Posted on 05/23/2017 8:27:27 AM PDT by OneVike
Listen to Your Father
01 When you sit down to eat with a ruler,
00 Consider carefully what is before you;
02 And put a knife to your throat
00 If you are a man given to appetite.
03 Do not desire his delicacies,
00 For they are deceptive food.
04 Do not overwork to be rich;
00 Because of your own understanding, cease!
05 Will you set your eyes on that which is not?
00 For riches certainly make themselves wings;
00 They fly away like an eagle toward heaven.
06 Do not eat the bread of a miser,
00 Nor desire his delicacies;
07 For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.
00 "Eat and drink!" he says to you,
00 But his heart is not with you.
08 The morsel you have eaten, you will vomit up,
00 And waste your pleasant words.
09 Do not speak in the hearing of a fool,
00 For he will despise the wisdom of your words.
10 Do not remove the ancient landmark,
00 Nor enter the fields of the fatherless;
11 For their Redeemer is mighty;
00 He will plead their cause against you.
12 Apply your heart to instruction,
00 And your ears to words of knowledge.
13 Do not withhold correction from a child,
00 For if you beat him with a rod, he will not die.
14 You shall beat him with a rod,
00 And deliver his soul from hell.
15 My son, if your heart is wise,
00 My heart will rejoice--indeed, I myself;
16 Yes, my inmost being will rejoice
00 When your lips speak right things.
17 Do not let your heart envy sinners,
00 But be zealous for the fear of the LORD all the day;
18 For surely there is a hereafter,
00 And your hope will not be cut off.
19 Hear, my son, and be wise;
00 And guide your heart in the way.
20 Do not mix with winebibbers,
00 Or with gluttonous eaters of meat;
21 For the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty,
00 And drowsiness will clothe a man with rags.
22 Listen to your father who begot you,
00 And do not despise your mother when she is old.
23 Buy the truth, and do not sell it,
00 Also wisdom and instruction and understanding.
24 The father of the righteous will greatly rejoice,
00 And he who begets a wise child will delight in him.
25 Let your father and your mother be glad,
00 And let her who bore you rejoice.
26 My son, give me your heart,
00 And let your eyes observe my ways.
27 And a seductress is a narrow well.
00 And your destruction comes like a whirlwind,
28 She also lies in wait as for a victim,
00 And increases the unfaithful among men.
29 Who has woe?
00 Who has sorrow?
00 Who has contentions?
00 Who has complaints?
00 Who has wounds without cause?
00 Who has redness of eyes?
30 Those who linger long at the wine,
00 Those who go in search of mixed wine.
31 Do not look on the wine when it is red,
00 When it sparkles in the cup,
00 When it swirls around smoothly;
32 At the last it bites like a serpent,
00 And stings like a viper.
33 Your eyes will see strange things,
00 And your heart will utter perverse things.
34 Yes, you will be like one who lies down in the midst of the sea,
00 Or like one who lies at the top of the mast, saying:
35 "They have struck me, but I was not hurt;
00 They have beaten me, but I did not feel it.
00 When shall I awake, that I may seek another drink?"
The purpose of Writing the book of Proverbs was to reveal the mind of God in matters high and lofty and in common, ordinary, everyday situations. It appears that no topic escaped King Solomon's attention. Matters pertaining to personal conduct, sexual relations, business, wealth, charity, ambition, discipline, debt, child-rearing, character, alcohol, politics, revenge, and Godliness are among the many topics covered in this rich collection of wise sayings.
Without wisdom, knowledge is nothing more than an accumulation of raw facts, influenced by emotional feelings. Many highly educated people are in positions of power in the United States, but very few of those educated leaders have the wisdom needed to rule properly.
One can say that they have been educated well beyond their intelligence. A cursory look at the court system will prove my point that knowledge without wisdom will only lead to an immoral society that eventually crumbles from within. Judges are supposed to be above the fray, and immovable to emotions. Instead, the vast majority of judges today are Godless individuals who are vacant of wisdom. So their rulings are totally based upon emotional feelings.
We the people are to blame, because we ignored God's guidance in appointing our leaders. Instead of putting leaders full wisdom in power, we instead chose those who would scratch our itchy ears to lead us.
Of the 31 Proverbs, only the first 24 were written by Solomon. King Hezekiah wrote 5, Proverbs 25 to 29, Agur wrote Proverb 30, and Lemuel wrote Proverb 31. Now many believe Lemuel was in fact King Solomon and Lemuel was just a nick name his Mother, Bathsheba gave him. We are told that Solomon write over 3000 Proverbs and composed 1000 songs, but the only Proverbs God decided to preserve for us are Proverbs 1-24. Like the New Testament epistle by James, it is impossible to get a chronological outline for a study since they all bounce from subject to subject.
Along with my daily routine of reading the Bible, I try to read through the book of Proverbs once a Month. It's an easy task when you consider there are 31 Proverbs. So all you need to know is what day of the Month it is. In the Months that have 30 days, or in the case of February, I just double up by reading more than one two proverb so I can begin the next month with Proverb 1 on the first again.
