THE WORLD’S APPEAL TO MAN’S SOUL

RETURN TO SYLLABUS

PROVERBS 23:1-35
Lesson #39
THE WORLD’S APPEAL TO MAN’S SOUL

• Memory Verse: Pro 23:23
• Many of the following verses are out of consecutive order to group them according to themes.
• Eating and Drinking:
• “When thou sittest to eat with a ruler, consider diligently what is before thee.” (1)
• ^“And put a knife to thy throat, if thou be a man given to appetite.” (2)
• “Be not desirous of his dainties: for they are deceitful meat.” (3)
  • Key words: diligently (See diligence = constant care)
  • The idea in verse 1 and verse 3 is to be warned that the wealthy government authority may be seeking to deceive you into participating in evil schemes by giving you promised wealth.
    • The prime example is Daniel as a young man taken captive to Babylon. The king wanted to groom a few young, intelligent men for his purposes.
    • Read Dan 1:8-15
  • The idea in verse 2 is not to let your fleshly appetites rule your life. Keep eating, drinking, and all things in moderation under the control of the Holy Spirit.
• ^“Eat thou not the bread of him that hath an evil eye, neither desire thou his dainty meats.” (6)
• ^“For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he: Eat and drink, saith he to thee; but his heart is not with thee.” (7)
• ^“The morsel which thou hast eaten shalt thou vomit up, and lose thy sweet words” (8)
  • Key words: heart (inner man/soul).
  • Good food and good fellowship go together. It is better not to eat with someone that has an evil intention.
  • Verse 7 points out his evil deception and motive for inviting you to eat with him. Accepting what he offers puts you under obligation to do what he wants you to do.
  • Verse 8 tells us that if we eat with him, we will not feel good about compromising with evil in the end.
• ^“Be not among winebibbers; among riotous eaters of flesh:” (20)
• ^“For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty: and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags.” (21)
  • Key words: winebibbers (alcoholics).
  • In God’s sight alcoholism and gluttony are equally a sin even though society does not recognize them as equal.
    • Why are they equally sins in God’s sight?
    • Both become addictive and give the body power over a person’s life.
• ^“Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes?” (29)
  • The answer to these questions is the alcoholic. These questions all introduce the topic and characteristics of alcoholism.
  • The next six verses deal with this theme.
• ^“They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine.” (30)
• ^“Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright.” (31)
  • Key words: mixed wine (See Mingled wine = wine mixed with water).
  • To “tarry long at the wine” is to be constantly drinking. To “go to seek mixed wine” would not seem so bad because mixed wine is wine that was mixed with water. However, even to constantly drink wine that has been mixed with water will eventually make you drunk if you drink enough of it.
  • Those people who are connoisseurs of wine look at the color, the smell, and the way it moves in the glass.
  • Verse 31 tells us not to be deceived by the glamour, the fun, and the wealth of the liquor industry.
• ^“At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.” (32)
  • The serpent and the snake are both symbols of Satan and his activities.
  • We see that the Satanic snake is small in Genesis when it first appears in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve. But in Revelation it is huge red dragon, having grown in power and influence during all the centuries of man’s history.
  • One of Satan’s greatest activities is alcohol that gives a hangover that bites and stings with death.
• ^“Thine eyes shall behold strange women, and thine heart shall utter perverse things.” (33)
  • Key words: strange woman (prostitute); heart (soul/inner man); perverse (disobedient).
  • Alcoholism and prostitution are often linked together.
  • The alcoholic thinks nothing of getting involved in prostitution.
• ^“Yea, thou shalt be as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea, or as he that lieth upon the top of a mast.” (34)
• ^“They have stricken me, shalt thou say, and I was not sick; they have beaten me, and I felt it not: when shall I awake? I will seek it yet again.” (35)
  • The hangover gives you as much of disorientation as being on board a ship at the top of the mast. The top of the mast is the unstable part of the ship.
  • But when the hangover and subsequent sickness is gone, the alcoholic will go right back to the alcohol.
• Wealth and Poverty:
• ^“Labour not to be rich: cease from thine own wisdom.” (4)
• ^“Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not? for riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away as an eagle toward heaven.” (5)
