In Psalm, Proverbs 6, we've covered
an awful lot of ground so far about wisdom. Wisdom's beauty, wisdom's power,
wisdom's necessity, wisdom's wealth, how precious it is, and
this reward. You get long life and peace from
it. And we've seen how that it evens
good for the soul and the body. And oh, it prays people who seek
after it, and condemns those, and shows the foolishness of
those who don't. And it's valuable in life. Oh,
how invaluable it is in life. And okay, in our text tonight
here, first 35 verses. I'm going to use S's, four S's,
to outline this here. First of all, we have surety.
First five verses of surety. Then we have the sluggard, in
verse 6 down through verse 11. Then we have A man that's a sorry man, an
awful man, a sinful man, a terribly sinful man that walks with his
wings, with his eyes, speaks with his feet. And then, of course,
we have strange women. And I want to, first of all,
deal with this thing called assurity. Look what he said in verse 1.
My son, if thou be surety for thy friend, if thou hast stricken
thy head with it and with a stranger, thou art snared with the words
of thy mouth, thou art taken with the words of thy mouth.
And what he's telling us, don't become a surety for a friend.
He said, the minute you do that, you snared yourself with your
mouth. You've enticed yourself, you committed something and you
can't go back. And he said, if you do do that,
He said, you do this right now, and surety is somebody that takes
the obligation on with somebody else. And here he goes on to
say, now do this now, my son. Deliver yourself. Deliver yourself. When you're to come into the
hand of your friend, oh, save yourself from this surety ship.
And you're stricken hands with somebody. Go humble yourself
and make sure thy friend. Don't even let yourself sleep
Don't even let yourself sleep. Deliver yourself as a roe from
the hand of the hunter, just like the deer trying to hide
and get away from the hunter, and as a bird trying to get out
of the hand of the fowler. He said, that's what you need
to do if you're surety for a friend. And what he says, don't make
yourself liable for somebody else's debt. If you do, if you
do, get out of it as quickly as possible. That's what he said.
And if absolutely necessary, humble yourself and plead and
try to get yourself out of it. And I tell you, look over here
in Proverbs 11, 15, and he speaks about this often. But this also
talks about our Lord Jesus Christ here in Proverbs 11, 15. I've
used this often over the years, speaking of our Lord. He that
is surety for a stranger shall smart for it, be sore broken,
and he that hateth suretyship is sure. Now it tells us not
to do that, but our Lord Jesus Christ, He became our surety.
He became our surety. He assumed all of our debts.
He assumed all of our obligations. Assumed all of our sins. Assumed
all of our iniquities, assumed all of our responsibilities,
assumed every condition that we should have met, and He, beloved,
delivered and paid off every debt. He became a surety for
us, and how did He smart for it? He smarted under the hand
of God. He smarted under the hand of
men. He smarted under the hand of
the devil, under the law of God, the justice of God, and the wrath
of God. Our Lord Jesus Christ, when He
became our surety, He absolutely released us of all conditions
and obligations and debts. He took everything out of the
way that was against us. And oh, how did He smart for
it. Oh, how He did smart for it. But He's not talking about
that. He's talking about us here. And
us becoming surety for a friend. And I'll tell you what, it may
It may be like a, you may think it's a kindness, and here's,
that's the warning, listen to the reason for it. It may seem
like a kindness to cosign a loan for a friend, stand good for
somebody. But there's lots of reasons not to, because I've
got myself in this situation a time or two in my life. And
here's one, here's several reasons why you shouldn't do it. You
might be helping him buy something that's not God's will for him
to have. Might be something that God doesn't
mean for him to have. And secondly, you might be encouraging
him to be a spin thrift, that he just don't care whether you
know as long as somebody else standing good for him, you don't
have to worry about it. And they may even end up being a gambler.
And thirdly, if he wants to default, you have to pay for something
that's not your own. You're going to lose a friend,
you're going to lose a relationship, and you're going to lose some
money, and you ain't going to get nothing out of it but a bad
name and obligations. And that's why it says don't
do it. And that's why our Lord Jesus Christ said, if a man asks
you for anything, give it to him. You know the best way to
keep friends with a fellow? If he asks you for something,
if you've got it in your power to give it to him, just give
it to him. That way you'll stay friends. You know, don't loan
it to him because if you loan it to him, You're going to end
up not liking one another eventually. That's just the way, that's human
nature. That's human nature. So there's regard and assurity.
