BUILDING STRENGTH IN YOUR LIFE

RETURN TO SYLLABUS

Proverbs 24:1-18
Lesson #40
BUILDING STRENGTH IN YOUR LIFE

• Memory Verse: Pro 24:3
• “Be not thou envious against evil men, neither desire to be with them.” (1)
• ^”For their heart studieth destruction, and their lips talk of mischief.” (2)
  • Key words: heart (soul/inner man).
  • Read Psa 73:3-9, 17
  • Sometimes evil people have a glamorous lifestyle by the means of the evil that they do; wealth, parties, boats, cars, houses, travel, and etc. This is what the believer is not supposed to envy. Why?
    • According to verse 1 it is because of the enticement to glamour that evil people use to draw innocent people into an evil lifestyle.
    • According to verse 2 the attraction is subtle and promoted by lies. This is especially the attraction to youth in the early part of the book of Proverbs.
  • As we have studied in the book of Proverbs, spiritual wealth in Jesus Christ is far better and eternally valuable over and above material wealth.
  • –Build strength in your life with a proper perspective of life.
• ^“Through wisdom is an house builded; and by understanding it is established:” (3)
• ^“And by knowledge shall the chambers be filled with all precious and pleasant riches.” (4)
  • Key words: wisdom (skillful living); understanding (discernment of good from evil); knowledge (power to know truth).
  • When parents model a successful Christian life to their children, they are building their house. As the children learn how to discern the good from the evil around them, the probability is that they will grow up making wise choices so as to establish their own lives on Christ, the firm foundation.
  • This kind of Christian family life will build on the power of God’s truth in their lives so as to reap an abundance of spiritual blessings such as love, joy, peace, refuge, etc.
  • The Christian that is living his life in this way is building a spiritual house. His spiritual life is his Christian life filled with the power to know the truth of God, and the discernment of good and evil so that he lives successfully with Christ.
  • –Build strength in your life by cooperating with God’s plan.
• ^“A wise man is strong; yea, a man of knowledge increaseth strength.” (5)
• ^“For by wise counsel thou shalt make thy war: and in multitude of counsellors there is safety.” (6)
  • Key words: wise (believer in Christ); knowledge (power to know truth); counsel/counsellors (advice).
  • The Christian that is living in obedience to Christ and His Word grows his faith to trust God in every area of his life. Then he can say he is strong in faith.
  • Because the Holy Spirit reveals truth to the believer and enables him to know God’s truth, he increases strength in two ways:
    • He increases his faith to be a strong faith.
    • He increases the integrity of his character to be strong because the truth reveals to him the character changes God wants him to make in his life.
    • Strong faith and strong integrity of character are the work of the Holy Spirit that makes the believer more like Christ.
  • Good advice comes through a multitude of other believers in Christ because only the believer in Christ has the power and presence of the Holy Spirit to help him.
  • Of course, the war for the Christian is the spiritual war behind the scenes of evil against good, Satan against Christ, the flesh nature in man against the spirit nature in the believer.
  • As believers counsel and pray for each other, there is safety and godly guidance.
  • –Build strength in your life by knowing God’s truth in His Word.
• ^“Wisdom is too high for a fool: he openeth not his mouth in the gate.” (7)
  • Key words: wisdom (skillful living); fool (no God for me).
  • The gate of a city in the Bible was the location of all the important matters and decisions that occurred in a city. The city government was located next to the city gate. Ideas were debated there. The market place was located next to the city gate. The court system was located next to the city gate.
  • When the founding fathers established the constitutional government of the United States, they founded the nation on Biblical principles. They said that nation should elect godly leaders because only people of God can have the necessary wisdom to guide the nation.
  • According to this proverb, what the founding fathers said was true. The book of Proverbs would agree. The person that wants nothing to do with God will not have the sufficient knowledge of the truth or the discernment of good and evil that the believer has from God when he is guided by the Holy Spirit to be able to lead the nation in successful living.
  • –Build strength in your life by training to be be a leader among men.
• ^“He that deviseth to do evil shall be called a mischievous person.” (8)
  • God created man to be creative.