  • Key words: wisdom (successful living)
  • A person that is working to get rich has a wrong motive. A person should work for a purpose.
    • What is a legitimate purpose?
    • We discussed Christian priorities in our study of Proverbs.
      • A job should be the means by which you supply for your family, for your needs, and to give to God.
      • Any other motive is a wrong priority and puts you on a path to worldly pursuit.
  • The last half of verse 4 tells us that is better to pursue skillful living (wisdom) with the same energy that you pursued riches.
    • The reason is given in verse 5.
    • Riches are temporary and fleeting but God’s wisdom is permanent and eternal.
• Parenting to Produce the Fool or the Wise:
• ^“Speak not in the ears of a fool: for he will despise the wisdom of thy words.” (9)
  • Key words: fool (no God for me); wisdom (skillful living).
  • The fool that wants nothing to do with God will not learn anything from the Christian, not even how to live eternally.
• ^“My son, give me thine heart, and let thine eyes observe my ways.” (26)
  • Key words: heart (inner man/soul).
  • The parent is to model the right path to skillful living just as God, the Father, modeled the path for believers in Jesus Christ.
  • God is speaking to the believer in Christ. The born-again experience is not the end of the Christian’s story but should be the beginning of letting God work with your heart to change you into living the way He wants you to live.
• ^“Hear thou, my son, and be wise, and guide thine heart in the way.” (19)
• ^“The father of the righteous shall greatly rejoice: and he that begetteth a wise child shall have joy of him.” (24)
  • Key words: wise (believer in Christ); heart (inner man/soul); righteous (pure life).
  • A good father will teach his son true wisdom (skillful living) that comes only from God so that his life is guided in the ways of God by the Holy Spirit that lives in the believer in Christ.
  • Remember that only the believer in Christ is righteous through the shed blood of Jesus Christ.
• ^“My son, if thine heart be wise, my heart shall rejoice, even mine.” (15)
  • Key words: heart (inner man/soul); wise (believer in Christ).
  • The parent or teacher that teaches the ways of God and how to live skillfully will rejoice when the student proves in his life that those teachings actually work well.
• ^“Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die.” (13)
• ^“Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell.” (14)
  • Corporal punishment of a child should be done because it is in the best interests of the child. It is not done for punishment but for discipline of correction.
  • God disciplines His believers. Human fathers should do the same because as we grow and learn about God, we relate to a heavenly father in much the same way we related to our own fathers.
  • Therefore human fathers should follow God’s model so that the child learns about giving his heart and life to Jesus Christ and avoids an eternal hell.
• ^“Hearken unto thy father that begat thee, and despise not thy mother when she is old.” (22)
• ^“Thy father and thy mother shall be glad, and she that bare thee shall rejoice.” (25)
  • If a child is punished in love following verse 14, then he will probably fulfill verse 22 and verse 25.
  • Remember that Proverbs are not promises but probabilities.
• Prostitution / False Religion:
• ^“For a whore is a deep ditch; and a strange woman is a narrow pit.” (27)
• ^“She also lieth in wait as for a prey, and increaseth the transgressors among men.” (28)
  • Key words: strange woman (prostitute/false religion); transgressors (lawbreaker).
  • Through the book of Proverbs the strange woman is either identified as a prostitute or as the personification of false religion.
    • The deep ditch and the narrow pit are in parallel in verse 27 which means that with either interpretation, both prostitution and false religions are like deep, narrow pits that deceive, become addictive, and hard to extract yourself from them.
    • Both prostitution and false religions seek new contacts to entice them.
    • Both prostitution and false religions deal in lies and deception.
      • A person lies to cover up his attraction to prostitutes.
      • False religions lie to lead people in the wrong path because they do not have the truth of God
  • The story of Tamar and Judah in Gen 38 and the story of Samson in Judges 14 show us how prostitutes will betray and deceive easily.
• Sin:
• ^“Let not thine heart envy sinners: but be thou in the fear of the Lord all the day long.” (17)
  • Key words: fear of the Lord (awesome reverence).
  • The lifestyle of sin may seem glamorous and attractive at first because Satan appears as an angel of light.
    • However, the things of the world never satisfy in the end. Why?