Now look at the sluggard. Look at the slothful person here.
Look what he says. Now he'd go to the aunt, thou
sluggard, and consider her ways, and be wise. He's talking about
a sluggard. You know what a sluggard is?
That's a fella that just absolutely... I've heard people say that if
they worked in a pie factory, they wouldn't even work in a
pie factory tasting pies. They'd quit. And that's what
he's talking about here, that sluggard. He says, now if you're
a sluggard, and you don't like to work and you just want to
lay around and you're slothful. He said, go to the aunt over
there and consider her ways and watch how she acts and watch
how the aunts act and let them aunts teach you some wisdom.
Teach you what it is to live life. Teach you what it is, what
you ought to do in this life. And he says, you know an aunt
don't have no guide. Nobody's telling her to go here,
go yonder, go there. No, they don't have a guide.
They don't have an overseer saying, you got to get this done, you
got to get that done, something else, and don't even have a ruler
over themselves. And yet, you watch her. And you
watch those ants. They provide their meat. They
get their food. And I read somewhere that an
ant can carry 100 times its own weight. And they says, you watch
it, provides her meat in the summer. She gets out here and
gets herself something to eat all summer long and gathers her
food in the harvest. She's always working, providing
her own food and even for the winter and the harvest. And then
look what He says here. And He says, Oh, how long wilt
thou sleep, O sluggard? What? Get out of bed, go to work.
How long will you sleep, O sluggard? When will you arise out of your
sleep? Huh? Yet a little sleep, a little
slumber, a little fold of the hands to sleep. He said, I told
you to go watch the antennae. All you want to do is sleep.
All you want to do is lay in bed. All you want to do is fold
your hands and lay around and do nothing. And look what happens. He said, so your poverty is going
to come. You're going to get up one of
these days and you're going to be poor as one that travels. And therefore, as an armed man,
you'll want something and you won't be able to get it. And
that's what he's saying here. Oh my, learn wisdom from that
ant, that lowly, lowly ant. Look in Proverbs 30. Look over
here in Proverbs 30, verse 25. You know, and I tell you, she's diligent,
and all she does, the ants are diligent in all they do. They
don't need nobody overseeing them, telling them what to do.
They know what to do. And the emphasis is being diligent in
one's work. Look what he said here in Proverbs
30, 25. The ants are a people not strong,
not strong. Step on them, kill them. Yet
they prepare their meat in the summer. They get ready for the
winter. They provide what they need.
And he says, and that's what he said, I want you to learn
that wisdom. And the reason being is laziness. You want to end
up in poverty? Laziness will end you up in poverty.
Laziness is the parent of poverty. And that's why some folks say,
well, I'll tell you, I just can't get ahead. I just can't get ahead.
I just can't get ahead. Well, Maybe you can't I don't know
but I tell you that day this taught in the scriptures Oh how
this is taught so many times about not being lazy not being
slothful in the scriptures condemned so very very much Ecclesiastes
chapter 9 verse 10 says whatsoever thy hand find to do do it with
all your heart Do it with all your heart and the Romans 12
15 Paul told the Romans. He says you'd be diligent diligent
in your business. Be diligent. And look in Proverbs
13. Let me show you another one about
this. Proverbs 13.4. You know this, everybody has a day, you know,
they want a day off and go here and do that and enjoy themselves.
But boy, to make it a lifestyle. And I've known some people like
this over the years. I've known folks, I've known
men, that they wouldn't even cut firewood to keep themselves
warm at night and stay in bed all day the next day. And one
of them told us, and this is a true story, he said, I'll hold
a light for you, sweetheart, while you go out and get some
food. And my little brother Jimmy come
down here and talked to one of them fellas like that and said,
boy, he made sense. He said, don't worry about nothing.
He said, don't worry about nothing. He said, he don't worry about
anything. He don't worry about where he's going to get his food.
