FINANCIAL AND MORAL INTEGRITY

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PROVERBS 6
Lesson #08
FINANCIAL AND MORAL INTEGRITY

• Memory Verse: Pro 6:23
• Proverbs 6:1-34 Instruction to My Son #11 As an adult son
  • Read Pro 6:1-5 Surety
    • This section of scripture has to do with the practice of co-signing a financial note for another person.
    • From our Proverbs dictionary: to sign so as to assure that a person will pay what he owes; legally to stand in the place of another person in a court of law; to agree to provide assurance for another; to go into debt for another person. If he does not pay his debt, the co-signer is legally responsible to pay it.
  • “My son, if thou be surety for thy friend, if thou hast stricken thy hand with a stranger, Thou art snared with the words of thy mouth, thou art taken with the words of thy mouth.” (1-2)
    • Why is co-signing a note for another person a snare?
      • If that person cannot pay his debt, you are legally responsible for his debt. You have put yourself in bondage. God wants His people to be free from bondage.
        • Instead of co-signing for another person, you can either give him the money, or,
        • You can lend him the money without charging him interest.
      • According to the Bible, all debt is bondage whether it is debt that you owe or debt of another person for whom you co-sign.
      • Read Pro 22:7
      • Read Rom 13:8
    • Why is co-signing a note for your own adult child a bad idea?
      • If he is an adult, he should be standing on his own two feet without your help.
      • To Co-sign means that you are teaching him that debt is acceptable.
    • Besides co-signing a note, according to this passage, it is not a good idea to sign a legal contract to go into business or marriage with a non-believer.
      • Read 2Cor 6:14
      • The number one cause of divorce in the United States is debt.
  • “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. Give not sleep to thine eyes, nor slumber to thine eyelids. Deliver thyself as a roe from the hand of the hunter, and as a bird from the hand of the fowler.” (3-5)
    • Key words: Fowler (sportsman who kills birds for food).
      • For the person that has co-signed a note for another person, he is counseled to get out of it immediately as best you can.
      • If you do not get out of it, you are like the deer and the bird that is being hunted by a hunter.
    • Of course, the hunter in this case is the debt collector.
• Read Pro 6:6-11 The Sluggard and Poverty
  • Since this section follows the admonition about not co-signing, it is assumed that the person that wants you to sign a note for him is a sluggard
  • “Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise: Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler.  Provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest. How long wilt thou sleep, O 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 travelleth, and thy want as an armed man.” (6-11)
    • Key words: Sluggard (lazy).
      • The sluggard is the person that is too lazy to work for a living.
      • He is told to watch and learn from the ant. What can the ant teach him?
        • The ant is self-motivated. He does not have a boss or anyone to tell him he must work.
        • The ant is diligent in season and out of season, always gathering food for the future.
      • The robber of a person is laziness that leads to poverty
    • According to these verses, you are robbed of what you already have as well as what you could have had in the future had you worked for it.
    • Read 2Thes 3:10
• Read Pro 6:12-15 The Froward Person: Description of the wicked person
  • “ A naughty person, a wicked man, walketh with a froward mouth. He winketh with his eyes, he speaketh with his feet, he teacheth with his fingers; Frowardness is in his heart, he deviseth mischief continually; he soweth discord. Therefore shall his calamity come suddenly; suddenly shall he be broken without remedy.” (12-15)
    • Key words: Wicked (lawless evil); froward (disobedient); heart (inner man); calamity (extensive evil).
      • We have learned in Proverbs that what is in the heart eventually comes out through the mouth.
      • In this passage we see a person that is disobedient to God express his heartfelt disobedience in various ways. Every movement of his body reveals his disobedient, perversely, evil heart:
        • =1= His mouth expresses the disobedience that is in his evil heart.

This includes cursing.

This includes bad language.

• • • • • =2= His eyes: “winketh with his eyes” = a deceptive person that tricks people.

It is said that the eyes are the windows to the soul.

His two-faced disobedience to God is revealed in his eyes.

In other words, he pretends to be obedient to God at times but at other times his deception is plainly visible.

• • • • • =3= His feet:

How do the feet speak?

Your feet take you to the places that are most important to you.

Therefore, your feet tell us the priorities in the inner man.

• • • • • =4= His fingers:

Evil gestures.

The actions of your hands or fingers also give insight into the priorities of the inner man.

If you are an adult, like this young man in Proverbs, your children are watching you and copying your ways.

