Ralph Wardlaw Lectures on Proverbs - Proverbs 24:13 - 24:22

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Ralph Wardlaw Lectures on Proverbs - Proverbs 24:13 - 24:22


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:



LECTURE LXXIV.



Pro_24:13-22.



"My son, eat thou honey, because it is good; and the honeycomb, which is sweet to thy taste: so shall the knowledge of wisdom be unto thy soul: when thou hast found it, then there shall be a reward, and thy expectation shall not be cut off. Lay not wait, O wicked man, against the dwelling of the righteous; spoil not his resting place: for a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again: but the wicked shall fall into mischief. Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth; and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth; lest the Lord see it, and it displease him, and he turn away his wrath from him. Fret not thyself because of evil men, neither be thou envious at the wicked. For there shall be no reward to the evil man; the candle of the wicked shall be put out. My son, fear thou the Lord and the king; and meddle not with them that are given to change; for their calamity shall rise suddenly; and who knoweth the ruin of them both?"



A COMPARISON is, in the first two verses, instituted between objects of natural and spiritual taste, and natural and spiritual benefit.-God is good. His benevolence appears in this, among other ways, that in the provision made for us in temporal things, He does not, by any rigid law, prohibit the use of all but what is necessary to life and health. There are many things gratifying to taste, and sight, and smell, of which such necessity cannot be affirmed. And from these, when used in moderation, and in the spirit of gratitude and dependence, we are not interdicted. We may eat "honey" not only because it is "good," or nutritious, but also because it is "sweet." We must not forget, however, that honey is both; for in regard to both, the comparison appears to be designed. Canaan abounded in honey; and it was used, not only as a luxury to the palate, but as an article of diet. "Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good," Isa_7:15. "Butter" is not considered as the proper import of the original word here. It means thickened or curdled milk, which is "still a favourite article of food in Syria, Arabia, and the neighbouring countries: and, when mixed with honey, is exceedingly agreeable to the taste."* And that "honey" was used as an article of diet, and an accompaniment to other kinds of food, we learn from an incident on a most interesting occasion-when Jesus appeared to the disciples after his resurrection:-"While they yet believed not for joy, and wondered, he said unto them, Have ye here any meat? And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honey-comb," Luk_24:41-42.-In the reference to "honey" and "the honey-comb," then, we have the two ideas of pleasantness and nutritiveness. The comparison follows-"so shall the knowledge of wisdom be unto thy soul."



* Henderson.



There are some men who might as well, for all the use they make of them, have been without minds. Their mental powers lie dormant. Their enjoyment is all in what is sensual and frivolous. But the experience of such fools no more proves that general knowledge imparts no pleasure, than instances of palates which have lost their relish can prove honey not to be sweet. The cultivation of the mental faculties, and their employment in the acquisition of knowledge, is a source of pure and exquisite pleasure. It is so in regard to general and scientific knowledge, how much more so in regard to divine knowledge,-the knowledge of those truths which divine inspiration has been given to communicate, and divine power has put forth in miracle to confirm!-The truth of the comparison presupposes for its ascertainment, the existence of a spiritual taste. Spiritual things are "spiritually discerned;" and the spiritual perception of their excellence imparts a pleasure to the soul, of which no power of human sophistry can ever deprive it. A man whose palate is in a healthy condition, and who has tasted honey, can never be argued out of the conviction of its sweetness. You may reason with him to the end of his days; but he will die in the conviction that honey is sweet. So it is with the soul that has received "the knowledge of wisdom," that has once tasted the sweetness of spiritual discoveries, and of those spiritual enjoyments to which the faith of them introduces. Experience is more than all argument;-" more than all the atheists in the world with their sophistry, and all the profane with their banter."*1-And the relish, once felt, produces a growing desire. He who relishes sweetness, having tasted honey, will long for it again. So the sweetness of divine knowledge will quicken the liking for it, and the eagerness for more.*2 The soul having extracted a little of the sweetness of the word of God,-of the "honey from the rock,"-will long, with a keener relish, for a larger portion;-will long for a progressive acquaintance with its rich and varied contents; in their relative bearings, in their beautiful harmony, in their holy and heavenly influence.-And such progress, while pleasant, is profitable to the soul. Its practical effects are most precious. It promotes spiritual growth,-the nourishment and the healthful exercise of all the principles and affections of the divine life.



