Proverbs 10

CHAPTER 10

Proverbs 10:1

PROVERBS OF SOLOMON, WRITTEN AND SET IN ORDER BY HIMSELFThis begins the second major division of the Book of Proverbs. Here we see that the young student is given some guidelines for his life. These are lessons that you and I also are to learn in the school of Christ. “A wise son maketh a glad father.” Have you ever noticed that when a father has a son who has gone to school and made good grades or been outstanding as an athlete or in some other accomplishment, the old man goes around and brags about his son and tells everyone about him? “My boy has his Ph.D. and is teaching in college.” “My boy is on the football team.” But suppose the boy failed or didn’t make the team. Then the father becomes very quiet and doesn’t say anything about him at all. He just keeps his mouth shut. “But a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother.” It is the mother who grieves at a time like that. The father just keeps quiet about it and ignores it. What a picture of life this is! A boy can be a wise son or a foolish soneither one.

Proverbs 10:2

“Treasures of wickedness profit nothing"men who have accumulated a great fortune have had to leave it here. They couldn’t take it with them, and they never really enjoyed it while they were alive. “Righteousness delivereth from death.” Christ has been made unto us not only wisdom but righteousness. And “… whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (Joh_3:16).

Proverbs 10:3

You will remember that I have mentioned that I think there is a proverb for everyone, and a proverb that fits certain characters in the Bible. When we remember that “The LORD will not suffer the soul of the righteous to famish,” we think of Joseph. He was sold into Egypt and must have felt that he had come to the end and that God seemed far away. Yet he had faith in God. We know that God did not forsake him. God so arranged it that eventually he was brought out of prison and was made the prime minister of the land of Egypt.

Proverbs 10:4

What a difference there is in people. Some wonderful Christians are so generous, and others are so stingy! It is interesting that the tight individual has that kind of lifehe seems uptight all the time. By contrast, the generous man has a full life. Don’t you think this verse would fit Abraham? He was a generous man. He told his nephew Lot, “Take any part of the land you want, and I’ll take what is left.” It is a very generous man who will divide real estate like that! Abraham had the right to do the choosing. He certainly knew that the choice land was the well-watered plain of Jordan. Lot must have thought Abraham was very foolish not to move down there, but since Abraham had given Lot the opportunity to choose, he chose the rich land down there in the plain. With a very slack hand, very selfishly, he chose the best for himself; but, in the end, he lost everything. “But the hand of the diligent maketh rich.” There are two words that won’t go together in the Bible: faith and laziness will not mingle. A lazy Christian is not a Christian with real faith in God. The one who is diligent is the one who will work, the one who will labor. This reminds me also of the apostle Paul. When the Lord called him, He certainly did not get a lazy individual.

Proverbs 10:5

Here is another proverb of contrast. The boy who is called “wise” is the one who works in the summer. The lazy boy is the one who sleeps during the time of harvest. He is not the one who is going to get the job done. My young Christian friend, you need to recognize that God wants to train you and school you. When I was young, I was the pastor in a little church. I wasn’t satisfied; I wanted to do more for God than I was doing there. I have a wonderful wife who encouraged me to finish working on my doctor’s degree and devote time to studying the Bible. I was redeeming the time; I took advantage of that period. How I thank God for it!

After I became very busy pastoring a large church and carrying a radio and conference ministry, someone asked me, “You are so busy all the time, when are you able to do your preparation?” Well, back in a little town in Texas I had five years, and I spent that time studying. And the day came when God enabled me to use that preparation. I would say to any young person today who wants to be used of God: begin to prepare yourself. Remember that “he that gathereth in summer is a wise son.” These statements in the Book of Proverbs are tremendous, eternal truths. They are truths not to send you soaring into the heavenly places, but to equip you for the sidewalks of your own town. If they are not working for you, there is nothing wrong with them, but there is something wrong with you.

Proverbs 10:6

What a picture we have here of two men in the Old Testament. “Blessings are upon the head of the just” reminds me of Samuel. “But violence covereth the mouth of the wicked (lawless)” reminds me of Saul.

Proverbs 10:7

I think of this in connection with certain individuals who a few years ago were famous, but today they are fading out. I am of the opinion that men of this generation will be forgotten in the next fifty years. Yet the memory of men such as Dwight L. Moody, who accomplished something for God, lives on.

