and exercises them himself on an infinite scale. If we could once realise the idea that God hears every word we utter and every breath we draw, the whole spirit of our life would instantly change. It is because we befool ourselves in these matters, imagining that the Lord can neither see nor hear, that we do the things which are roots of evil and occasions of burning shame. The true man always lives under the distinct conviction that his life is daily judged by heaven. "Thou God seest me" is the motto of the wise man. But even this motto may be perverted, for we may endeavour to serve God with eye-service, and so escape the discipline of the heart, the inner service, the deeper obedience, which can only spring from divine inspiration. We are to do good as certainly and as copiously as if the Lord paid no heed to us. We are to be as careful about our words, whether uttered to ourselves or to others, as if the Lord did not hear our speech. Seeing, however, that we are but of the dust and that our poor life is marked most conspicuously by frailty, it is needful that we should view every motive and impulse of a concrete kind, that we may be lifted out of our moral sluggishness, and become animated by a spirit of hopefulness, a hopefulness which leads us to desire that at the end the Master may say, "Well done, good and faithful servant." It is noticeable, however, that even in that judgment it was the servant who had to return the record of his life. There are two distinct methods pursued in the awarding of honour and shame: in the first instance the servants come forward and tell the Lord what they have done with the talents with which they have been entrusted, and upon their own statement they are appointed to wider rulership: in the other set of cases the Lord himself states the record, points out the good that had been done and the good that had been neglected, and upon his own statement he awards honour and dishonour. That we are under the continual criticism of heaven is an encouragement to us when we are trying to do good, but is a fearful and appalling reflection, if we are endeavouring to deceive the eyes of Omniscience and to find a place where the presence of God is not realised.

"He that goeth about as a talebearer revealeth secrets: therefore meddle not with him that flattereth with his lips" ( Pro 20:19 ).

What relation is there between a flatterer and a talebearer? There may be a subtle flattery in the suggestion that the man is fascinating the attention of the hearer and probably making some inroad upon his confidence. It happens, however, that there is no reference to what is commonly understood as flattery: but the text should be read, He that is open with his lips: meddle not with a man who cannot keep his lips closed. There are men who are dying of a flux of words. They run themselves out in endless streams of vapid talk; they multiply words to no purpose; what is lacking in moral emphasis they seek to make up by a multiplicity of words or an aggravation of noise, as we speak loudly to those who do not understand our language, thinking that by heightening the voice we are elucidating our meaning. Have nothing to do with wordy men, would seem to be the injunction of the text. Society could not live if it were not for the sacred principle of secrecy, which may be called honour or confidence or trustworthiness; at the same time, there remains the fact that man must be upon confidential terms with man, otherwise business would become an impossibility, and friendship would soon degenerate into hypocrisy. The good man prays every day that God would keep the door of his mouth and watch over the entrance of his lips, that he sin not with his tongue. Here again we come upon the necessity for religious culture, as distinguished from merely artistic stipulation or Spartan discipline. Unless the heart be under the control of the highest religious motives, the tongue will reveal every secret and the lips will stand open like a door continually ajar.

"It is a snare to the man who devoureth that which is holy, and after vows to make inquiry" ( Pro 20:25 ).

This is a peculiar expression, greatly in need of simplification. The idea is that a man gets himself into trouble when he rashly says concerning anything, "it is holy": having thus put himself into a thoughtless relation to his property, he afterwards vows to inquire whether he can keep his word: he plays fast and loose with religious principles and obligations. In order to escape a duty he pleads that he has nothing wherewith to respond to the appeal of charity or the claim of righteousness, because he says that all he is possessed of is "holy," that is to say, dedicated to religious uses. When the appellant has gone away and left the man in the possession of his gain, the man begins to enquire whether after all his property is really dedicated; then he begins to shuffle, to change his ground, to trifle with principles, and to proceed to a selfish use of that which he had declared to be sanctified. So the man gets wrong through a profession of over-religiousness. He is a hypocrite. He assumes a most pious air in the presence of men who seek his assistance, and no sooner are they gone than he recalls his vow and declares that he has a right to do what he will with his own. Is it not true that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked? Is not piety sometimes put on as the protection of selfishness? Is it not needful for us to place ourselves constantly under the scrutiny and inspiration of the Holy Ghost, lest we tell lies to ourselves and to God?

"A wise king scattereth the wicked, and bringeth the wheel over them" ( Pro 20:26 ).