*1 Henry.

*2 Comp. Psa_19:7-11; Psa_119:103; Psa_119:97; Psa_119:47; Jer_15:16.



There is one point in which the comparison fails. "Honey" is only good in moderation. If its sweetness tempt to the excessive use of it, it becomes both nauseous and hurtful.* But this is not true and never can be true, of "the knowledge of wisdom "-the knowledge of God's truth. It never can be found sickening the mind, and producing nausea and rejection. The maxim of all in possession of it will be-a maxim held the more strongly the more abundant has been the acquisition,-"The more the better."-"Surely there is a reward." There is a present reward; a reward of present enjoyment, present benefit, present blessing; not the reward of the man who takes honey to excess,-whom it cloys and sickens, and whose constitution it injures; but the reward of spiritual pleasure and spiritual prosperity, in due proportion to the amount of acquirement. And there is a future reward:-"Thine expectation shall not be cut off." This may refer, indeed, to present enjoyment and present benefit. The "expectation," in this respect, can never go beyond the reality; the reality will ever be found to exceed the "expectation." But the "expectation" may be regarded as connected with eternity; with the consummation of the divine life in heaven, as well as with its commencement and progress on earth. That "expectation shall not be cut off," when every other shall.



* See Pro_25:16; Pro_25:27.



Verse Pro_24:15. "Lay not wait, O wicked man, against the dwelling of the righteous; spoil not his resting place." This is an admonition to evil men to beware of all oppression and persecution of the good. The language is evidently not to be confined to unrighteous infliction on account of particular crimes charged, of which the accused are innocent; but extends to, and especially means, the oppressing and evil-entreating those who are "the excellent of the earth," on account of their very excellence,-as bearing testimony against and condemning the world.



"Spoil not his resting-place." Thus is his dwelling designated. It is the abode of love and peace, of quietness, and holy harmony and domestic joy. It is the place of his family altar, around which are poured out the social devotions of a united and affectionate group, in tender and blessed mutual sympathy, the sympathy of nature and of grace.-Intrude not, with unhallowed foot, and ruthless hand, on this abode of piety and love-this chosen resting-place of the affections-this habitation of the God of the families of Israel. Disturb not, with the voice of cursing and bitterness, the "melody of joy and salvation" that is heard in the "dwelling of the righteous." The reason is assigned in next verse-"For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again: but the wicked shall fall into mischief."



It is quite clear that "falleth" here means falling into calamity. Were there nothing else in proof of this, the antithesis between the two parts of the verse would suffice to show it. The sentiment of the verse is, that how often soever the righteous may thus fall by the hand of man, God is still with him, and he shall recover again. There are in Scripture many delightfully encouraging statements of the same general truth;-full of comfort to God's people, and full of fearful admonition to their enemies.* Even in the very midst of temporal sufferings, there is a sustaining buoyancy in genuine principle. It rises, like the life-boat, over the billows of tribulation. It may seem, at times, as if actually whelmed by them, but it emerges again with noble energy, and braves, and buffets, and rides out the storm! Such principle is of God. He inspires it. He exposes it to the trial. He enables it to bear up and to triumph.



* Job_5:17-19; Psa_34:15-22; Psa_37:23-25; Psa_37:39-40; Mic_7:5-10; 2Co_1:8-10; 2Co_4:8-12.



But I must not pass from these verses without observing how miserably they have been misapplied and abused. The falling has been interpreted of falling into sin; and the words have often been so quoted. They have been applied to the doctrine of final perseverance; and as meaning that, how frequently soever, and even how grossly soever, the true believer may fall, he can never finally fall away, so as to be lost. It is easy to give such a statement an aspect of plausibility, and to weave it nicely into the tissue of the orthodox system. But in the Word of God things are in no instance represented in such a light; and it is wrong so to use the language, even in the way of accommodation. As for argument in support of any doctrine, it should never be forgotten-though it too frequently is-that there can never be aught of the nature of argument or proof in any passage, further than as that passage is used in the precise sense it was intended by the Holy Spirit to bear. It is not words, but sentiment, that can have any weight whatever in the way of evidence: and arguments that are founded on a different sense from that which the words were designed to express, have in them just-nothing. They are literally words and nothing more.