17 Do not let your heart envy sinners,Charles Spurgeon on the cure for envy
00 But be zealous for the fear of the LORD all the day;
The cure for envy lies in living under a constant sense of the Divine presence, worshipping God and communing with Him all the day long, however long the day may seem. True religion lifts the soul into a higher region, where the judgment becomes more clear, and the desires are more elevated. The more of heaven there is in our lives, the less of earth we shall covet. The fear of God casts out the envy of men. The death-blow of envy is a calm consideration of the future. The wealth and glory of the ungodly are a vain show. This pompous appearance flashes out for an hour, and then is extinguished. What is the prosperous sinner the better for his prosperity when judgment overtakes him? As for the godly man, his end is peace and blessedness, and none can rob him of his joy; wherefore, let him forego envy, and be filled with sweet content.
The nature and advantages of the fear of the Lord
Scarcely anything has a more immediate influence upon our duty or comfort than the due government of our passions. Hence the wise and virtuous, in all ages, have employed themselves in forming rules for their regulation. But it is found more easy to prescribe, than to reduce these rules to practice. The religion of Jesus provides the assistance requisite to enable us to comply with rules.
I. What is it to be in the fear of the Lord all the day long? Fear is a passion of the human mind, and stands opposed to hope. It always has for its object some evil, real or supposed. Here its object is the evil and danger of sinning against God, and the just displeasure of God, in consequence of offending Him. To fear these is to fear the Lord in the best sense of the phrase. We should live under the habitual influence of this holy temper, and carry it with us into all the duties of the religious and social life.
II. Why should we study to be in the fear of the Lord all the day long?
1. It is an excellent guard against the commission of sin. The man cannot knowingly and deliberately sin against God who has a suitable sense of His being, perfections, character and government.
2. It really assists us in the right performance of duty. It greatly tends to invigorate the graces of the Spirit in the soul, and to call them forth into lively exercise.
3. It excites us to the important duty of watchfulness, and greatly assists us therein.
4. God recommends this duty to our study and practice, by His Divine authority.
God bless each and everyone of you and my Prayers for the families of those murdered and those injured in Manchester terror attack.
Proverbs all have the quality of being implicitly prefaced with “There is a time when.” If wisdom is not exercised in determining that time, we have a “Proverb in the mouth of a fool” situation.
The grace of God overall is why the first sin brought death but not necessarily hell — a state of affairs that would depend upon acceptance or rejection of salvation.
One large problem in many Old Testament contexts is the rendering of Sheol as “hell.” Sheol is the realm of the souls of the dead, in Old Testament times embracing both those destined for salvation and those not. Accepting the use of the term Sheol as such puts a different point of view on the verses.
Thank you for your timely devotion. Amen.
**Yes, my inmost being will rejoice
When your lips speak right things. **
If someone starts to gossip in a group I am in, I instantly go silent. Sometimes if the conversation does not cease I am forced to leave abruptly.
I understand, and I have notified the moderators that they need to do their job because. Will not tolerate any disruption by those who only want to argue on my Proverb A Day threads
Yes it does a d that is why I love the NKJV and the NASB, they both do a great job of translating which way the word was meant to be understood.
Something the old KIng James and the old American Standard failed to do
You are most welcome
Truth be told, my biggest task in posting them everyday is finding the right image to go with the particular Proveb I desire to highlight. Today it took almost an hour just to get the image right.
The rest was completed almost an hour before I finally posted it.
I used to just post the Proverb, but that just meant I posted the same thing every Month for that day. Now I make each Proverb different than the one I did for that day in the previous Months.
Eventually I hope to have an in depth commentary for the whole book of Proverbs. That will take a minimum of about 30 Months, or 2 1/2 to 3 years
************
I wish I could tell y'all how many times I have chosen at dinners to be the last seated, how many delightful dinner companions were in the company surrounding that last place.
In one case, it happened that at my left hand was a Marine veteran of the 1st Marine Raider Battalion who had come 500 miles for the banquet. He was engaged in the battle on Guadalcanal for the "Bloody Ridge," otherwise known as "Edson's Ridge" in which he and literally a handful of heroes who turned back the advance of the Japanese pacific islands advance.
What a blessing of remembering the beginning of the victories of our Always Faithful Corps in the Pacific Theater of Operations. "Bloody Ridge" was the end of the beginning, and the beginning of the end of World War Two.
While I was singing "Mairzie Doats" and "God Bless America" at the beginning of each first grade school day, this man was battling for his Ciorps, his country, and my privilege to freely sing these songs.
Thanks for sharing that with us. It is quite an honor to be there for sure. A much better honor to be at a table with men like him than one with the rulers of the world who created the situation for the war they fought so hard to win.
Back in my wayward years, I was a private in the army, stationed in Germany. It was 1974, and I was young and foolish. Many of the service men I met were soldiers who returned from Nam after we bailed on them. Similar to how Obama bailed on Iraq as you know I’m sure.
It was as if the military used Germany as a halfway house the men who still had time left on their deployment, but were not ready to return to the states. I never met a more wayward bunch of men who cared nothing for rules and less about their own future. Many were drug addicts, and being only 17 myself, that made it easy for me to get caught up in the culture.
