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Proverbs chapter number six we've got a lot of advice again mainly directed at young people but obviously at all ages these things are applicable and this chapter is chock-full of great advice wisdom okay understanding the wisdom that the book of Proverbs has to offer you is gonna save you a lot of trouble in life there are so many decisions that we have to make and we need to know you know what do we do and the wisdom of the book of Proverbs is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path as we navigate this world that we live in and so we definitely want to make sure that we get all these Proverbs all 31 chapters and just make this a part of our mentality this is just how we live this is like the handbook for just living life often in the book it's it's not even always heavily religious you know I mean obviously there are a lot of sections about fearing the Lord loving the Lord but a lot of this is just plain and simple just living your life wisdom for the here and now in this world in addition to of course spiritual advice that comes throughout the book so we start on verse number one my son if thou be surety for thy friend if thou has stricken thy hand with a stranger thou art snared with the words of thy mouth they are taken with the words of thy mouth what are we talking about here what does this mean to be surety for thy friend now this is kind of an archaic language although in the business world this type of terminology would be readily understood even today in 2022 but being surety for someone is basically co-signing on their loan as it were that would be the 2022 equivalent of this so when the Bible talks about being surety for someone basically you're putting your name your reputation your credit on the line for someone else's debt someone else is borrowing money a friend of yours or a stranger and you are on the hook for their financial obligations and the Bible is warning you don't do it all right stay away from this it's a trap the word snare means trap he says look if you are surety for your friend if you've stricken your hand with a stranger he's saying thou art snared with the words of thy mouth like you have just stepped in it big time you have put yourself into a bad situation and the best thing that you can do is to extricate yourself from this obligation verse 3 says do this now my son and deliver thyself when thou art come into the hand of thy friend go humble thyself and make sure thy friend he's saying look be humble realize that you've made a mistake because it takes humility to realize that you've made a mistake and do what you can to somehow get out of this and get your name off of that contract or get your name off of that lease or get your name off of that loan or whatever now I could see situations where maybe this would be appropriate to do for family so notice he's saying you know don't be surety for a friend don't be surety for a stranger and you say well friends and strangers are very different right but he's using both because this is not really appropriate for a friend or a stranger ok because let's face it friends are different than family so we might cosign for family but we're not necessarily going to cosign loans for friends ok because this is a good way to turn your friends into non friends ok entering into financial agreements and especially one person owing someone else money or getting on the hook for somebody's loan and they don't pay the loan that's a good way to ruin that friendship so he's just saying look don't do this don't be surety for a stranger don't be surety for your friend I could see doing this obviously for like your spouse your child your parent or something like that because that's a stronger bond it's a stronger relationship you're kind of willing to put yourself out there and risk getting hurt for the people that are that close to you ok but since you're likely to get hurt you don't necessarily want to do this unless it's family and so he says you know whatever you can do extricate yourself from this trap this snare and so look what the Bible is saying is you know be careful about the things that you commit to you know we need to do what we say we will do when we make a commitment we need to abide by that commitment even if we swear to our own hurt we need to change not and so it's important that we honor commitments that our word is our bond and therefore we should be slow to make these kind of commitments and guarantees unless we really really mean it because we don't want to be the kind of person that reneges on something that we have agreed to do so he's saying get out of this situation if you've made this mistake but the smartest thing is just not to do it in the first place so again he's dramatic about this in verses 4 & 5 give not sleep to thine eyelids nor slumber that he's like don't even go to bed until you fix this verse 5 deliver thyself as a row from the hand of the hunter and as a bird from the hand of the fowler okay then in verse 6 he changes gears he says go to the ant thou sluggard consider her ways and be wise to having no guide overseer or ruler provide with her meat in the summer and gather with her food in the harvest we should not need someone standing over us and forcing us to work and fulfill our responsibilities all the time right part of maturity is just getting out there and doing the work that needs to be done yourself you see if you go to your job and somebody has to always be watching you all the time in order for you to put out at the job well then guess what now they have to pay you but then some of the money that they would be paying you they have to pay the supervisor to watch you instead of you just getting all that money for actually doing your job and supervising yourself so he's saying the ant is a great example because the ant just gets in there and does the work that it's supposed to do it doesn't need to be told it instinctively knows what needs to be done and just gets it done and doesn't need someone always you don't want to be the guy at the job where your boss has to tell you every little thing you know be the guy at the job where you just see something that needs to be done and you just get in there and do it and it's like oh wow I didn't even have to tell you that and you got in there and got