The application of the language to which I now allude is mischievous in the extreme. Everything must be so that holds out the slightest encouragement to confidence and ease of mind under even one fall into sin; much more under repeated, under many such falls. There is nothing of this kind, I again affirm, in the Bible. When sin has been committed, all there is warning and alarm. The order to the man of God then is:-"Cry aloud, spare not; lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins." Nowhere is there anything to be found that can be interpreted into an assurance of safety, how often soever they may fall. Whatever is there said to preserve against despair, is said in such a way as to forbid presumption. I can imagine no state of mind more antichristian and delusive than that of the professor who gets himself settled down in the conviction that however often he falls, he cannot finally fall away. His confidence rests on a sufficiently manifest, though alas! too imposing a fallacy. It supposes a man to have ascertained to a certainty his being in a state of grace, independently of present evidence. "Once in grace, ever in grace," may, in a certain sense, express a Bible truth; but so applied, there is not a grosser or more pernicious anti-Bible error. Of present life there must be present evidence. It would be a strange way of proving a tree to be now alive, to enumerate the crops it had borne in former years. To prove it now alive, you must show us the fruit it bears now. In like manner, it will not prove a man to be one of God's family, to show how good he once was. The question forces itself on notice-What is he now? We have just as good a right to conclude from what he is now, when he is falling into sin, that what he was before has been appearance only and a delusion, as others can have to conclude from what he formerly was, that what he is now is only a temporary backsliding. And in the former conclusion there is less-much less of danger than in the latter. Than the latter, indeed, the devil could not suggest a more ruinous. Every fall into sin should give rise to serious and deep searching of heart,-to self-suspicion,-to humiliation, and confession, and fear,-to the tears and prayers of a broken and contrite spirit. And yet, strange to say, the words have even been improved upon, to render them, as is imagined, still more systematically orthodox, but in reality so much the more pernicious in their tendency and effects:-"the just man falleth seven times in a day, and riseth up again." O let professors, when they have fallen into sin, instead of indulging in a delusive self-complacency, and unwarrantable and presumptuous confidence in "former signs of grace,"-tremble at their peril, which is imminent. Let them call to mind the Lord's own words-"Thine own wickedness shall correct, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee: know therefore, and see, that it is an evil thing and bitter, that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God, and that my fear is not in thee, saith the Lord God of hosts," Jer_2:19. "Remember whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent," Rev_2:5. "The foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his. And, Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity" 2Ti_2:19. "Wherefore, giving all diligence, add to your faith, virtue; and to virtue, knowledge; and to knowledge, temperance; and to temperance, patience; and to patience, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness, charity. For if ye do these things, ye shall never fall: for so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ," 2Pe_1:5-7; 2Pe_1:10-11.



Perhaps the words which follow, or the admonition contained in them, are to be connected by a natural association with the close of verse sixteenth (Pro_24:16)-"but the wicked shall fall into mischief." No doubt the ultimate reference of the language is to the final and irremediable "mischief" into which the wicked shall fall, when the righteous shall have his reward, and reap the fulness of his believing expectation. But the wicked persecutor may "fall into mischief" now: he may be brought, by the providence of God, and that too even by means of his violence against God's people, into circumstances of trial and calamity. And when such happens to be the case, the admonition suited to his case is here addressed to those righteous, who had been the object of his rancour and violence:-"Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth; and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth." Such is the propensity of our corrupt nature. Had not our nature fallen from its original innocence,-had it not "left its first love,"-"enemy" would have been a word unknown; for it expresses a state of feeling which no need would ever have existed of a term to indicate. There would have been no doing of wrong, and therefore no resenting of it. But multiplied, alas! are the wrongs done; and many, and often strong, are the temptations to both the feeling and the act of vengeance. The injunction in this verse is, in the highest degree, spiritual. It condemns the inward feeling of satisfaction at the fall of an enemy, even when we have in no way contributed to bring it about. Though we should not actually, and with our own hand, avenge an injury,-being aware how express and peremptory the precepts are against that; and while, for the same reason, in order to keep out character clear among men from the imputation of a resentful spirit, we carefully conceal our feelings,-we may yet be secretly, within the privacy of our own bosoms, cherishing the very feeling, which we abstain from uttering or putting into act. We may be inwardly delighted on learning that our enemy has met with what we cannot but think, and call to ourselves, well-merited retribution. So it must not be. Never must we in this spirit say within ourselves,-"Ah! so I thought: no more than I have been looking for and desiring might come." The reason is in the next verse:-"Lest the Lord see it, and it displease him, and he turn away his wrath from him." The import of this evidently is-lest the tokens of God's displeasure, which would have come on thine enemy, should be transferred to thyself; lest thou, instead of he, should be made to bear them. On this case observe-



