Proverbs Study – Lesson 40 (Proverbs chapter 27:19-27)
V. 19 When looking at your face in the mirror things are revealed that you were not aware of. Before looking you thought everything was alright. You have a smudge on your face. Your hair is out of place. You look tired. You have bags under your eyes. Or, YOU LOOK MARVELOUS, affirming what you already believed to be true! The same goes for the heart. Man’s heart answers to man’s heart if we let it and take a look. The heart is like a mirror if we are brave enough to honestly take a look at it. Avoiding taking a look at the heart keeps us in the dark on what’s happening in our life not letting you make adjustments in your thoughts, attitudes, values and appearance making your heart and you look marvelous. You can avoid looking at your face not realizing that there is egg on it if you want to, but the reaction from others will tell you that something is wrong. Avoiding looking at the mirror does not fix the problem. It only leaves you wondering what is wrong. A wise person is not afraid to check in with their heart to see if things are ok. Prov. 4:23 acknowledges to ‘keep your heart with all diligence’ just as we are encouraged to keep our appearance. We frequently look in the mirror checking our appearance. So too we must routinely check our heart. In checking in with our heart it is good to remember that even our heart can deceive us. But, if we are honest with ourselves and not afraid of seeing things that may need to be spruced up a look at the heart with some regularity can keep us looking marvelous.
V. 20 There are some things that are never full or never satisfied. It seems like the ocean is never totally full. There is always room for a little more water in it. Solomon also made the observation that it seems that death is also never full either. He observed that no matter how many people die that there is always room for one more. He saw the same for destruction that as bad as it can be it seemed to him that there was always room for more. So too he noticed the same for the heart of man. Filling the reservoir of the heart concerning want seems bottomless. It is amazing how much such a little organ can hold. It seems endless. When you look at man and at the human race in general we too have to wonder and marvel at the seemingly endless ability of the heart to hold so much. It seems that just after filling our heart full of some thing or some experience that we no more let the paint dry so to speak than we begin again to want more or to do or have something else cramming in a little more…being surprise that yes there is more room and surprise of surprise when we are done with that there is still more room to put something else. I think that his point is not that we should go ahead and keep filling the heart to see where its max is, trying to find its limit, but in reality that we might slow down or stop our race to fill the heart warning us that like death and Hades our heart will never be satisfied no matter how much we put in it. A full heart is not a happy heart, but in v. 19 he tells us that a well maintained heart is.
V. 21 Some things are meant to refine or draw the better or best out of us. It is meant as a catalyst, a stepping stone or process to better things. When the process is applied and begins to work through its steps the quality of the material being processed begins to come forth and be seen for what it really is. For silver and for gold there is a process that is applied involving heat that is meant to draw out the impurities revealing the true character and quality of the inherent silver or gold. The process including the heat applied has really two purposes. The first is to refine the material that is being refined and the second is to actually reveal the underlying quality of the material being refined. The true quality of the material cannot truly be known until tested. When the heat of the fire is applied to silver or gold it won’t be long before you know what you really have. So too the true quality and character of an individual are revealed by certain things…praise being one of them. When praise is given to an individual their response reveals a lot about the hidden qualities or character of the person,…or the lack thereof. Praise given to a person of lesser character will often be met with a response of pride and arrogance taking full credit for the compliment whereas praise given to a mature believer will be met with appreciation, humility and honesty giving credit where credit is due acknowledging God first and others as their reason and source for their abilities.
V. 22 What do you do with someone who will not listen to advice? Many of the hard parts of life seem to have at least the parallel purpose of separating out the parts of us or our world allowing us the opportunity to get rid of or change or refine those things that are not beneficial to our life and embrace, enhance or perfect those areas that make life better for us and others. It seems that after tasting or experiencing life for years that we can look back and see that the harder or more difficult times of life seemed to have some of the most dramatic influence on us initiating and at times actually forcing us to make changes that were absolutely necessary. These are changes that if we were honest we would not have been able or willing to make without the introduction of the trouble into our life.