Don't worry about where he's going to sleep. He don't worry about
nothing. He had a wife working for him. He stayed in bed all
day. And I told Jimmy, I said, Jimmy, that's not the way, that's
not the way life is. He found out the hard way. Jimmy
did. But anyway, that's what he's
talking about. Look here in Proverbs 13, verse
4. The soul of the sluggard desires. Oh, he desires. He keeps saying,
boy, I'm going to want this. I'd sure like to have that and
I'd like to have this. And he don't have nothing. Why don't
he? Because he just desires. He won't
get up and go after it. But the soul of the diligent
That one that gets up and gets with it. That one that does what
he's supposed to do and makes a living, gets out there and
gets with it. That soul will be made fat. That soul will be
made fat. A surety and a sluggard. And oh, let me show you here.
Here's some sorry sinful behavior in verses 12 through 19. Watch this now. A naughty person,
a wicked man, walketh with a froward mouth, He winks with his eyes,
speaks with his feet, teaches with his fingers, prowess is
in his heart, he devises mischief continually, he soweth discord. And here is the tactics of a
wicked man, a wicked person described, and this is almost like describing
somebody that's going to entice you to something, going to try
to con you out of something, try to win you friendship in
certain ways. And he walks with a perverse
mouth, crooked mouth, proud word mouth. That means he uses crooked
speech. He uses crooked speech. He's
got this speech always trying to entice somebody and lie to
somebody and get something. And look what it says, he winks
with his eyes. Oh, he'll wink at you with his
eyes and he'll shuffle on with his feet and points with his
fingers, winking and giving signals to deceive others. That's what
he's doing here. My he's he's winking and speaking
and he teaches with his fingers and he say all this and this
is what happened. That's you know, oh my My my But he says
this he says but perversity verse 14 perversity is in his heart
He divides mischief continually. I mean all he's thinking about
is how to plot He's plotting mischief all the time, plotting
some scheme all the time, plotting something to go on all the time,
and so is discord. So is discord. I'll give you
another illustration. This is a true story, too. A person come by one day to visit
me, a family member. I said, I'm going to buy a motel
in frost-proof Florida. He said, I'm going to buy me
a motel in frost-proof Florida. Oh, I want $500,000 for it. I said, oh, man, that's great.
It's wonderful. That's just absolutely wonderful.
He got ready to leave, and he said, you ain't got any money
you can loan me to get a little gas money, do you? So, you know, hey, you know,
them eyes go to, you know, just flipping them fingers around,
you know, and he's winking and he's making you feel real good,
you know, and then you just think, well. You know, he got plotting mischief
all the time. Plotting mischief all the time.
And oh my, and I tell you what, the Lord hates, the Lord hates
This kind of behavior and that's why it says in verse 15 therefore
shall his calamity come suddenly Oh my I'll tell you what you
can only deceive so long. You can only con people so long
and Suddenly, he'll be broken without any remedy. There's nobody
going to help him. Nobody gonna get him out of the
trouble. That's easy and then God said there's reasons that
he hates this kind of behavior and These six things doeth the
Lord hate. And boy, when God says He hates
something, there are several things He hates in the Scriptures.
He hates the workers of iniquity. That's what He said. He hates
the workers of iniquity. He hated Esau. And here's six things. And yea,
seven of them are an abomination unto God. The Lord hates this
kind of behavior. It's abominable to Him. And the
first one is a proud look A haughty, haughty lifting up of your eyes. A proud look. Arrogance. Arrogance. Right. Proud. Never doing anything
wrong. If anything goes wrong in your
life, it's somebody else's fault. And then another thing he says
he likes, that he hates, is a lying tongue. A lying tongue. Dishonest. To lie is being dishonest. And I tell you, I've said this
about some people, if their lips are moving, marker down, they're
lying. They're lying. And let me show
you over in James, chapter 3. James, chapter 3, about this
tongue. About, oh, my. David said, Oh, Lord, set a watch
before my mouth. And, oh, my, it'd do us all well
to do that. Set a watch before our mouth.