  • However, when man uses his creativity to do evil and devise ways to take advantage of other people for his own benefit, he is a mischievous person. His evil thoughts become evil deeds.
  • He uses his God-given abilities to do what God did not intend for man to do. Therefore, the end result is evil for which God will eventually judge him.
  • –Build strength in your life by using your creativity for God.
• ^“The thought of foolishness is sin: and the scorner is an abomination to men.” (9)
  • Key words: foolishness (lifestyle of the fool); scorner (arrogant hater); abomination (hated).
  • Foolishness is the active lifestyle of a fool that says he wants nothing to do with God in his life. But notice that the proverb says that just the thought of foolishness is sin. Therefore, the person just starting out to consider as to whether he wants God in his life or not, makes the first wrong step into sin with the thought that he can live a successful life without God. He cannot.
  • To simply desire sin in the heart is equally a sin of action. God will judge the thoughts and actions of the non-believer in the end.
  • Then the rest of the verse follows automatically for that person grows into the arrogant hater of the things and the people of God.
  • He is not only an abomination to God as we have seen earlier in Proverbs, but people in general will hate him.
  • –Build strength in your life by taking every thought captive by the help of the Holy Spirit.
• ^“If thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small.” (10)
  • What causes a person to be strong in adversity? It is faith in Jesus Christ.
    • The believer in Christ is given a measure of faith when he first receives Christ as his Savior. (Rom 12:3)
    • The believer in Christ is supposed to grow his faith and exercise it like a muscle to make it strong. How does he do that?
      • He trusts God for little things in his life. Then when the big trials come, his faith is strong.
      • He reads, studies, and hears the Word of God daily because faith grows by the word of God. (Rom 10:17)
  • A person that faints in adverse circumstances either has no faith because he is looking at the circumstances instead of keeping his focus on God, or he has not sufficiently developed his faith.
  • Read Heb 11:6.
  • Withstand the devil, and he will flee from you. Greater is He that is within me, than he that is in the world. (1Joh 4:4)
  • –Build strength in your life by growing your faith.
• ^“If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be slain;” (11)
• ^“If thou sayest, Behold, we knew it not; doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it? and he that keepeth thy soul, doth not he know it? and shall not he render to every man according to his works?” (12)
  • The person “drawn into death” is someone in danger of losing his life.
  • The person that says, “Behold we knew it not” is the person that has the ability and opportunity to do something to save that person, but instead he does nothing and then lies about it. This man will receive the same treatment from God that he has used to treat other people.
  • However, when man repents of these kinds of failures, God will deliver him from the guilt and despair of his failures.
  • God says He will judge “every man according to his works”.
  • In the final judgment of the great white throne at the end of the world, God will judge the non-believer according to his works. (Rev 20:12 Tit 3:5) Why?
    • Man without God thinks that his life is sufficient and presents a good model of right and wrong.
    • However, the Bible teaches us that man’s works before God can never be sufficient to pay for man’s sin or meet God’s standard of holiness.
    • In God’s gift of free will, given to every man, God has let man decide how he will be judged in the final judgment.
  • –Build strength in your life by always doing the right thing guided by the Spirit.
• ^“My son, eat thou honey, because it is good; and the honeycomb, which is sweet to thy taste:” (13)
  • While eating honey is sweet to the taste and may have some health benefits, this proverb is not a command to eat honey.
    • Background:
      • God told the Israelites that He would give them the Promised Land, a land flowing with milk and honey. These two words, milk and honey, refer to the type of agriculture the Promised Land would provide for them.
      • The Promised Land would be good for grazing cattle that would provide milk.
      • The Promised Land would be good for raising fruit trees that would provide sweet, sticky syrup. The word honey can refer to a sweet, sticky syrup from bees or from fruit trees.
    • Read Psa 19:7-11
      • The concepts revealed to us in the book of Proverbs are mentioned in this Psalm as being sweeter than honey and the honeycomb.