Proverbs 10:8

“Prating” is literally word-mouthinghe is the one who is always talking. He is wise in his own conceit. By contrast, the wise in heart will receive commandments. Remember there was a king by the name of Nebuchadnezzar who listened to the counsel of Daniel and prospered. There was another king by the name of Belshazzar. He was a fool. A royal banquet one night marked the end of him and his kingdom (Dan. 5).

Proverbs 10:9

This is expressed in our proverb today: Honesty is the best policy.

Proverbs 10:10

Here is something that is quite interesting. The eye and the mouth shall be in agreement. When you see a man say something and wink, it means he doesn’t mean what he said. His mouth and his mind are not in agreement. When they are not in agreement, it will cause a great deal of sorrow. Whom does this verse fit? How about Judas? The kiss of Judas certainly was a kiss of betrayal. The kiss is meant to denote affection, but it certainly didn’t mean that for him.

Proverbs 10:13

The whole world came to hear the wisdom of Solomon, but “a rod is for the back of him that is void of understanding” characterizes his son Rehoboam. He would not listen to the advice of the wise old men; he listened to the young men who had grown up with him (1 Kings 12). As a result, he brought division and civil war to his nation.

Proverbs 10:14

All the time the wise man is gathering up knowledge, the foolish man has one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel.

Proverbs 10:16

This proverb makes me think of Cain and Abel. “The labour of the righteous tendeth to life.” Abel raised sheep, and he brought a little lamb for his sacrifice. “The fruit of the wicked (the produce of the lawless) to sin.” That was Cainin rebellion he brought the fruit of the ground. The apostle Paul expressed it this way in Rom_8:6: “For to be carnally minded is death …“and this is directed to the Christian. “Death” for him means separation from God in the way of fellowship. God is not going to fellowship with a carnally-minded person. When the proverb says “the labour of the righteous tendeth to life,” it is fellowship with God. Abel was a saved man. “The fruit of the wicked (lawless) to sin” characterized Cain.

Proverbs 10:17

This would apply to Absalom, David’s son. He wouldn’t accept reproof. He made a big mistake in attempting to seize the kingdom from his father.

Proverbs 10:18

What a terrible thing it is to have someone pretend to be your friend and later you discover that he is really your enemy. That person is actually a fool. You catch on to him after a while. Anyone who slanders is also a fool. God had given a specific commandment regarding this. “Thou shalt not go up and down as a talebearer among thy people …” (Lev_19:16). It goes on. “Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him” (Lev_19:17). Don’t flatter a man when you actually hate him, but neither are you to slander the man. This describes a man in Scripture. Remember that Joab pretended to be a friend to Abner. He lured him out of the city, and then he killed him.

Proverbs 10:21

I think again of Samuel, the great judge of Israel, in contrast to Saul, the king who played the fool.

Proverbs 10:22

There are those who live in pleasure and think they are living it up. But as they get closer to the end, they find life unbearable. I watched a banquet, a political affair, that was televised. All who attended the banquet were rich, and they were there for the purpose of supporting the party with a contribution. The thing I noticed was that there wasn’t a happy face in the crowd. The camera panned the entire audience. I thought, My, here they are at a banquet and jokes are being told, but I don’t see a single happy face. “The blessing of the LORD, it maketh rich, and he addeth no sorrow with it.” The contemporary Christian by his indifference to moral and doctrinal wrong, and by his laxness in his way of living, is missing a great deal that God has for him.

Proverbs 10:23

This is good advice to the young man!

Proverbs 10:26

Did you ever send a lazy boy on an errand, and then you stand first on one foot and then on the other waiting for him? That’s just like “vinegar to the teeth, and as smoke to the eyes.”

Proverbs 10:27

This certainly was true in Old Testament days. God promised long days to those who obeyed Him. Perhaps you are thinking, Doesn’t He promise that today? No, He promises us eternal life. That will be a better quality of life as well as quantity.

Proverbs 10:30

Let’s look at history with that in view. All of the great world leaders, the kings and the captains, have disappeared. The pharaohs, the Caesars, Alexander the Great, Napoleonthey are all gone. “The wicked shall not inhabit the earth.” Neither will communism prevail and, interestingly enough, neither will democracy, because God has a form of government that is to be a monarchy. There will be no dictatorship equal to the dictatorship of Jesus Christ when He takes over the rulership of this earth. And “the righteous shall never be removed.”