that done that's a great testimony and so it says that she provides her meat in the summer she gathers gathers her food in the harvest and then verse nine says how how long would thou sleep oh sluggard when wilt thou arise out of thy sleep yet a little sleep a little slumber a little folding of the hands to sleep so shall thy poverty come as one that travelth and thy want is an armed man now here's the thing about this I preached a whole sermon on this a few months ago we don't want to go too far with this verse some people take this verse a little too far and think that we need to sleep as little as possible okay but what I did in that sermon a few months ago is as we looked at a whole bunch of other scriptures and we got a more balanced view by looking at the entire bible what the whole bible teaches and what the bible is teaching is that we shouldn't be sleeping when it's time to be awake shouldn't be sleeping like in the daytime you know sleep at night I do believe that it's important to get adequate rest I'm a strong believer in sleeping eight hours a night you know and a lot of people think like oh man pastor Anderson you get a lot done and everything how do you do it they think I'm burning the candle at both ends but the truth matters I'm not because I'm a strong believer in sleeping at night now there have been times in my life when I had to do what I had to do and I had to work all night you know for the first like five or six years of our church here I was working insane hours at my job to try to make ends meet financially and I was working for the church obviously the church didn't have money to pay me because of the fag is a new church you know we're running 20 30 then 40 50 60 people and so I had to work a full-time job and pass to the church and I didn't work a full-time job I had to work like a lot of overtime and extra hours just because I'm trying to make it with all these little kids and one income you know the struggle because you're doing it as well and so you know sometimes you got to do what you got to do and I've had to work all night I've had to miss sleep sleep in my car I've literally slept in my car hundreds of times and so you do what you got to do but in general sleep is good for your health and usually it makes the most sense if at all possible to get a good night's sleep now some people don't need eight hours of sleep some people need six hours and they're totally fine after six hours well then great but just get the sleep that you need especially for me as a pastor I have to be able to think straight so you know you don't want me getting up here and I haven't slept and I'm just saying all kinds of wild things from the pulpit and I'm teaching all kinds of strange things because I'm in like a half dream state or something you know I find that by sleeping eight hours I'm more productive when I'm awake so I can actually get more done than if I spent that three hours of burning the midnight oil so I only sleep five you know that three extra hours is usually an unproductive time for me because I'm old you know I'm in my 40s now and you know I get tired if I don't sleep at night okay when I was in my 20s I could you know push through a little better than I can now and so anyway you know obviously we need to sleep but what we're talking about is people that are just sleeping through the day okay when they're supposed to be working when they're supposed to be out there harvesting you know the the slothful son the foolish son he sleeps in the harvest there's all this work to do he's asleep here's the thing about people that sleep in the daytime you know what that means it means that they didn't sleep at night and so typically what this involves is staying up at night partying staying up at night with video games staying up at night surfing the internet wasting time goofing off binge watching whatever the videos and then in the daytime when you're supposed to be working now you're sleeping that's the problem so we want to sleep at night sleep for rest so that we can be effective in the daytime and in the daytime we work and we don't be lazy sitting around in the daytime so when he says here that the sluggard is sleeping and and a little slumber a little folding of the hands to sleep you know this is talking about sleeping in the daytime because you know if you think about it at night you don't get a little sleep you get a lot of sleep at night am i right you just do a little sleep at night no do you do a little folding of your hands to sleep is it who sleeps in this position right here nobody i don't sleep like this i don't sleep in the coffin pose either some some people do sleep like that but you know i don't sleep like this but you know what i'll tell you what though when i'm asleep when i'm sleeping in the daytime though like let's say i'm on an airplane and go to sleep you know you do this kind of you know this kind of stuff i mean i've slept like this in the daytime but i don't sleep like this at night so i i believe that the context here when we compare scripture with scripture when we're talking about a little sleep a little slumber that doesn't sound like your normal eight hours at night this is a folding of the hands to sleep this kind of number you know this kind of stuff not the proper sleep that you're supposed to be getting at night but anyway i don't want to preach a whole sleep sermon because i actually i i do think that preaching a whole sleep sermon is important that's why i already did it three months ago so download that if you haven't listened to that i encourage you to listen to that uh because i i think it's pretty important to get a well-rounded view of this subject all right so if you you know if you are lazy and sleeping in the daytime your poverty will come as one that travelth and they want as an armed man what does that mean well poverty come as one that travels anybody who travels knows what this means because of the fact that traveling ends up being the biggest waste of your money that you can imagine because when you travel you end up spending way more than you think you're going to spend because it's just every little stop at the gas station and you know you've already got your home that you're already paying for that doesn't go away it's not like oh you're going to be on vacation don't worry about sending the