• • • • Because disobedience to God is in the heart of evil people, that person constantly looks for ways to create mischief and sow discord.
    • The reward for this kind of disobedient lifestyle:
      • A wound of extensive evil over your life.
      • Notice it says “broken without remedy”. (15)
• Read Pro 6:16-19 God’s abominations:
  • After discussing the lifestyle of the froward (disobedient) person, we are going to see that the seven sins God hates are the sins of the lifestyle of a froward person.
  • “These six things doth the Lord hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him:  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.” (16-19)
    • Key words: Abomination (hated); heart (inner man); wicked (lawless evil).
      • Seven sins are listed, and it says that seven are hated by God.
        • Six is a symbolic number in the Bible that refers to man in his sinful condition that comes short of God’s perfection.
        • Seven is a symbolic number in the Bible that refers to God’s completeness.
      • In other words, God hates completely all sin because God is a holy God. However, man in his disobedience to God persists in sin and cannot raise himself to God’s level of perfection.
        • There are certainly more than six or even seven sins in this fallen world.
        • The sins mentioned in this passage are only symbolic of all sins.
        • It does not mean that these specific sins are worse or of a greater abomination to God than other sins not listed. Sin is sin, and all sin is disobedience to God.
        • The Bible tells us other things God hates:

Deu 15:22 God hates idols.

Psa 45:7 God hates wickedness.

Rev 2:6 God hates the deeds of the Nicolaitans.

• • • The seven sins of the flesh nature:
      • =1= “a proud look” (The remedy is Psa 131:1)
        • This is pride that literally means = eyes of loftiness.
        • It is probably listed first because this was the first sin in the universe when the angel Lucifer said, “I will…” be god. (Isa 14:12-15)
        • This sin replaces the worship of God with an elevated view of self and looks down upon others as inferior.
      • =2= “a lying tongue” (The remedy is Psa 120:2)
        • The Bible talks more about the misuse of the tongue than the misuse of alcohol.
        • God is the God of truth. That is why the lying tongue is an abomination to God.
      • =3= “hands that shed innocent blood”
        • Murder is an abomination to God because God is life. He sent His Son to give us eternal life.
        • Man was created in the image of God. When a person kills another person, he is destroying God’s image in that person.
        • God said that life is precious and the punishment of shedding innocent blood is a life for a life. (Gen 9:5)
        • Jesus said that to be angry with your brother in your heart means you have committed this sin. (Mat 5:21-22)
      • =4= “heart that deviseth wicked imaginations”
        • From the inner man come all kinds of sin. What is it in the inner man that causes this?
        • Man is born with a sin nature. When that sin nature is permitted to rule a person’s life, all kinds of evil imaginations are put into practice in his life.
      • =5= “feet that be swift in running to mischief”
        • The feet follow where the heart has first gone.
        • This is why it is important to guard your thought life. (Pro 4:23)
      • =6= “false witness that speaketh lies”
        • Perjury is a crime in a court of law.
        • In God’s court room perjury is on God’s hate list.
        • Notice that two of these seven sins deal with the tongue, the part of the body most difficult to control.
      • =7= “he that soweth discord among the brethren” (the remedy is Mat 5:9)
        • Fellowship among believers in Christ is precious to God. Eph 5:25 tells us that Christ died for the church.
        • Peace in the home is precious to God because the family in the home is the basis of society where the next generation is nourished.
• Read Pro 6:20-35 Instruction to My Son #12 As an adult son
  • “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.” (20-21)
  • Key words: Commandment (moral command); law (list of rules); heart (inner man).
    • We saw this same admonition to his son when the son was a small boy. (1:9; 3:3; 3:22)
    • Now that the boy has grown into a man, he is still supposed to remember what he learned as a child.
      • The instruction in childhood becomes internalized in the inner man of the heart and becomes the belief system of the adult.
      • The characteristics of wisdom (skillful living) become grace around the neck for everyone around him to see in his lifestyle.
  • “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 light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life:” (22-23)
    • Key words: Commandment (command); law (list of rules); reproofs (correction); instruction (moral discipline for discernment).
      • The belief system of skillful living that began as a child will lead you through all of your life if that belief system is built on Jesus Christ, the personification of wisdom.
      • Notice this passage says, “it shall talk with thee.”
      • God expects His people to keep His laws before their eyes continually. (Deu 6:6-9)
      • It is the Lord, Jesus Christ, who communes with the believer to guide him and give him peace. How does He do that?
        • Obedience to Christ’s commands gives light to the believer.
        • Christ corrects the believer when he gets off the lighted path morally.
    • The result is a life based on Christ that is pleasing to God.
  • ^“ To keep thee from the evil woman, from the flattery of the tongue of a strange woman.  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 adultress will hunt for the precious life. 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?” (24-28)
    • Key words: Strange woman (prostitute); heart (inner man).
      • The wisdom (skillful living) that has formed the child’s belief system into adulthood, will keep the believer in Christ free from the sins Proverbs previously described as the sexual sins of prostitution and adultery.
        • Sin begins in the mind, then it is conceived in the heart (the inner man).
        • Read Mat 5:27-28. Jesus said it begins in the heart.
        • Read 2Cor 10:5
      • The result of sexual sin is:
        • …poverty (physical and spiritual). (26)
        • …an unhappy life. (26)
    • Notice the parallel in verses 27 and 28 that demonstrate the inevitable consequences:
      • Bosom /clothes/feet
      • Fire/hot coals
    • The illustration concerning the sin of adultery: (29-30)
      • “So he that goeth in to his neighbour’s wife; whosoever toucheth her shall not be innocent.  Men do not despise a thief, if he steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry.  But if he be found, he shall restore sevenfold; he shall give all the substance of his house.” (29-31)
        • Key words: despise (contempt for).
        • If a man steals bread from his neighbor because he is hungry or has hungry children at home to feed, he is often forgiven of his crime out of sympathy.
        • However, a man that steals his neighbor’s wife is not so innocent even though he is satisfying his own sexual hunger.
        • In the same way that a thief must pay restitution when he is caught, the man who steals his neighbor’s wife should pay everything he owns in restitution, but that is still not enough because adultery destroys one’s own soul.
      • “But whoso committeth adultery with a woman lacketh understanding: he that doeth it destroyeth his own soul.  A wound and dishonour shall he get; and his reproach shall not be wiped away.” (32-33)
        • Key words: Understanding (discernment of good from evil); reproach (censure).
        • Adultery and all sexual sins have become so commonplace in today’s secular society. But what else can we expect when we do not have a discernment of good and evil within us.
        • The shame and censure may be wiped away by modern society, but not by God, unless repentance through the blood of Jesus Christ occurs.
        • Jesus dealt with a woman caught in adultery (Joh 8:3-11). It is like every other sin that needs the Lord’s forgiveness after repentance.
      • “For jealousy is the rage of a man: therefore he will not spare in the day of vengeance. He will not regard any ransom; neither will he rest content, though thou givest many gifts.” (34-35)
        • Read Song of Sol 8:6
        • Even when adultery is forgiven by the offended spouse, there is damage to the soul that only God can heal.
        • God says he will surely judge this sin no matter how much you plead with God.