1. When we thus inwardly rejoice-our joy is the very spirit of revenge; and our abstaining from actual and open retaliation is thus shown to have arisen from no proper principle, but to have been dictated by considerations themselves of a selfish character; or at least by some self-deceiving distinction between doing the thing with our own hand, and being gratified in seeing it done for us;-two things which, in the principle of them, are the very same-for God looks to the heart.



2. Solomon cannot possibly intend to intimate, as a motive to prevent our rejoicing in the fall of an enemy, that thereby we may turn away his calamity, and arrest the hand of God from inflicting it; because this, it is clear, would be still the very same spirit. It would be rejoicing in the continuance of the divine displeasure, and taking care to avoid whatever would remove it. This would evidently be to suppose him making the very gratification of the spirit of vengeance in one way, the consideration by which it is restrained from giving itself indulgence in another,-the very gratification of the temper prohibited, the motive to its suppression.



The frequency with which the counsel of the next verse is repeated, is well fitted to impress on our minds the strength of the tendency existing in our fallen nature to the evil reprehended,-and the consequent need for unceasing vigilance against it. O! it is a sad tendency! Only in an apostate and sinful nature can it ever be found;-the tendency to prefer prosperity without God, to adversity with Him; to look with an enviously wistful eye to the "purple and the fine linen, and the sumptuous fare" of "the rich man;"-and to forget, in the contemplation of his destitution and nakedness, the ample and blessed reversion of the poor and afflicted Lazarus.



And what is the reason assigned for the suppression of all envious feelings and desires?-It is ever substantially the same: (Pro_24:20.) "For there shall be no reward to the evil man; the candle of the wicked shall be put out." We are thus always carried forward to the end. O! what is the "light" of that worldly prosperity,-what is its worth-which is so speedily to be quenched in darkness! How much better to go through darkness to light, than to go through light to darkness! How much better to pass through a trial of fire to a "wealthy place," than to pass through "a wealthy place" to the "fire that never shall be quenched!"-"The candle (or lamp) of the wicked shall be put out." His light-that is, whatever contributed for the time to spread a temporary joy through his heart and his habitation, shall be extinguished for ever. At the very moment when the light of God's people shall rise in all its pure and unfading splendour,-at the very moment when their "day dawns and their day star arises,"-the sun of the wicked's earthly glory and earthly joy shall go down in unending night. But to the righteous,-" the Lord shall be their everlasting light, and their God their glory!"



Verses Pro_24:21-22. "My son, fear thou the Lord and the king; and meddle not with them that are given to change: for their calamity shall rise suddenly; and who knoweth the ruin of them both." There are some words of general import which are susceptible of application to different objects with modified amounts of that import. Of this description is the word "fear" which is here applied to Jehovah and to human rulers:-"Fear thou the Lord and the king." The word expresses the general idea of reverence,-or of holding in awe. God is to be feared according to the nature and authority of His government, kings according to the nature and authority of theirs:-God supremely; kings subordinately:-God as the source of all power; kings as holding theirs of God, and responsible to Him for the use they make of it:-God for His character, as well as for His authority; kings simply as the representatives of power-their personal character being, not seldom, anything but venerable:-God with a fear ever associated with the love of complacency toward all that He is; kings with a fear with which such love can be blended only in cases where the personal character admits of it,-love being out of the question where there is nothing of the amiable.



The connexion of the two fears in the passage before us is evidently intended to impress the one by the other:-If you fear God, fear the king. God, whom you are bound supremely to fear, and whose fear should produce obedience to His will, has enjoined the fear of earthly rulers:-so that a failure in the fear due to them becomes a violation of the fear due to Him.