house payment this month you still have to send the house payment but then you're buying hotels you're putting gas in the tank you stopping to buy food out which is expensive so poverty comes as one that travelth and then they want as an armed man you know it's like basically armed robbery is what the idea is there like somebody basically taking all your money uh you go on a trip and you end up spending all your money this will put you into poverty you know you're you're in lack and so traveling will do that to you getting robbed will do that to you and being lazy will do that to you right so we want to work hard make sure we keep that pipeline of money coming in on a daily weekly monthly basis so that we can pay our bills meet our obligations and take care of our family verse 12 is again another gear change because we're hitting a bunch of topics in this chapter tonight a naughty person a wicked man walketh with a froward mouth now this word froward is kind of a tricky word sometimes i feel like it's just a synonym of wicked or ungodly or bad but then when i look at it i also get an idea of of being like contrarian with your mouth because i think of things like going to and fro and froward seems like deviant like going out of the path and you find that in the context of scripture when you see this word sometimes and so when i see here that the that the wicked man walks with a froward mouth the idea that i get here from this is that basically he says one thing but he kind of means something else okay and that's why it says he winketh with his eyes he speaketh with his feet he teacheth with his fingers so what it's saying is that this dishonest guy you can't really go by what he says because he's constantly lying but he has little tells that he's lying right where his hands will do something his eyes will do something his feet will do something and you know there are body language experts that study people and obviously everybody's different so you never want to just start accusing someone of lying because of the way they move or something but once you've sort of normed someone and you sort of know how someone normally acts and then they start acting fishy hey sometimes that can be a red flag that they're lying to you and a lot of times people's hands or their feet or their eyes will tell a different story than what they're saying to you okay so like one of the one of the things that when i when i've studied body language in the past that i've learned is that you know your feet are pretty accurate about how you feel about something so you'll notice people they'll be in a conversation that they don't really want to be in and their upper body is a little more consciously under their control so like let's say i'm talking to you and i don't really want to be in this conversation then basically like my you know my upper body i'm facing him but sometimes the feet will be like this and i'll kind of be like that where my feet are over here because my feet are like get me out of here i'm done here and then like my my you know i'm like hey how you doing you know whereas if i really want to be there it's more like this you know so your feet tell a pretty truthful story often because usually you're not really thinking about your feet whereas you're consciously thinking more about your upper body so your feet can be a big tell and so it says here that he speaketh with his feet okay he teaches with his fingers you know uh your hands can also reveal a lot about what's going on in your mind so for example uh brother baron you want to come up here for one second so here's let me just explain something to you real quick too there are an infinite number of wrong ways to shake hands and there is one correct way to shake hands only one okay the right way to shake hands is like that that's a good handshake okay here's what you do your hand is straight up and down like this okay you get a nice firm grip couple shakes and then you move on okay now we could go on and on about all the wrong ways here are some of the wrong ways okay uh putting my hand like this this is basically i'm dominating this guy or you know you'll like come at me with a straight up and down and i kind of turn you this way it's like i'm putting you down and then there's the overly submissive handshake where the hand goes too far this way all right so you know you don't want to be this overly submissive flatterer type and you don't want to be just domineering over everybody you know and sometimes you'll have people kind of fight you for it okay the right way is straight up and down right just on the level couple of guys brothers in christ right boom yeah nice firm handshake here's another wrong way the limp fish handshake okay you got to give a nice firm handshake but then the opposite of that is the bone crusher like ah you know where again it's obnoxious it's it's arrogant it's putting you down and here is my all-time worst okay because you know as a pastor you shake a lot of hands right so i've studied this the worst of all time is the guy who just holds on too long and the people who do this where they hold on too long i'll tell you what go ahead and sit down thank you i'll tell you what they're trying to do is they're again trying to dominate you and put you off balance and make you feel awkward and trying to show you that they're in some kind of control or something you know it's it's not right it's an arrogant prideful boastful move don't do it okay and and when i've had people come at me and do this thing where they grab my hand and just don't let go and they just keep talking to me while they're just squeezing my hand i just automatically know this is a bozo and i guarantee you my feet are not facing toward this guy because i'm like get me out of here because this is a bozo okay so look you say well why would you teach this pastor anderson because you know don't you want people to keep just doing it and then you can know what they're up to well but here's the thing though you know for me understanding these things i'm not really trying to just figure out what everybody's up to because honestly ignorance is bliss you know i just want to believe that everybody loves god and that everybody's happy and that you know i just want to go through my life just loving everybody in the church and and loving visitors and whatever