A passage of this kind may easily be perverted by being used for the purpose of supporting a doctrine of persecution. To bring the wheel over a man seems to be a figurative expression for the very direst cruelty. If a man is wicked, crush him with the wheel, tear him limb from limb, decapitate him, in some way show that there is a power that can terminate not only his enjoyment and his liberty, but his life. That, however, is not the meaning of the text We are not urged by these words to persecute those who differ from us, or who are even desperately wicked. Always distinguish between persecution and righteous penalty: between mere oppression and the assertion of that righteousness which is essential to the consolidation of society. When the stacks of corn were spread upon the threshing-floor the grain was separated from the husk by a sort of sledge or cart which was driven over them. The process was for the purpose of separating the chaff from the wheat; the process therefore was purely beneficent: so with the wise king; he winnows out evil persons, he signalises them, he gives them all the definiteness of a separate position, and by bringing them into startling contrast with persons of sound and honest heart he seeks to put an end to their mischievous power. Indiscrimination is the ruin of goodness. We have only to bring evil men into the conspicuousness of their real character that is, to show others what they really are in order to terminate their corrupting influence. Whilst the tares and the wheat are both to grow together until the harvest the tares are never mistaken for the wheat; it is not so in moral relations; sometimes there may be such an association of the evil with the good as to demand prompt and vital separation the one from the other. Men are separated by different ways, not by imprisonment, not by merely personal penalty, not by stigma and brand of an offensive character; they are separated by contrariety of taste, aspiration, feeling, sympathy; in proportion as the good are earnest do they classify themselves, bringing themselves into sacred association with one another, and by sensitiveness of moral touch they feel the evil and avoid it; they know the evil person at a distance and are careful to put themselves out of his way and reach. What is represented as being done by the wise king is done by the cultivation of high principle and Christian honour.

Note

"If instead of the miserable platitudes, or good-for-nothing gossip, which now does so much to kill our time and enervate the intellect, some really refreshing interchange of thought could be effected, how much more we should act like human and immortal beings! And yet, so vitiated is the social taste, that any attempt to realise this, by the use of wise and well-chosen language, would most likely secure contempt, and the intruder would probably be the object of derision.

"But ponder a few sentences which good English writers have left on this subject: 'The first ingredient in conversation is truth; the next, good sense.' 'He who sedulously attends, pointedly asks, calmly speaks, coolly answers, and ceases when he has no more to say, is in possession of some of the best requisites of man.' 'The secret of tiring is to say everything that can be said on the subject.' 'Speak little and well, if you wish to be considered as possessing merit.' 'When I meet with any that write obscurely, or speak confusedly, I am apt to suspect two things: first, that such persons do not understand themselves; and, secondly, that they are not worth being understood by others.' 'Eschew fine words as you would rouge; love simple ones as you would native roses on your cheeks. Act as you might be disposed to do on your estate; employ such words as have the largest families; keep clear of foundlings, and of those of which nobody can tell whence they come, unless he happens to be a scholar.'...

"Make Christ the theme of your converse, and take him as your pattern. 'In him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.' 'And all bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth.' Trace the records of his ministry with respect to conversation. He condemned the trifler and the jester, as much as the cynic and the hypocrite. No light and wanton words came from his lips, but words of purity and truth. Let us imitate our glorious Pattern, and by a sensible, earnest, and spiritual conversation, 'seek to minister grace unto the hearers.'"

Gervase Smith, D.D.

