Posted on 10/26/2019 7:45:12 AM PDT by Pilgrim's Progress
“Where no wood is, there the fire goeth out: so where there is no talebearer, the strife ceaseth. As coals are to burning coals, and wood to fire; so is a contentious man to kindle strife” (Proverbs 26:20-21).
Verses 20 and 21 go together. What do you need to say about verse 20? You want to know where half the problems you have get started? People talk about one person’s problems to other people. They like to gossip. “Did you hear the latest news?” You are always going to have some problems, but most of them will just go away with everybody will just shut their mouths and stop spreading stories around.
If everybody will just shut up and pray about it, and if you have a problem with somebody, just go to them and don't tell the secret to anybody else. Go to him with the problem, and it will usually get ironed out. Some folks are just fire stokers. They are just stoking the fire in the furnace, and the hotter it gets the better they like it.
You know what they like to do? They like to stir up a lot of trouble and just back off and watch it. To them it is fun and games. It is cheap entertainment. It can cause a tremendous amount of trouble.
“Wisdom is better than weapons of war: but one sinner destroyeth much good” (Ecclesiastes 9:18).
“As coals are to burning coals, and wood to fire; so is a contentious man to kindle strife.” (Proverbs 26:21).
This speaks about the troublemaker. The Scribes and Pharisees, when they dealt with Jesus and Paul; what they did was they would go around behind their back and they would stir up the people against them. That was adding wood to the fire. It was hard enough to watch the things that Jesus and Paul preached that put people under conviction. If the Scribes and the Pharisees would let that thing go, the Holy Spirit would have worked salvation in those lives, but what happened was those Scribes and Pharisees went out and stirred the people against the Lord, and a lot of people that were for him.
I mean, do you realize that when Jesus Christ came into Jerusalem, they were saying “hosanna! Hosanna! Hosanna! to the King” and four or five days later they are hollering, “kill Him! kill Him! kill Him!” How could that happen? The Scribes and Pharisees. They said, “Well, He did this, He said that he was going to destroy the temple in three days, and He is against the Jews, and he's a revolutionary, and so forth. They turned the people against Him and told a bunch of lies and said contentious stuff. They were troublemakers and talebearers.
Let’s read a chapter of Proverbs a day and see what God might have for us. As the Lord leads, share with us what God has shown you in a special way and by His grace let us build up a devotional repository. Let’s keep our knives and forks handy for some daily bread!
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