you know the reason i'm teaching this to you is obviously because you know you can kind of be aware of this in other people okay that's part of it but you know you also want to present your best self to this world as well okay i'm teaching you not how to be deceptive but how to actually present your best foot forward your best self to this world you know do you want to talk to people and for them to think that you don't want to be in the conversation then make sure that your feet are facing them because otherwise you're you're sending a subconscious message to them they're going to pick up on the fact that you're not really engaged in the conversation right so you want to be a good listener right so you know you want to make sure that you're all tuned in with your whole body and also you know you don't you know maybe you've just developed a bad habit with your handshake this this you know i'm teaching you how to do it right so that you don't make people feel bad or feel uncomfortable or or just subconsciously feel weird about you okay so you want to have a good handshake you want to have good posture you want to bear yourself right but you know we all know that shifty people are sometimes dishonest right even in like a cartoon or something there'll be some shifty villain or whatever i mean that's just kind of the way human nature works and so that's what the bible is talking about here right it's talking about this guy like he's speaking with a forward mouth he might be saying the right things but his body language his hands are telling a different story his feet his eyes he's shifty he's not looking you in the eye he's not giving you the right handshake his feet aren't facing the right direction something weird's going on and again never use what i'm teaching you here to falsely accuse someone don't be like oh be watch out for that guy he's got a bad handshake that's not the point that's not right to judge people like that okay but what it is is that you can make sure that you're projecting the right body language and you can at least just be aware that when someone comes at you like that hey this guy might be ready to waste a bunch of my time or really has a weird agenda because he's just not letting go of my hand you know it's just kind of a smart thing to know i'm not saying you know go around and tell people and criticize people but just in your heart it's just kind of good to know who's putting forth signals of being trustworthy and who isn't okay so anyway that was kind of a little commercial break but it is in the bible here you know that these are a thing he winketh with his eyes he speaketh with his feet he teacheth with his fingers forwardness is in his heart he deviseth mischief continually he soweth discord therefore shall his calamity come suddenly suddenly shall he be broken without remedy so you know god's gonna punish this guy this guy's gonna come to ruin cheaters never prosper but in the meantime they can hurt a lot of people so beware that people like this are out there and be careful now one of the things he mentions here is that he soweth discord he's so at discord behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity isn't it a beautiful thing when we see like a staff that's working together in concert as a team and they they love the lord and they have the same goals they love one another and they you know they're just a team and isn't it great when you see the church and everybody loves one another and they're happy and we're getting along you know this is a beautiful thing it's it's good and pleasant for brethren to dwell together in unity it's it's it's a beautiful thing when a marriage works like this when brothers and sisters can behave like this when co-workers at the job can behave like this church whatever right this is how we want to be we want to have peace want to have unity concord and so this is a beautiful thing but the wicked person seeks to separate chief friends and to sow discord among brethren you know i am good friends with pastor roger jimenez he and i have been friends now for 21 years which it's pretty rare to have those kind of lifelong friendships you know i mean there have been uh very few friends like that in my life and and you're going to have a few friends like that hopefully god willing and it's a blessing but it's not something that you have every day somebody that you've been friends with for 21 years okay but man there have been so many people that have tried to drive a wedge between pastor jimenez and myself over the years and that's that's a wicked thing to do to try to pit us against one another or to try to get us to fight with one another or take shots at one another now no friendship is going to be perfect but we should not seek to just sow discord among brethren sowing discord in a church this is bad because unity is such a blessing okay and having good friends is rare you don't want people you want you don't want to allow other people to ruin your friendships right and so that kind of rolls into the next thought when it says he sowed discord this wicked person uh who's who's got all the weird body language tells probably because he is a back biter he's a whisperer so he kind of tells you that somebody else said something bad about you and he kind of tries to just stir the pot and get different people at each other's throats but that kind of rolls us into verse 16 about the six things that the lord hates right and the seven that are an abomination unto him and again this is a common thing in the bible this is a common thing in poetry in general to do this thing of like well there's six yeah there's even seven you know there's three there's even four you know this is the fancy word for this is n n plus one numeric parallelism but anyway that's meaningless so the point is here that there are seven things that god hates and that are an abomination to him by saying six and then seven this is basically just like a fancy way or a poetic way of saying that because you know proverbs is a poetic book these are the seven things a proud look a lying tongue and hands that shed innocent blood an heart that deviseth wicked imaginations feet that be swift in running to mischief a false witness that speaketh lies and he that soweth discord among brethren these are things that god hates he hates that guy who sows