But he hates a proud look and a lying tongue. And look what
about the tongue, what a thing the tongue is. In James chapter
3, verse 3, Behold, we put bits in the horse's
mouth, that they may obey us. And we turn their whole body
around with a bit in their mouth, and it rains out. And even ships,
great big ships, driven of fierce winds, yet they're turned about
with a very small hound, whithersoever the governor list to it, turn
it to the right, to the left, to whichever way. Even so the
tongue is a little member, and oh how it boasts great things. It opens its mouth and it just
brags and blows and boasts and oh, but he said behold how great
a matter a little bitty fire will kindle. And the tongue is
a fire, a world of iniquity. A world of iniquity in that tongue
is what he's saying. So is the tongue among our members
that it defiles the whole body and set on fire the course of
nature and is set on fire of hell. Oh my! And I tell you this is This is
so, oh my, the tongue has done more damage to people than about
anything that's ever in any other part of your body. It's destroyed
men's character. It's destroyed friendships. It's
destroyed marriages. It's destroyed homes. It's destroyed
nations. I mean that tongue, oh what an
awful thing it is. And then he says down there,
he said, For every kind of beast, and of birds, and of serpents,
and of things in the sea, they can tame them, and have been
tamed of mankind. But the tongue can no man tame. It's an unruly evil full of deadly
poison. You know why Isaiah said, Woe
unto men of unclean lips? Because he understood from within
how the heart proceeds out of the mouth. And that's what he's
saying. God said he hates a lying tongue.
And then look back over here in Proverbs 6. Look what else
he says here. Not only a proud look, a lying
tongue, in verse 17, and hands that shed innocent blood. And
what does he mean by that? The same thing that a tongue
wears. A tongue, a tongue, you don't
have to actually commit murder to murder somebody's character,
to murder somebody's reputation. But here he's talking about shedding
innocent blood. Shed the blood of innocent people. You know, abortion is one thing. What an awful thing that they
just abort babies that don't think nothing about it. Absolutely
think nothing about it. And then look what else he says,
a heart that devises wicked imaginations. A heart that always thinking,
planning, contemplating evil, contemplating maliciousness,
contemplating doing somebody wrong, contemplating getting
even with somebody, contemplating evil all the time. And then look
at feet that be swift to shed blood. Fists running to mischief. Swift to running to mischief. Quick, quick, quick to do evil. Quick to get out and around.
And look here, this is a thing that God hates. A false witness
that speaks lies. Now, when it talks about a false
witness, there's a lying tongue and false witness. When you're
on a stand and you're in public, and they ask you questions, if
you're in a locked room or somewhere with a bunch of people, and like
they did with our Lord Jesus Christ, they hired false witnesses.
You only make a false witness if somebody has got you on trial.
If you're in a situation and they ask you a question, and
that question can either be true or false, and you witness a false
thing. And he says that God hates a
false witness. To get up and tell a lie on somebody
that may not be guilty, that may not, you may injure, whatever's
going to happen to them, that's what God says. Lying in public,
giving testimony, and then look what else he says. And here's
the seventh thing. And he that soweth discord among
the brethren. You say, boy, that ain't very...
Well, listen, he lays that up with all the other things that
he says is an abomination. Sowing discord among the brethren.
And I tell you something, any conduct that destroys relationships
with others, A whisper separates the chief friends. And any conduct
that destroys relationships with others in God's sight is just
as abominable as somebody trying to destroy your relationship
with God. It's an abominable thing to try to destroy somebody's
relationship and somebody's reputation. And okay, then last of all, let's
look at this one. This strange woman. And we'll hopefully get on through
this. And then he says, oh listen, he says in verse 20, he says,
listen to your parents. My son, keep thy father's commandments,
commandment, and forsake not the law of thy mother. Don't
forsake them. Listen to your parents. They
warn you. They won't watch best for you.
They're going to tell you the truth. They're going to uphold you.
I know Mary used to say this all the time. She'd tell our
children, if your mother won't tell you the truth, who will?
And I'll tell you why she would sure tell the truth. If a mother
won't tell her children the truth about themselves and warn them
from things, who in the world will? And look what he says here. And
he says, bind them continually upon your heart. You command
it in the law of your mother. That law of love and caring worry
and all the things that you warned you about. Bind them continued
upon the heart. Tie them around your neck as
a necklace, as an ornament about your neck. And this is why, this
is the way it will do you. When you go, it shall lead you. What your mother and father taught
you, it will lead you. And when you sleep, it will keep
you. And when you awake, it'll talk with you. It'll remind you
what your mother said, your father said, the things they taught
you. It'll talk with you. He says for their commandment,
there's a lamp. It's like a light. The commandment
is a light. It's a candle. It's a lamp. And
the law is a light. And it gives us reproofs of instruction. And proofs of instruction are
the way of life. And that's what he's telling
you, to tell you this life that they give you, this lamp that
they give you, it'll help you, it'll keep you, it'll help you
in your sleep and where you go and when you don't go, when you
wake up. It'll keep you. And look what she says here now.
