Proverbs 19, 22, the desire of
a man is his kindness, and a poor man is better than a liar. Now that which the Lord calls
better is so contrary to this world and what the world celebrates
in both of these phrases. What's desirable? to this world and what makes
a person desirable is riches, fame, notoriety, good looks, an assertive personality if someone's
got a magnetic personality. These are the things that attract the world and that they value. The word of God says that what
makes a man truly desirable is his kindness. What a strange
concept to this wretched world, his kindness. And it means to
show thyself merciful, to be good to people. That's
part of the definition, to just be good to people. And the word desire here, we
understand that it's not the desire of the man that it's talking
about, but what makes him desirable, we know that, from other places
in scripture where this word is used. In Genesis 3.6, when
it speaks of the forbidden fruit and Adam and Eve, it says, and
when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it
was pleasant to the eyes and a tree to be desired to make
one wise, she took of the fruit thereof and did eat and gave
also unto her husband with her and he did eat. And the word
pleasant, she saw it was good for food and it was pleasant
to the eyes. That word pleasant is the word in our text, the
desire of a man. So what makes a man desirable
in the eyes of other people? And again, so contrary to this
world. This world is such a shallow place. We know, we live in this
world. Exterior beauty is valued and not a thing in the world
wrong with that, but it's valued to the exclusion of that which
really is beautiful. Petty things. We major on the
minors and minor on the majors. And when I say the world, I mean
us. We are by nature this way and
what appeals to the flesh. Solomon indulged in all that
appealed to his flesh and he concluded that all of it was
vanity. That means it's empty and vexation
of spirit. There's no satisfaction, there's
no Fulfillment in any of it The real love is based on something
deeper Than those things that appeal to the flesh look with
me at first Corinthians 13 Again a familiar passage of scripture,
but seen now in the in light of another scripture is may become even more clear than
before. 1 Corinthians 13, one, we're
talking about what's truly beautiful and valuable in this world. Love is the greatest of all of
the graces. And look what it's based on.
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have
not love, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. And
though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries
and all knowledge, and though I have all faith so that I could
remove mountains and have not love, I am nothing. And though
I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, though I give my body
to be burned, and have not love, it profiteth me nothing. Now,
all of that is general language concerning love, but the minute,
notice the minute that love begins to be described, love itself
begins to be defined in this, how it starts out. Love suffereth
long and is kind. When it begins to tell what love
is, it tells us how valuable it is, before that and how the
nothing compares to it. But then when it begins to describe,
to define love itself, it's kind. It suffers long and it's kind. Turn with me to Ephesians chapter
four, please. Ephesians chapter four. all the vanities of the flesh
that are so attractive and so desirable in this world. They pale into insignificance
when you look at what really matters. Ephesians 4.25, wherefore
putting away lying. I want you to notice a lot of
A lot of things that we are exhorted to do that's in a negative sense. In other words, don't do, don't
do, don't do this. Put away lying, don't laugh.
Put it away. Speak every man truth with his
neighbor. For members of one another, be ye angry and sin
not. Don't sin. Let not the sun go
down upon your wrath. Neither give place to the devil.
Don't do that. You see the negative sense in
which all of this is? Let him that stole steal no more,
no more stealing, but rather let him labor, working with his
hands the thing which is good that he may have to give to him
that needeth. Let no corrupt communication
proceed out of your mouth. Again, another negative, don't
let that happen. But that which is good to the
use of edifying that it may minister grace unto the hearers. The positive
side is given through here, but he's gonna switch to in a minute
here, from the negative and how it's, what's wrong with it, and
grieve not. See the word not? Grieve not
the Holy Spirit of God, whereby you are sealed unto the day of
redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor
and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice. All
of that is what not to do. And look at what you are to do,
first thing, and be ye kind. Be ye kind. One to another, tenderhearted,
forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you. Be ye kind. Such a emphasized thing in the word
of God. It's to characterize our behavior
as believers. I've asked you this before, and who do you know in this world,
how many people would you characterize, if you had one word, how would
you describe that person? If that one word would be, they're
kind, they're kind. It's not that there aren't any,
but how many, how many? And based on this standard of
kindness, being real beauty, our Lord is the fairest of 10,000.
He's the Rose of Sharon. The scripture says that there
was no beauty about him that we should desire him. That is,
he was not attractive to the flesh. People weren't drawn to
him by his magnetic personality and his good looks and the things
that he said catering to their sense of what's valuable and
desirable to hear. But because of his character
and chiefly under the definition of the word desire here, to show
himself merciful, if that is the standard, Did
he show himself merciful? By that standard, he was altogether
lovely. Rejected and despised by this
world, and yet to those who love him because of his love for them,
he is the bright and morning star. He's the standard of what
beautiful is, though there was no beauty that this world should
desire him, That's the spirit of our text.
The beauty of a man, the desirability of a man is his goodness, his desire to
show mercy, his kindness. And the last phrase of our text
is also one that shows great contrast with the things of this
world. A poor man that is kind, which
is implied there because of the verse, the context, a poor man
that's kind is better than a rich man who's a liar. It clearly doesn't say a poor
liar is better than a rich liar. There's no virtue in earthly
poverty So it's clear the clear implication. They're a poor man.