discord among brethren he hates that guy who's just swift in running to mischief the false witness who speaks lies the one who devises wicked imaginations hands that shed innocent blood the lying tongue the proud look right these are these are people that are an abomination of the lord okay it says it says seven things but some of these are actually people because it's like a false witness that's a person right he that so at discord among brethren is a person okay and so these are wicked sins that we want to stay away from god hates pride god hates lying god hates violence god hates people who hurt the innocent people who lie under oath people commit perjury people who are false accusers who bear false witness against their brethren people that sow discord among brethren they're super wicked in the sight of god verse number 20 another gear change here my son keep thy father's commandment and forsake not the law of thy mother bind them continually upon thine heart and tie them about thy neck when thou goest it shall lead thee when thou sleepest it shall keep thee and when thou awakest it shall talk with thee for the commandment is a lamp and the law is a light and reproofs of instruction are the way of life now this is what we would have expected at the beginning of the chapter because chapters one two three four and five started out with this kind of admonition then got into the advice this time we got a whole bunch of advice and then we're getting this in the middle then we're going to go back to the advice okay but i love what it says here about the the father's commandment the law of thy mother obviously it's about what our parents teach us good doctrine that we get from our parents but also you could apply this to the word of god the teachings that we got from our father which is in heaven and normally in a christian home these two things are kind of the same aren't they because hopefully our parents are teaching us biblical truths and the stuff that our mom and dad have given us as rules is derived from the bible and so it says bind them continually upon thy heart tie them about thy neck when thou goest it shall lead thee right and again it's a jungle out there and we have so many decisions to make god's word our parents teachings can guide us through this minefield of life and then it says when thou sleepest it shall keep thee right it's going to keep you safe and protect you so that you don't make fatal mistakes in your life and then i love this last part when thou awakest it shall talk with thee it shall talk with thee you know isn't that kind of an odd thing to say about our parents commandments the law of our mother maybe the law of god by extension that when we wake up it will talk to us you know the the christian who loves the lord and meditates on god's word and has been taught godly teachings by his parents is not ever really alone because the lord is always with him and also just the word of god is always with him and just these teachings are always with him so that let's say you know i were locked in prison or something right which you know god forbid that would ever happen i hope that i can live my whole life out in freedom enjoying the sunshine of arizona until the bitter end but you know let's say i were locked up in prison or even like locked up in solitary confinement you know and that would be pretty lonely it would be pretty hard to just get through days and nights like that but yet i would have god's word as a companion and you know people who really memorized a lot of bible or studied the bible a lot or or at least thought a lot about the bible they understand that you know even when we have no entertainment or nothing going on we we kind of have something to think about all the time you know um like for example uh one of my favorite non-fiction books of the 20th century probably one of the greatest works of non-fiction of the 20th century is the gulag archipelago by alexander solzhenitsyn it's a little bit dark reading but it's good stuff all right and in the gulag archipelago he talked about how there are the people who do well in prison and the people who do well in the work camps the forced labor camps and and how like even though the forced labor camps are so much worse some people actually did better in those than they did in prison and what he was talking about was how you know unintelligent people people that were not very smart people are dumb you know they kind of went crazy in prison because they don't really have anything to think about because their brain's a little bit empty and so they're kind of just in there just losing it does everybody understand what i'm saying so they kind of needed the social interaction of being in the work camp even though it was like physically brutal and torturous at least they're kind of constantly around other kind of brain dead types that they could just kind of talk about meaningless garbage with whereas people that were more intelligent or intellectual they actually did better in prison because even if they're just locked in a cell they had a lot to think about and they could you know sometimes even get access to books and things and and at least their brains going so you know those of us that that love the lord and study the bible we kind of always have something to think about if you think about it because i mean we we've always kind of got the lord to think about so we never get to a point where our brains just kind of empty and we're just super bored and there's just kind of nothing going on because we can always be thinking about bible stories and we can be thinking about uh what is god's will for our life what are we going to do with our life and what does god want from us and we could be kind of communing with god or even just kind of going through god's commandments in our mind going through the life of jesus christ in our mind going through paul's epistles in our mind even if we don't even have a bible and so it's like you wake up and the doctrines of the bible the doctrines of your parents they kind of talk with you you know the things that your parents taught you are something to think about you know i wake up in the morning and i can think about god's word i can think about what my mom taught me i can think about what my dad taught me and i've got sort of a companion in those good