20 Practical Warnings Against Surety, Laziness, and Wickedness (Proverbs 6:1-19)
Listen Here:
To refresh your memory we’ve been planted in Proverbs 5-7 in our past few episodes of Pursuing Wisdom in Proverbs, where we’ve seen that all three chapters are centered roughly around sexual immorality, with Solomon giving multiple warnings against the forbidden woman and the immoral man.
And to reiterate to you all one more time I think that’s really important. Not just to me but to Solomon. Think about it. For him to spend three straight chapters in the nine he has lecturing his son on sexual immorality, for him to spend 33% give or take of his time preparing his son for life discussing that, that shows importance. It does.
Now, what I find interesting is that as Solomon is giving his son this extended and prolonged lecture on sexual immorality, which we’ve looked at and discussed in depth, he takes a break in chapter 6 for 19 verses to give some practical warnings around three kinds of people that should be avoided:
First he says to avoid you becoming surety, which is when you make a promise to pay the debts of a friend or stranger if they end up failing. Solomon says avoid this situation and avoid becoming this person.
Secondly, Solomon says avoid the sluggard, the lazy person.
Then thirdly, Solomon encourages his audience to avoid the wicked man, the troublemaker.
And we’ll look at all three of these practical warnings given by Solomon in a second, but again I want to point you back to where it's located in Solomon’s lecture. One commentator thinks that ‘the warning against these types of men is inserted into the coherency of the warnings against the forbidden woman and immoral man so that the warnings against the naive and the wicked should be considered as of equal importance with the warning against the forbidden woman and man’.
In other words, and I agree with this, Solomon wants his son and he wants us to treat these warnings seriously! I confess to you it's very easy to gloss over this section, especially given what’s around it, but doing so misses out on some very important lessons, arguably of equal importance to the lessons on sexual immorality.
So let’s look at them. First, the warning against becoming surety.
Solomon says, beginning in chapter 6 verse 1,
‘My son, if you have put up security for your neighbor, have given your pledge for a stranger, 2 if you are snared in the words of your mouth, caught in the words of your mouth, 3 then do this, my son, and save yourself, for you have come into the hand of your neighbor: go, hasten, and plead urgently with your neighbor. 4 Give your eyes no sleep and your eyelids no slumber; 5 save yourself like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter, like a bird from the hand of the fowler.’
Here simply we see Solomon sharing in his book of wisdom that it is unwise to take on another’s debt. Solomon describes it as a snare in verse 2, and then in the next few verses we see Solomon’s advice to someone who is currently caught in that snare of taking on another’s debts:
He says we ought to do whatever we can to get out of it.
Solomon says give your eyes no sleep and seek to save yourself like a gazelle or bird that would do anything to escape its pursuer.
Now we could talk in depth on this, and we could look at how Paul accepted Onesimus’ past debts in Philemon verse 18 but not future ones, we could travel down the rabbit hole talking about the very real and practical implications these verses should have on our approach to finances, and they should, but I want to point you to the spiritual implications found in these verses.
In the words of Charles Bridges,
‘Our God, while He warns us against putting up security for another, has taken it on Himself. May His name be praised for this! He has given us His Word, His bond, yes, His blood as security for us sinners, which no power of hell can shake!’
Yes and amen. We shouldn’t put up financial security for another, and if we do we should seek to deliver ourselves. But we can’t put up soul security for anyone, including ourselves, even if we tried. We can’t deliver there. There’s no saving account that is effective for the debt of our soul. Only the blood of Jesus will do, only He can be our security, only He can deliver us, and praise God that He became just that for us through His death on the cross.
So avoid becoming a person who takes on another’s debts, but definitely don’t avoid the one who took on yours.
Now, as we move along further in Proverbs 6, we are warned of a second person to avoid, and that is the sluggard. Picking up in verse 6, Solomon says
‘Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise. 7 Without having any chief, officer, or ruler, 8 she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest. 9 How long will you lie there, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep? 10 A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, 11 and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want like an armed man.’
I love this section personally for two main reasons. One, though it's an aside, I love that Solomon found wisdom that points to the Lord, in an ant. Solomon was able to see God’s glory and glean things that pointed to Him from a tiny little ant. There’s a lot to be learned there for us.
Secondly, I think our culture undermines the problem of laziness. We don’t talk about it at all, and yet it has impacted all of us at one point or another.