Prayer

Almighty God, we praise thee with a loud voice and a cheerful heart, because thy gifts are many, thy love is constant, thy mercy is very tender. We are often walking in the cloud, yet even in the cloud we hear a voice saying, This is my Son, hear ye him! and when the cloud has dissolved we see no man save Jesus only. We are often in mystery and pain and agony, and we say in the morning, Oh that it were night! and at night, Oh that it were morning! for we are tossed to and fro, and made weary with many a vexation, and behold our souls are fretted in anxiety and care. Yet then thou dost come to us with healing. Thou art the God of all comfort; thou hast innumerable solaces, so that we say, There is balm in Gilead; there is no sorrow which our Saviour cannot understand and sanctify. Then we glory in tribulations also, not for their own sake, but because thou hast so ordained that tribulation shall work experience, and experience hope, and thus out of the darkness we shall get our light, and out of the sorrows of life we shall gather our harvest of joy. This is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes. We count our griefs as treasures, we count our losses as gains, and we reckon up all our chastisement as part of our education. Continue to handle our poor little life as thou wilt: we can make nothing of it; we cannot direct it, we cannot see to-morrow, but thou knowest all that is meant by life, its possible immortality in heaven, and thou hast so set before us thy truth and thy kingdom and thy promise that we shall know what thou wouldst have us be and do. We are redeemed, not with corruptible things as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Jesus Christ; we are sanctified by the Holy Spirit, we are daily meetened for some higher school and nobler society: may we not be fools wasting our hours, but wise men buying up the opportunity, redeeming the time, and making it large and rich with usefulness. Save us from the laughter of the fool, from the joys that are like foam dying as it rises; save us from all mean, corrupting, and debasing society; may we never condescend to drink at the troughs of time when we may slake our thirst at the fountains of eternity; from all that is low, and mean, and worldly, and selfish, Lord, deliver us by thine almighty grace. Help us to spend our little life-day well, wisely: may we sprinkle it with tears as with dew; may we work in it as a garden of the Lord which the Lord himself will one day visit to look at the fruits and the flowers which we have grown; may we try to be better and to do better every day; may we be gentle, sympathetic, condescending, kind, courteous, loving where love is possible, and saving men where thy grace will reach them. Make our homes castles of security, defences against all that is unruly, confused, and tumultuous; may our houses be temples of the divers estates of body, soul, and mind, let thy blessing rest upon each of us according to the speciality of our need; let it come first upon the great mountains of prosperity, health, strength, confidence in the goodness of God, so that they who have no pain and no weakness may receive according to their present happy condition an increase of the benediction of God. May all the mountain of their strength be offered to thee on the altar as a tribute of thankfulness and obligation to thy beneficence. Then regard those who are in great fear and distress because of the plague of sin, the torment of remorse, the bitterness of memories which they seem to be unable to quench and to destroy pursued by ghosts of evil days, tormenting spirits, and affrighting recollections of things that have been done; that shall burn as an eternal shame, and to such do thou speak the great gospel of forgiveness of sins and the total oblivion of iniquity on thy part, seeing that thou dost cast it behind thee like a stone into the depths of the sea. Regard any upon whom sudden calamity may have fallen, unexpected bereavement, great, solemn, startling sorrow, whose houses have been suddenly darkened, and the light of whose eyes has been suddenly quenched. Thou alone canst help the heart in such agony; we do, therefore, lovingly commend to thy tender care, to thy merciful regard, and thy healing benediction, those upon whom the strokes have fallen, that stagger and shake the very life of man. Give such a vision of thy providence that shall be itself a new redemption from fear. Enable them to take wide views, to form just estimates of thy way, lest, being suddenly overbalanced, they may yield to the human distress in forgetfulness of the divine grace. Look upon those who are honestly and honourably endeavouring to live the life of earth in the sight of men, and who yet have to contend with much difficulty, whose days are periods of contention and fierce struggling; help us in every honest purpose and in every just design, and in thine own time send such success as shall save the mind from despair and create in the heart a flame of praise. Regard our country, defend our shores, save Her Majesty the Queen, and add many to the days of her reign; establish her throne in righteousness, and let her house be favoured of God. Guide us in all times of peril, in all crises; in all national emergencies and dangers help us to be simple, sincere, just, and honourable. Save us from all foolish panic and unreasonable alarm; enable us to walk in paths of wisdom and of honour, and to delight above all things in discovering and doing thy holy will. The Lord now come to us during this day; may it be a day of spring in our hearts, when buds shall open in widening blossoms, when that which has hitherto been apparently unfruitful shall bring forth according to the bounty of the divine purpose. May we all be clothed with some vernal grace, some spring beauty, so that we may give, each of us, a new tribute to the Lord who made the seasons, and causes them to pass in perpetual procession. Dry our tears, lift our burdens from our shoulders, and if they must needs be imposed again, we shall at least be stronger for the rest, and better able for the remaining difficulties and dangers that are before us. So let thy blessing come upon every one of us, that out of each heart there may go a song of his own, of tender, grateful recollection, of childlike and loving trust. May our whole life be set to the music of thy will and to the purpose of thy government. Lead us into all truth; save us in the time of trial and temptation; as gold is tried in the fire, so may we be tried in the furnace of thy providence, and after thou hast wrought thy will in us and upon us, through a manifold and often inscrutable discipline, bring us from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south, a redeemed household, a holy family, a noble priesthood, a royal generation, to inhabit the courts of the upper sanctuary, to abide in the abiding Zion. Amen.