    • The things of the world are addictive that require more and more stimulation to satisfy the flesh nature.
  • None of the things of the world can fill the void in the spirit of man. Therefore man remains unsatisfied when worldly things appeal only to the soul of man and never to the spirit.
• ^“For surely there is an end; and thine expectation shall not be cut off.” (18)
  • There is an end to everything in this world whether good or bad, right or wrong, evil or godly.
  • For the believer in Jesus Christ, his expectation is eternity with God. He shall not be cut off by the second death.
    • The non-believer will be “cut off” which means he will suffer the second death.
    • The first death is physical death of which believers and non-believers suffer.
    • However, the second death is eternal death and separation from the presence of God for eternity. (Rev 20:16)
• Doing Right Things:
• ^“Remove not the old landmark; and enter not into the fields of the fatherless:” (10)
  • In a previous lesson in Proverbs we learned that the old landmarks are the basic precepts on which Christianity was founded. We are to maintain the truth of the apostolic doctrine set down by the original apostles. (like the virgin birth; death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, etc.)
  • Who are the fatherless?
    • There are people that say all humans are children of God and that God is the Father of us all.
    • That is not the Biblical teaching that tells us that only believers in Jesus Christ can call God, “our Father”. Only believers in Christ have a spiritual Father.
    • Therefore, the fatherless are the non-believers.
• ^“Apply thine heart unto instruction, and thine ears to the words of knowledge.” (12)
  • Key words: heart (inner man/soul); instruction (moral discipline for discernment); knowledge (power to know truth).
  • The believer in Christ will listen in his heart to God’s moral discipline. In turn, God will give that believer discernment to understand God’s truth by means of the indwelling Holy Spirit.
• ^“Yea, my reins shall rejoice, when thy lips speak right things.” (16)
  • Key words: reins (See Heart = inner man/soul).
  • When the believer’s lips speak the right things, his inner being will rejoice because he will know he is on the right path.
  • Why will the believer have this gut feeling when other proverbs tell us we cannot trust our own understanding?
  • The fact that the Holy Spirit is living inside of the believer gives him that strong confirmation.
• ^“Buy the truth, and sell it not; also wisdom, and instruction, and understanding.” (23)
  • Key words; wisdom (skillful living); instruction (moral discipline for discernment); understanding (discernment of good from evil).
  • How does a person “buy the truth?”
    • Of course the gospel of salvation is free. But a person that wants truth must invests every effort to learn God’s truth because truth is eternal. His truth is in the Bible.
    • The person that studies the Word of God will not be easily talked out of his Christian belief in the person and power of Jesus Christ because of the eternal nature of what he believes built deep within him.
    • Take advantage of learning from God’s moral discipline in your life because you will end up with discernment of good from evil. (1Cor 1:30)
• The Answer:
• ^“For their redeemer is mighty; he shall plead their cause with thee.” (11)
  • The redeemer in the Old Testament was closest member of the family that came to a person’s rescue if he fell on hard times, lost his property, or a family member was murdered.
  • Jesus Christ became our redeemer to fulfill all these needs of protection and provision for God’s people.
  • Jesus Christ is the only answer to all the world’s glamorous deceptions that trap man into a life of sin that ends in eternal death.

Homework
Proverbs 24:1-18

• Application of Pro 23
  • For what should a person with a job not be working toward? Why? (4-5)
    • He should not be working for money because riches are temporary. It is the wrong motive.
  • Then, for what should a person with a job be working toward?
    • He should be working to supply for the needs of his family and to give to God.
  • Find a verse that refers to Jesus Christ.
    • Verse 11 refers to Jesus Christ, our redeemer.
  • Using your Proverbs Dictionary, explain how to accomplish the memory verse.
    • The believer must invest every effort to learn God’s truth because truth is eternal. His truth is in the Bible. It gives us God’s plan to live skillfully, discernment of truth, and the discernment between good and evil.
• Preparation for Pro 24:1-18
  • Read Pro 24:1-18
    • A family is built upon what? (3-4)
    • Find a verse that tells you that something is a sin.
    • Which of the proverbs in this section is your favorite? Why?
• Memory verse: Pro 24:3