It said, if you listen to your mother and your father and you
listen to what we tell you, And you listen to us, and you pay
attention to us, and bind it in your heart, and hold it in
your heart, and use it as an ornament about your neck, so
that it will keep you from the evil woman, from the flattery
of the tongue of a strange woman. Listen to your parents. They
can keep you from the immoral woman who seduces with flattery.
Look what she says. To keep thee from the evil woman
with the flattery of the tongue of a strange woman. And listen, she'll flatter you,
say nice things about you, and all that kind of thing. And lust
not after beauty in thine heart. And then look what it says, neither
let her eyelids take thee. Oh my. She'll take her flattery
and her eyes, and she'll allure you with her eyes, and bat her
eyes at you, and you'll say, Lord, don't let her do you that
way, son. Don't let her do you that way, because this will be
the consequences, son. This will be the consequences,
son. He said, If you do, by means of a whorish woman, a man is
brought to a piece of bread. That man, when he goes after
a whorish woman, she'll take everything he's got and leave
him with nothing but a piece of bread. Bring him down till
he's nothing but like a piece of bread. And the adulteress
will hunt for the precious life. She'll go after a man. She'll
go after another man's wife, is what it said. She'll go after
the precious life, another man's wife. And on by another man's
husband. And can a man, and he asked this
question, can a man take fire in his bosom and his clothes
not be burned? Don't you understand the consequences
of what will happen? Can one go upon hot coals and
his feet not be burned? Can you get yourself in these
situations and the consequences not be devastating? So it's he
that goeth in to his neighbor's wife, whosoever toucheth her
shall not be innocent. There's no way in the world that
God's going to say he's innocent. And oh, look what He says here.
Oh, do not be innocent. Look what else He says here.
Oh my, they won't be innocent. God will hold them guilty. God
will hold them guilty. Men do not despise a thief. Verse
30. If he's still to satisfy his
soul when he's hungry. Has nobody get upset with somebody
that comes in and steals something because they're hungry. I'm hungry.
I'm hungry. And he comes in and steals something
to eat. Nobody despises him. But if he
be found, He shall restore sevenfold, and he shall give all the substance
of his house." He'll come back, and he'll pay up, and have to
restore what he took. But oh, listen to what he said,
"...but whoso commiteth adultery with a woman, lacketh understanding."
You know what that means? Lacketh heart. That means he
don't have a heart. And you know what he does when
he does that? He destroys his own soul, destroys his own soul. And I tell you what, you never
ever live it down. A wound and dishonor shall he
get. And his reproach shall never be wiped
away. People will always remember it,
always hold it against them. And nobody has any respect for
a man who takes another man's wife. A wound and dishonor shall
he get, and his reproach shall not be wiped away. And he takes
another man's wife, and look what the man does, the husband.
For jealousy is the rage of a man. Therefore he will not spare in
the day of vengeance. I'm going to come and get you.
I'm going to come after you. And you say, well, I'll give
you this. I'll give you that. I'll give you this other thing.
Don't care about that. Don't need no ransom. Don't need
no payment. And He won't rest content, though
you give Him lots and lots of gifts, if a man takes another
man's wife. Charity, sluggard, no sorry man,
and a strange woman. Our Lord Jesus, Your Word's just too big, just
too big. We can't begin to address it
the way it needs to be addressed, and I'm the least capable in
so many ways. But Lord Jesus, I pray that you'd cause the Word to be fruitful,
effectual. We have great warnings, great
encouragements, and great warnings. We have great promises, but also
great hedges. And Lord, please, You're our
Savior. You're our wisdom. Keep us when
we go to sleep. Keep us when we get up. Preserve
us. Preserve us, O Lord Jesus, and
lead us not into temptation. And again, we pray for Todd and
Lynn. God bless, God strengthen, God encourage. See you safely
home. Let his body heal. We ask these
things in Christ's name. Amen. Amen. See you Sunday morning,
God willing.