doctrines okay and so i think that's what he's saying here when he says when thou awakest it shall talk with thee right these are good things to think about when you wake up in the morning just kind of thinking about okay what is right what is not right what does the bible say what did my parents teach me what should i do with my life thinking about deep thoughts not just waking up and it's like ooga booga food ooga booga tv ooga booga morning radio coffee food sugar you know like you know you you want to wake up and think about something with a little more depth okay because that's what's going to be a companion with you throughout your life and god forbid that any of us would ever end up in prison but you know what we're going to do better in prison than the brain dead amen so it says for the commandment is a lamp and the law is light and reproofs of instruction are the way of life the way of life as opposed to what the way of death okay the way of life meaning the way that leads to long life prosperity blessing reproofs of instruction what is a reproof a reproof is when someone tells you that you're wrong so the instruction that we want is not an instruction that says hey good job no matter how bad you did you're doing great keep it up looking sharp you know that's not really you know basically joel osteen that's not the way of life my friend you need the instruction that says hey change this fix this i mean look anybody who's ever done sports if they have a coach they don't want to coach it's just a yes man so what do i do coach oh man just keep it up man you're killing it you are awesome you rock you go girl you know just is that really a helpful coach you need the coach say okay here's what you're doing wrong fix this don't do this do this that's real coaching okay well that's also real preaching is getting up and saying hey here's what we need to fix here's what we need to tighten up here's what we can improve here's what we should avoid here's what society is wrong about here's what america is wrong about here's what many christians are wrong about reproofs of instruction are the way of life to keep thee from the evil woman and this is a theme that comes up over and over again in proverbs the evil woman the flattery of the of the tongue of a strange woman so again there are sort of two warnings in a lot of these chapters like the the evil male companion right who's like a buddy that leads you off into sin he gets you to co-sign on his loan he's uh got all the weird body language because he's trying to mess with you and and pull one over on you and then because again proverbs is being directed toward young men although obviously young ladies can learn from it and apply it and then of course there's the flattery of the tongue of the strange woman the strange woman is trying to get with you physically okay strange woman is the one who's trying to seduce you and entice you with her body to get physical with her okay that's what's being warned about here and it says lust not after her beauty in thine heart neither let her take thee with her eyelids for by means of a whorish woman a man is brought to a piece of bread and the adulterous will hunt for the precious life what does that mean that a man is brought to a piece of bread now obviously a human isn't really going to turn into a piece of bread and and really i i can't even think how this metaphor would even work how like a person could become like bread and that that would be a bad thing because bread is a pretty good thing so i think it makes a lot more sense to interpret this as a man is brought to a piece of bread meaning that all of his wealth all of his substance comes down to here's all i own in this world this piece of bread that's what he's saying when he says a man's brought to a piece of bread it means as his only possession that's left because she has taken him for everything else that he's got okay and then it says that the adulterous will hunt for the precious life okay so the adulterous is out to seduce men and she is married because otherwise she wouldn't be an adulterous okay the adulterous here is a married woman who's out trying to seduce men and trying to be with men outside of marriage can a man take fire in his bosom and his clothes not be burned can one go upon hot coals and his feet not be burned so he that goeth into his neighbor's wife whosoever toucheth her shall not be innocent men do not despise a thief if he steal to satisfy his soul when he's hungry but if he be found he shall restore sevenfold he shall give all the substance of his house but whoso committed adultery with a woman lacketh understanding now stop right there and what i want to show you here is that we were just talking about adultery and then we switched over to this talk about a thief and then we're back to adultery okay so what i want to understand is that the part about the thief is part of the the adultery teaching okay we did not leave the subject of adultery we're still on it but he has this little side note where he says look men do not despise a thief if he steal to satisfy his soul when he's hungry you know if somebody saw somebody who's starving and they stole something to eat when they're starving look god is not pleased it is still a sin it is still wrong but men we're getting we're not talking about god's perspective we're talking about humans people will go soft on that god's not necessarily going to go soft on it but people will won't they people be like hey the guy's starving you know he's stealing to satisfy his soul and they're going to have sympathy but even in spite of that sympathy if they get busted by the police the judge isn't going to be like oh well you know you're having a hard time he still is going to get nailed in the criminal justice system for stealing he's going to be found guilty that's what the bible is saying here it's saying look people not god but people will sometimes condone or maybe not quite condone but just kind of not despise the thief when he steals to satisfy his soul but if he be found he shall restore sevenfold he shall give all the substance of his house but again it's the same it's the same thought here my friend it's the same sentence right but who so committed adultery with a woman lacketh understanding he that do it that destroyeth his own soul a wounded dishonor