That's kind that's Desirable in that way is better than a
rich man who's a liar in This world to this world,
there's nothing more shameful Unattractive and undesirable
than a poor man's What other kind of man merits the distinction to this
world as something that they avoid
even looking at? You don't even want to look at
somebody poor. You don't even want to think about the reality of that in this world. It's just something that we ignore
as much as possible. Even someone that's terribly
disfigured physically, we look at and admire, especially if it's something that they obtained
defending our country or doing something honorable and they
suffered loss for it, they suffered pain and disfigurement because
of that. But a poor man, it's a shameful
Despicable thing to this world. But a poor man that is kind is
better than a rich man who's a liar. That which is priceless
in this world has nothing to do with money. A poor man. Job was a very rich
man who became a very poor man. He lost everything he had. And
yet he was able to say, I know that my Redeemer liveth. That's priceless. Like Simon
Peter in Acts 3.6, he said, silver and gold have I none, but such
as I have, give I thee. And he was able by the gift of
God, by the power of God, To give a man the ability, a lame
man, the ability to walk again. Could you put a price on that
if you were a lame man? Didn't have any silver or gold
to give him. And let's face it, all that would do was treat the
symptoms of his problem. The lame man couldn't work, couldn't
earn any money on his own. And so he was poor, and to give
him some money, at least he'd be able to buy food. He was an
honest poor man. But by the grace and power of God,
Simon was able to solve the problem, not just treat the symptoms.
And he was able to do that without any money. without any gold or
silver. And like that, we who know the
Lord Jesus Christ, we can give such as we have. We may not have
anything that we can give of earthly value, most of us do,
but we might be reluctant to give that because it's such a dishonest and wretched world. We don't want to give it in vain when that could help somebody
truly in need. But without that, that's why there's not a thing
in the wrong with helping somebody that's poor, if you're able to
do that. But think about this, a church
is not a charity. Why? Because there's something
more valuable that people need. There's something more important.
There's something that usurps that. There's something that
trumps that. There's something that makes
that secondary. And that's the business that
we're in. Silver and gold have we none but such as we have We
can give you that. And it has to do, like in Simon's
case, with the power of God, the grace of God, the willingness of God to show
mercy, that which is truly desirable, we can give, we have that. And
our Lord said, freely you have received, freely give. Like the miracle of making that
man able to walk, the gospel is the power of God unto salvation. To tell a sinner about Christ
and what he did on the cross, what he accomplished, who he
is, and why he died and what he accomplished
when he died is worth more than all the money in the world. I
say that without hesitation. but someone who lies. Isn't it
interesting that these two things are set in opposition to one
another? The book of Proverbs is about opposites, isn't it?
This as opposed to that, the righteous and the wicked, the
foolish and the wise. The thing that's opposite here of poverty and somebody that's
poor but honest is a liar, no matter how much money they have.
If the best thing that a sinner can do in this world, by the
grace of God, we can't do anything good without God, without His
mercy, without His ability, but if the best thing a sinner can
do in this world is tell somebody about Christ, then you know what
the worst thing a sinner can do in this world is? to lie about
Christ, to tell somebody something damnable and eternally destructive
to their soul. Though they may be wealthy in
the things of this world and may give a lot, they have nothing
really that they can give you. Judas left the Savior, betrayed
the Savior, rejected the Savior, And listen to what we read about
him in Matthew 26, 14. Then one of the 12 called Judas
Iscariot went unto the chief priests, the religious Jews,
the ones who demanded that the Savior be crucified, and said
unto them, what will you give me? He left the one who owns everything, and whose power it is to give
eternal life to a sinner freely, and said to this wretched, sinful,
God-hating antichrist world, what will you give me? That highlights the truth of
our text. And they covenanted with him.
He said, what will you give me? And I will deliver him unto you.
I will betray the son of God. And they covenanted with him
for 30 pieces of silver. And from that time, he saw an
opportunity to betray him. That was enough. That was the
price. That was what God the son was
worth to this wretched man. But what
was that silver worth when Judas cast those coins down to the
floor of the temple and went and hanged himself, saying, I
betrayed the innocent blood? What is valuable is the truth. What is priceless is the truth
because Christ is the truth. A poor man that is better than
a liar can only be better because he's not a liar. Right? A poor liar is not better than
a non-poor liar. That's not the message of it. So he's poor, but he's not a
liar. Not anymore. By the grace of God, God in His
infinite grace has revealed to him the truth of His Son. will
set you free. And the way to not be a liar,
you know how you come to not be a liar? By being a liar. Remember when the Lord said to
the Pharisees, if you were blind, you'd be able to see and you wouldn't have any sin. to confess that by nature we
are nothing, have nothing, know nothing, and that we're liars. If God brings us to that place
where we confess that. The law was a schoolmaster to
bring us to Christ. And you know what the law, Paul
said, I believe in Romans three, what the law does, it'll shut
you up and make you say, I'm guilty. And if God brings you there to
say, I'm guilty, you'll be not guilty. Didn't he say about the publican
who said, I'm a sinner, God be merciful to me, the sinner, but
how did God see, justified, no sin. In the same way, In order to not be a liar, you
must say in your wretched heart, by the grace of God, by the light
of his revelation, let God be true and every man, especially
me, a liar. The only way to know the truth
and to tell it is to acknowledge that you know nothing. and then to acknowledge what
we are by nature, liars before God. Everything we've ever thought
about God or said is a lie until he reveals himself in truth and the truth will set
us free. When the Son of God sets you free, you'll be free
indeed and not until. May God give us grace to understand
in a spiritual sense What is silver and gold and what's wood,
hay and stubble? What's priceless? The pearl of
great price had no beauty about him that this world would desire
him. And yet a man with eyes to see,
a goodly man by the grace of God seeking goodly pearls will sell all that he has. and
buy that one pearl that nobody wants. God give us grace, let's pray.