Solomon says
10 ‘A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, 11 and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want like an armed man.’
When we’re lazy, poverty can and will come upon us like a robber, that is, very stealthily. We may think and may even go a long time without noticing any effects from our lazy state, but all of sudden out of nowhere we will find ourselves impoverished. Whether that is in a physical financial state, or again in a spiritual state if we’ve gotten lazy in our pursuit of Jesus, poverty will come upon us stealthily.
Now poverty won’t just come upon the lazy man in a stealthy way, Solomon says it will also come upon the lazy person like an armed man. That is, poverty will take you by force. So when we’re lazy, poverty comes upon us stealthily and by force. It sneaks up, and takes all you have and you, having become lazy, will not have the defenses needed to fight back.
Being lazy is like a boat anchored in still water, surrounded by a strong current. At first, it seems peaceful and safe, but over time, the current pulls it deeper into unknown waters, away from shore. By the time you realize how far you’ve drifted, you're very far from where you intended to be, and the journey back is long and difficult.
That’s why Solomon says
‘Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise. 7 Without having any chief, officer, or ruler, 8 she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest.’
Solomon encourages us to consider the diligent ant in confronting laziness. The ant works hard y’all. The ant works with purpose. All the while the ant has no leader. Isn’t that crazy? No one is directing the ant. The ant does it all on his own. Contrast that with us, how many leaders do we have? We’ve got God’s Word, pastors, mentors, friends! We have leaders to give us direction. The ant has no overseer, but we have a Shepherd, who we live before, whose 'eyes are as a flame of fire' (Revelation 19:12). The ant has no ruler that will one day ask for an account of the ant’s work. But 'every one of us must give an account of himself unto God' (Romans 14:12).
It’s with that in mind that Solomon asks in verse 9,
9 ‘How long will you lie there, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep?’
Bridges asks ‘How long then, will you sleep, O sluggard, on the brink of eternity?’
We got too much to live for to be lazy. The King of kings is who watches over us and who we report to. We get to work for Him! That alone ought to be enough to wake us from our sluggish ways.
Lastly, Solomon warns us against the wicked man, a troublemaker, who is completely unlike the sluggard, as he is very diligent in his ways, only his ways are evil.
Verse 12,
‘A worthless person, a wicked man, goes about with crooked speech, 13 winks with his eyes, signals with his feet, points with his finger, 14 with perverted heart devises evil, continually sowing discord; 15 therefore calamity will come upon him suddenly; in a moment he will be broken beyond healing.’
Here Solomon describes the wicked troublemaker as one who has made every member of his body - from his mouth, to his heart, to his feet - an active instrument of unrighteousness. His heart is perverted and he is diligent in sowing discord. Steer clear of this person, and certainly steer clear of becoming this person. Not just because Solomon advises against it, but also because the LORD detests it.
Moving to our last section Solomon mentions the LORD directly, saying, verse 16
‘There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him: 17 haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, 18 a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, 19 a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers.’
Does this not describe the wicked man from the previous section perfectly? Haughty eyes, lying tongue, perverted heart, continually sowing discord among brothers. This kind of character is an abomination to God.
Back to verse 15, ‘calamity will come upon’ this kind of person ‘suddenly’; ‘in a moment he will be broken beyond healing.’ God will have none of this.
Now it's easy to hear of these things the LORD hates and advise yourself smugly that you will avoid such people, but might I challenge you and say that it is awfully hard to avoid yourself. Oh man. Can you see yourself in this last section? Are you aware of what sin you’re capable of, and who you are capable of being?
Our sin covers our whole body.
Isaiah 1:6 says ‘From the sole of your foot to the top of your head there is no soundness—only wounds and welts and open sores,’
Haughty eyes, not humble ones, are natural to us. Same with a lying tongue, and hands quick to evil. Our heart is deceitful above all things, and because of that our feet naturally run from the Father not to Him.
We are rebellious, not righteous, and the debt we owe from our sin is great. God hates our sin, and our perversity is an abomination to Him. But He hated it enough to, like we discussed with Solomon’s first warning in Proverbs 6, send His Son Jesus to become surety for us; to pay the debt we could not. He is our Shepherd, the ‘great Shepherd of the sheep’ (Hebrews 13:20).
Because of Him we can say, ‘nothing in my hand I bring, simply to thy cross I cling’. Yes and amen.
I love you all. Have a wonderful Friday. God bless.