shall he get and his reproach that's the key word reproach shall not be wiped away reproach has to do with being made a fool of yourself in front of other people reproach is when other people look at you and despise you so this is the opposite of the the thief who steals to satisfy his soul when he's hungry people don't despise him the adulterer gets mega despised even by society does everybody see that he gets dishonor and his reproach shall not be wiped away here's what the bible is saying look people can make excuses about why they steal even though stealing is wrong and it's not okay to steal and there are other ways to fix your problems when you're hungry but there's absolutely no excuse for adultery adultery is inexcusable in the eyes of god and it's inexcusable in the eyes of any normal society now obviously we have super perverted societies now arising in the west and we have places like france now where the majority of the population by some polls think it's okay to commit adultery and huge percentages of french people are saying hey it's not morally wrong to commit adultery to cheat on your spouse okay but any normal society is gonna frown on that even if it's not even christian even if it's hindu buddhist whatever pagan whatever okay because adultery is inexcusable okay there's never any reason why it would be justifiable to lie with another man's wife this is heinous okay it is wicked and it is reprehensible to any normal society and in the eyes of god and to any church and any normal group of people whether christian or non-christian because here we're even talking about the worldly view that says well we're going to justify what this thief did over here we're not going to justify that sleeping with this dude's wife are you serious it says the wounded dishonor shall he get in his reproach to not be wiped away for jealousy is the rage of a man therefore will he not spare in the day of vengeance he will not regard any ransom neither will he rest content though that give give us many gifts what's the bible saying here there are some crimes that you commit where you could pay a ransom as opposed to being put to death but then the bible specifically says that there are certain crimes where you cannot take a ransom you cannot take satisfaction for example if someone commits first degree murder which is defined in the bible as that you hated that person in time past and you have premeditated murder first degree murder the bible says there shall be no satisfaction or no ransom taken for someone who commits first degree murder meaning no matter how rich this person is they can't pay the family and say like okay yeah i committed first degree murder but here's this huge amount of money to basically satisfy you so that you won't press charges you know the bible's saying no like that person has to be put to death the person who commits first degree murder but there are other crimes in the bible that are punishable by death but where satisfaction or ransom could be paid in certain situations where someone could ransom their soul by basically paying and and and giving some kind of a of a of making things right financially basically for a crime that they've committed okay this is not allowed when it comes to first degree murder but in other situations it could be allowed okay but what the bible is saying here is that you know this isn't typically going to work when it comes to adultery okay now here's the thing about this okay the book of proverbs is always speaking in generalities right so we need to be careful that we don't think that when the book of proverbs teaches us something that it's going to never have an exception it's going to be 100 of the time exactly as that's a wrong way to understand this genre of biblical book because in proverbs it's generalities right you know a little sleep a little slumber a little folding of the hands to sleep so shall that poverty come as one that travels that doesn't mean that there's not some rich dude somewhere who's lazy and he's everything's being handed to him and he he takes a lot of naps and sleeps a lot in the day and parties and he's just he's okay in general is how these things work right and i'm not going to belabor that point because we've already talked about in other weeks obviously you do have some dudes out there that don't care if you commit adultery with their wife now is that guy normal no he's a weirdo any dude who's just like i don't really care what anybody does with my wife is a weirdo and a pervert you know he's like these guys that are in like an open marriage or something he's just like hey just whoever wants to just be with my wife that's no problem and i'm gonna do whatever i want whatever that's not normal so when the bible says here jealousy is the rage of a man he will not spare in the day of vengeance he'll not regard any ransom neither will he rest content though that give us many gifts this is in general the way it's gonna go most dudes are not going to accept a ransom because here's the thing if you get brought before the authorities in ancient israel with adultery what's the punishment death right leviticus 20 verse 10 says that the man that lies with his neighbor's wife even he that commits adultery with his neighbor's wife both the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death so the unfaithful wife and the man who is committing adultery with her both are executed they're both put to death so you can see how let's say some dude busts another dude with his wife that basically that guy could try to wiggle out of these and say hey let's not bring this before the judge let's not make a big deal out of this here why don't i just pay you ten thousand dollars okay i just gave you thirty thousand dollars let me just give you many gifts the bible is saying that that's typically not going to work because jealousy is the rage of a man he'll not spare in the day of vengeance he'll not regard any ransom neither will he rest content though that'll give us many gifts now here's the thing about that is that obviously today in 2022 there's no death penalty on adultery is there you know there should be but there isn't obviously in 2022 america not only is there no death penalty on adultery adultery is not even illegal it's 100 legal unless you're in the military because in the military they could