Well a friend and me went to Amsterdam to buy Hashish to make money off all the servicemen willing to buy it. A crime that would give us a one way ticket back to the states, but not home. No, it was a 10 year sentence back then, so my destination would be Leavenworth we were caught.
Well the guys we hired to carry the drugs across the Amsterdam German border were caught, and we lost all our money, but we were mostly worried they would name us as their cohorts, so instead of taking the chance at prison we went AWOL.
They never did finger us, but we would not know for a few Months when we returned.
We ended up going to Southern France,thinking a great place to be would be Marseilles on the coast. On our way we went through many villages and towns as we hitchhiked. One day we decided to stop at a village called Puget-Ville, and find a pub to have a few drinks with what money we had left. While downing a warm beer an older Frenchman who spoke impeccable English struck up a conversation with us. His name was Pier Camous, and we learned he owned a good sized vineyard. In the few hours of our conversation we also learned that during WWII he was a member of the French Underground.
Well we told him we were broke after we downed our beer, and he started buying us shots of Schnapps. He asked if we were willing to pick grapes since it was that time of the season and we agreed. We followed him home, and he loaned us a tent and things so that we could stay inside his private garden area. He even told us we could eat anything we wanted. He also had his wife making us lunch ever day, and even invited us to have dinner with him and his family a few days a week.
It took like two weeks to pick all the grapes. We were just two of about 30 workers, so while he had a large vineyard it did go fairly quick.
The stories he told us about the war during dinner, the friendship we gained, and his daughters whom as young men we especially liked made it a memorable time in my life. We even learned that he lost his only son in Vietnam.
He was the first person to inform us about the truth behind the United States being involved in the war via the events of the Gulf of Tonkin. Because of his status from WWII, he had friends in high places that he learned things from the most of the world was still unaware of as of yet.
Anyway, I keep those memories in my heart to this day. Oh, as for the times we spent with his beautiful daughters, it was all decent and respectful in the way we acted towards them and the way they acted like ladies.
We eventually returned to Germany, got court Martialed for being AWOL, Dropped From Roles. That’s a story for another time. I mean as to what all that transpired with us came about from us turning our selves in to France officials which became quite the international incident.
I did keep my nose clean and grew up fast. Eventually I got the honorable discharge I was promised. I finished my punishment, and fulfilled my time I duty and even had a chance to re-in-list, buy refused.
My second chance was all due to a deal my Captain worked out for me and Mike. I think he felt sorry for two young men whom he felt were extremely corrupted by the older men around us. He believed, that if given a second chance, we would do good. Well I did, Mike ended up corrupted for life. The last I ever heard from him he was in late 1987, when I heard he was heading to prison in Texas for drug trafficking.
The meals with Pierre Camous were better than any meal I could have had with a King.
09 Do not speak in the hearing of a fool,
00 For he will despise the wisdom of your words.
Especially true in social media. ;)
Blessings for the post.
But I guess we each have a story to write--in a lot of cases how unwise we spent some of our lives.
I hope it is different for you now. Proverbs is a great book, and this chaptee is one I often use.
Most particularly, few people understand what verse 31 comprises:
"Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright" (Prov. 23:31 AV).
As you will remember from your days in the vineyard, freshly pressed grape juice of the dark kind is purple. And it stays that way if it is kept from fermenting. Your Welch's juice from concentrate is purple.
But the juice when it ferments becomes red. I believe that is why The Holy Spirit tells us not even to look on red wine, let alone drink it. A drunkard is not a spiritual man. The spiritual man, without a PhD in physical chemistry to explain why, simply sees that the grape juice is purple and drinks all he wants without getting drunk.
But on the other hand, if he sees it is red says to himself, "God says not to even look at it with yearning. So I'm not drinking that stuff."
FRiend, that man is both spiritual and wise. I have the degree, and have the knowledge to tell you why these effects happen, but that doesn't make me spiritual or wise, does it?
But the spiritual man reads God's Word, obeys it, and shows his wisdom by his obedience.
Yes, my life is much different, but it took more lessons than the ones I learned on that trip to wake me up.
For too many years I continued to kicking against goads.
I have been told to write a book about my early years. maybe one day I will.
Born of rape, loved by my family anyway, but watched my father go to prison, and became a drop out of the 9th grade. Signed over to the carnival at 16 by my Mom, because the military told her I was too young. So instead I joined at 17 after a year of traveling around Canada and the US as a Midway Barker for the Thomas Shows.
Hitchhiked the distance of America from coast to coast and border to border looking for something I refused to see was right before me. Married twice before I settled down with my third wife who was left in a wheelchair while we were still dating from a 35 foot trip off a cliff. It was a drinking road trip on a country road in Montana. We were in the back seat as passengers of a car that killed the driver.
I have more stories to tell than I remember, but none have been so sweet nor as fulfilling as the one I began the day I found the One I was running from for so many years. Christ Jesus.
Writing a book about past life might be difficult—there’s things I don’t want to see in daylight ever again. But I’ll bet yours would be quite colorful, eh?
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