      • They are: the Law, the testimony, the statutes, the commandments, the fear of the Lord, and the judgments. There are six of them of which the number of man is 6.
      • All of these concepts are taught in the Word of God for which these terms are other names for God’s Word. When man has all of these, he almost has it perfect. Then, he only needs Jesus Christ, God’s perfection to make the list complete. Remember that Jesus Christ is called the Word in John 1.
  • Therefore, that which is sweeter than honey and the honeycomb is Jesus Christ and all the aspects of the Word of God that promise man God’s abundant blessing through Christ’s blood.
  • –Build strength in your life by eating from the Word of God every day.
• ^“So shall the knowledge of wisdom be unto thy soul: when thou hast found it, then there shall be a reward, and thy expectation shall not be cut off. (14)
  • Key words: knowledge (power to know truth); wisdom (skillful living).
  • This proverb is the whole essence of the book of Proverbs.
  • The power to know the truth about skillful living is necessary for your soul. When you have this basis of the work of the Holy Spirit in your life, you will make correct decisions in life. Then the reward is a successful Christian life.
  • A person’s expectation in other words is “hope”. Only the believer in Christ has the hope of living a successful life on this earth and eventually eternal life with God.
  • –Build strength in your life by searching for truth in every area of life.
• ^“Lay not wait, O wicked man, against the dwelling of the righteous; spoil not his resting place:” (15)
  • Key words: wicked (lawless evil); righteous (pure life).
  • A person that plots evil against a believer and things that God has given to the believer, actually plots against God because God identifies himself with the believer.
  • This proverb reminds us of the Apostle Paul before he became a believer in Jesus Christ. (Acts 9:5)
  • –Build strength in your life by having respect for other believers.
• “For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again: but the wicked shall fall into mischief.” (16)
  • Key words: just (righteous/believer); wicked (lawless evil).
  • Judas Iscariot was a man of mischief, but he did not repent. He did not take advantage of God’s forgiveness.
  • Remember that the number 7 in the Bible is God’s symbolic number for completion or perfection.
  • Therefore, no matter how many times a believer in Christ falls into sin, neglects to do what God wants him to do, or disobeys what God has told him:
    • God will always restore him if he repents and comes back to Christ.
    • However, there are always consequences to pay even though there is forgiveness.
  • –Build strength in your life by continual repentance as the Holy Spirit convicts you of sin.
• “Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth:” (17)
• ^“Lest the Lord see it, and it displease him, and he turn away his wrath from him.” (18)
  • Key words: heart (soul/inner man).
  • Read Mat 5:44
  • Jesus said that we are to pray for our enemies in this age of grace. Even in a period of the Mosaic Law, man was not told to pray for their enemies.
  • However, in these two proverbs during a period of the Mosaic Law, God tells us not to rejoice when our enemies fall because it will displease God.
  • In God’s wisdom He will settle final accounts and judge justly between believers and non-believers.
    • If the believer seeks revenge contrary to God’s instruction, God will not punish the non-believer in a just way because he already suffered the revenge of the believer.
    • God’s justice is best because God knows what a just punishment is.
  • The idea behind verse 18 is that God’s judgment is perfect and just.
  • –Build strength in your life by keeping your eyes on the Lord.

Homework
Proverbs 24:19-34

• Application of Pro 24:1-18
  • What strengths that you find in this lesson have you built into your life in the last year? Be specific!
  • A family is built upon what? (3-4)
    • Through discerning good from evil, a person learns to live skillfully (wisdom) with God.
  • Find a verse that tells you that something is a sin.
    • Envying evil (1)
    • Causing trouble (8)
    • Thinking about living without God and/or hating God. (vs. 9)
    • Not helping others when you can. (11-12)
    • To plot against believers in Christ. (15)
    • Lack of repentance. (16)
    • To rejoice when your enemy has problems. (17-18)
• Preparation for Pro 24:19-34
  • Read Pro 24:19-34
    • Why should you teach your children to fear the Lord and the government leaders? (21)
    • Which should you build first, your business or your house? (27)
    • What can you learn by looking at the field of a slothful man? (30-34)
    • (Advanced question): Which proverb in this section talks about not getting involved in public political demonstrations?
  • Memory verse: Pro 24:23