actually court-martial you for committing adultery but when it comes to the general population of civilians this isn't even against the law which is kind of stupid because it means that marriage isn't really worth anything in the side of the law now thankfully as christians marriage is worth something to us and we honor and we respect that covenant but this world and the law doesn't and so it's literally legal to be a sodomite it's legal to commit adultery these things that god punished by death now they're just legal let alone being punished the way god punished them at that time and so even though there's no death penalty on adultery that doesn't mean that you're not going to get killed if you commit adultery you still might get killed okay you know for example i had a buddy and he caught his wife committing adultery in the very act and he he was a big guy and he grabbed this dude and and the guy was naked and he hurled this naked dude through the front window of the house he grabbed because he's just in a rage and so he just grabbed the guy and just hurled him through the front window and the guy got majorly lacerated from that window he got this isn't like movies or something those are fake windows they're made out of sugar or something you know what i'm talking about where they you know they have the the old westerns or something where they you know you know in real life if you get thrown through a window it's pretty serious and so this guy had lacerations all over his body he was in the intensive care unit for weeks and thankfully the guy survived and the reason i say thankfully i don't you know hey i'm fine if the guy would have died but here's the thing the reason why it's good that he survived though is so that my buddy didn't get nailed for manslaughter or second degree murder or something like that for killing this guy so he was glad that the guy was okay because then he didn't end up going to prison or anything like that and so he was able to tell me the story and so you know that's not and and you know this was this was a story that he only told me because he and i were very close this is not something he went around telling people because it's kind of embarrassing and whatever but he told me this story and this guy you know he was kind of a meek individual you i i couldn't really picture him doing something like this he's not the kind of guy that would do things like this or brag about doing things like this he did it because of just being overcome with rage and this is kind of a normal reaction to find your wife you know in flagrante delicto and so you know even if there's not a death penalty it doesn't mean you're not going to get killed you know i mean oj simpson anyone but anyway you know again i'm not trying to open that can of worms but the point is dudes kill their wives when their wives commit adultery or dudes kill dudes who commit adultery with their wives this is something that happens not saying it's right i'm saying it happens okay and guess what you're gonna find out in this world a lot of things that aren't right and aren't legal they still happen right you know you you can't go through this life with surgery you can't do that that's not legal that's not allowed you can't do that to me that's not gonna guess what people do stuff that's not allowed and that's not legal or that's not even right and so guess what you commit adultery with some other dude's wife it doesn't matter what the law says that dude might find a way to kill you maybe even a year later maybe even two years later you know and he might just hide the body really well and get away with it and i'm not saying it's right i'm not saying it's legal i'm not saying that you know this is something that our society would accept but guess what stuff happens every day that's not legal or not right or not allowed or not accepted by society people do stuff and what the bible is saying is if you commit adultery you are playing with fire and you know what you're doing you're playing russian roulette with your even life because people will kill you people kill people every day in this country in major cities of america people are killing someone every day like in chicago somebody's dying like every day i don't know how often somebody gets murdered in phoenix but i mean places like washington dc gary indiana chicago illinois atlanta georgia i mean there's a lot of murders going on people get killed you you mess with the wrong person you might get killed and so if you're smart you'll follow the book of proverbs you keep your nose clean mind your own business do what you're supposed to do and run screaming in the other direction from adultery okay because it's not only is it wicked in the sight of god and you're going to incur the wrath of god it's super dangerous even humanly speaking because some dude is going to kill you in many situations and again you could say well there's an exception many of the teachings of the book of proverbs have exceptions the exception proves the rule but these are generalities and in general dudes are super jealous about their wives it's our nature as dudes to be jealous and obviously some jealousy could be over the top but when some dudes committing adultery with your wife that's not an over the top jealousy that's actually an appropriate jealousy where you're like okay this isn't right and in the bible days that person would be put to death obviously it's not right for us to take the law into our own hands we're supposed to obey the laws of the land but guess what people do what they're not supposed to do all the time so you better just watch your back and if you're smart you won't even commit that wicked sin in the first place let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer lord we thank you so much for your word lord thank you for the wisdom that we found in proverbs chapter 6 tonight i pray that all of the teachings of proverbs 6 we would apply lord and lord god i pray that this series on wednesday nights wouldn't just be a sermon that we listen to one time but that rather this would just kind of be food for thought and then we would spend the rest of our lives actually physically reading the book of proverbs over and over again and constantly being reminded of the principles that we've learned tonight in the message lord in jesus name we pray amen