But, here in this verse, Solomon’s wisdom tells us that that is not how it is for some. Many are tempered by the difficulties of life. But, he says that a fool is unaffected by any of this. He says that a fool does not listen when life speaks or is attempting to teach. He gives the impression that for most of us when we at first do not listen to good advice through the University of Hard knocks’ that life eventually has a way of turning up the heat or intensifying the training pressing the point or lesson harder eventually causing the chemical reaction of giving in and changing forcing us to give up and receive the wisdom that is presented. He tells us that the true fool, however, even when pressed hard does not learn or adopt wisdom making a change. Solomon creates an apt picture saying that you can even crush a fool hard as grinding into mortar attempting to teach him something and that you are wasting your time. Often we have the picture that a fool, however, is some silly never amounting to nothing or is a nobody which is often true. But, here I think that Solomon is also referring too many of us in those times of our life when we are extremely stubborn when we have made a decision and have decided to ‘die by it’. Solomon would say ‘How foolish’ to hold onto an impulsive or bad decision when you realize its error or untruth admitting that we may have been wrong. In deciding to hold onto our folly at all costs Solomon would say that we put ourselves in the category of a fool receiving life’s hard lessons again and again being un-teachable by life’s lessons.
V. 23-4 Things don’t always stay the same. You work hard. You plan and toil. You scrimp and save and prudently and patiently move in life toward a better day, making headway. Life begins to improve. You are finally, after much toil and sacrifice, getting somewhere. You begin to think ‘ah..I can finally take it easy’. Solomon says ‘Not so Fast!’. It is not that easy. He tells us that in this life we can never kick back and relax completely. There has never been a man who has made or had so much that they ‘had not a care in the world’. He tells us that we do well to always manage and maintain those things that we are given, attending to the things of this world that are inherently attached to what we have. He says that if we do not that those things that we have worked so hard for, that make life better and we enjoy so much, will slowly lose their value tarnishing and will eventually disappear. Flocks that with a little attention and oversight tend to continue to gain and increase will dissipate and diminish into nothingness with no oversight. He makes the point in v. 24 that the crown does not necessarily get passed to the next generation as it should. It seems that the forces of this world are sent to make sure that that does not happen. Things tend to fall apart without oversight and at least some attention. It is only with oversight and intention that the next generation sees the king’s family carry on the family traditions.
In verses 25,26 and 27 he reminds us of the practical aspects of attending to the basic necessities of life. In doing so, life will pay off BIG in the things that matter most in life allowing us to enjoy its simple pleasures. In v. 25 he reminds us to attend or give attention to things in their season which have attached to them their own blessing and their own benefit. If we do not ‘make hay while the sun shines’ so to speak we forfeit not only the opportunity which will not always be there, but we also forfeit the result or payoff. Solomon says that it is the payoff of opportunity, realizing that opportunity and taking advantage of it, that ‘pays the bills’ of this world so to speak making life good instead of a burden. Missed opportunities often never present again or can put us ‘behind the 8 ball’ forcing us to take the utilitarian approach to life of making a living just to pay the bills.
In these 3 verses he paints the picture of the serene pleasantness of this approach to life. Things are done in their season. There is a time for this and a place for that. It is not mindless repetition, but pleasant expectation. He points out that God laid it out this way unfolding the seasons before us making life and its choirs and activities good. In v. 25 he says that first the hay appears. Right after this provision the tender grass appears providing the next thing that can be stored or used as needed. Then, he says next comes the herbs in the mountains that will need to be gathered allowing us not only practical benefits to picking and gathering them, but allowing for forays into pastures and hills that are pleasant and refreshing. Respecting God and the way that He laid out His creation and working with it makes work pleasant instead of drudgery, and comes with His blessing. It allows us to look forward to a season instead of dreading its coming. In doing so there is an aspect of worship for the Creator and His work. He seems to be quite ‘poetic’ in his expression here, and yet notice his extremely practical approach mentioning the practical benefits of seasonal activities, i.e. the lamb’s wool for clothing and the increase of the flock for the selling to pay for the rent of the pasture.
In v. 27 he reminds us that a person living this way can do very well not only having enough to take care of the demands of this life, but also enough to have some frills, feeding the hired servants that help make life easier for us. Solomon, a king, was wise enough to not be taken in by the deception of the promise of greed and things recognizing that there is ‘rich’ pleasure in ‘simple’ things. Simple things deliver their own rich pleasure, things that money cannot buy. Here I think that if we were able to see Solomon writing down these proverbs that we would see him wearing his ‘Life is Good’ tee shirt listening to Beethoven’s Sixth symphony (the Pastoral Symphony)…what a practical and wise man he was.
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