Homework
Proverbs 7

• Application of Pro 6
  • What is surety and why is it bad? (1-2) (see the Proverbs dictionary)
    • Co-signing for another person’s debt. The Bible says all debt is bad because it puts the borrower into bondage, and God wants the believer free of bondage.
  • What is a sluggard? (9-10) (see the Proverbs dictionary)
    • The lazy person that will not work for a living.
  • What are the characteristics of a froward person? (14-15) (see the Proverbs dictionary)
    • A disobedient, evil person that permits the evil in his heart to be manifested in all areas of his body.
  • What do you think is the most evil part of the body? Why?
    • The tongue because it destroys and deceives. It is mentioned twice in the sins God hates.
  • Why does a person that commits adultery lack understanding? (32) (see the Proverbs dictionary for the meaning of understanding).
    • His actions display the fact that he has no moral compass to distinguish between good and evil.
  • As human beings we are all guilty of the seven sins God hates to one degree or another and at some point in our lives. Let the Word of God be a mirror to your inner man.
    • Which of the seven sins is most recent in your life?
    • Ask God to forgive you of any sin that the Holy Spirit brings to your mind. Then thank Him for His precious forgiveness.
• Preparation for Pro 7
  • Read Pro 7:1-27
    • How does the New Testament believer write the laws of God on his heart? (3-4)
    • What kind of men fall for the deceptions of the strange woman? (7, 26)
    • What is hanging in the balance when a person falls into the ways of the strange woman? (23, 26)
• Memory Verse: Pro 7:4