I need hardly say, that by the king we are to understand the government of the country. It may be monarchical, or it may not. We are by no means to look upon such expressions as this, in Scripture, as attaching the authority of inspiration to one form of government more than to another. Respecting the comparative merits of different forms, the word of God should not be regarded as giving any decision, whether for the kingly, the aristocratical, the popular, or the mixed. The respect, or fear, is due to the legislative and executive powers, of whichsoever description these may be.



It would certainly too be a grievous mistake, were the admonition here tendered against association with those who are "given to change," so interpreted as to condemn and proscribe everything of the nature of public spirit. There may, in different countries,-in their different administrations of government and political usages, be many things in which change is most desirable and essential. There may be flaws in old systems which require to be rectified; customs that are absurd and injurious, which it is desirable to have exploded or modified; partial and oppressive laws which demand revision and alteration; principles of policy which have become unsuitable to the times and to the advancing character and civilization of a people, which call loudly for amelioration. Such improvements patriotism may render it a subject's incumbent duty to do what he can to promote;-to use for this purpose all legitimate and constitutional means which he finds accessible for their attainment; and with a zeal, an energy, and a perseverance proportioned to the magnitude and importance of the end in view, as it bears upon the prosperity and well-being of the community,-or the greatest good of the greatest number. It may not only be lawful, on the great principles of public morality, for a man to desire and seek such changes, but his manifest and incumbent duty to labour and make sacrifices for their accomplishment. Valuable changes have thus been effected, at different periods, in our own country; and there is room for beneficial changes still. They are in progress. Great principles of improvement are at work. But we should be on our guard. All change is not improvement. Some restless spirits are in danger of identifying the two. The men against whom we are here warned are men of a discontented, unsettled, factious, turbulent, revolutionary spirit; men who can be satisfied with nothing as it is; who, with a mighty conceit of their own wisdom, talk and act as if they thought the world would never be right but under their dominion, and boast of what a world it would be, could they but get all their own way. They are such seditious demagogues as keep a country, for any purpose or for none, in a perpetual ferment; whom nothing pleases; who are thankless for the liberty they have, however far surpassing that enjoyed in other nations, because this or that is not entirely to their mind; who look to their real or imaginary grievances, much more than to their many and valuable privileges; who are ever finding dead flies in the precious ointment, that turn all to unsavouriness,-so that even the sweets of the greatest amount of liberty enjoyed by any nation under heaven, would to them be turned to bitterness by whatever little circumstance, in the constitution or administration, not exactly to their mind, should from time to time discover itself. It must be obvious, that some such characters are intended by "them that are given to change:"-inasmuch as to be "given to" anything means to be set upon it, and dissatisfied without it, and ever on the look-out for it; seeking, and therefore sure to find, reasons for it. Every man must admit that all change is desirable that is a change from wrong to right, and there seems to be no reasonable qualification to this but one; namely, that, since it is a rare thing that changes can be effected in the policy of nations without a greater or a less degree of public agitation and dissension, we should always be sure that the change which we set ourselves to prosecute is of such a nature,-such in the principle of it, or such in the results anticipated from its introduction,-as to warrant for its sake, the incurring of what must always be an evil, the temporary excitation of discordant passions, and the possible risk of more permanent disunion. Such will be the conduct of every reasonable and sober-minded citizen. As for the men who are "given to change"-ever on the hunt after novelties, and reckless of present or future consequences to the peace and well-being of the country, if they can but draw away political "disciples after them," get themselves the credit of leaders of a party, and make themselves notorious as agitators of the public mind, mere political adventurers;-these are the men whom the people of God will shun, neither imbibing their spirit, nor giving them any countenance. They will themselves, while, as in duty bound, they cherish public spirit, as the spirit of patriotic benevolence,-and while, in such questions as, they are satisfied, involve great public interests, they give all the weight of their influence, actively and zealously, on what they believe to be the side of truth, and liberty, and humanity, and justice,-they will, at the same time, bear in mind the example of that Master whose followers they profess to be, who was "meek and lowly in heart," firm in purpose and act, but gentle in the manner of its prosecution,-who "did not strive nor cry, nor cause his voice to be heard in the streets." They will not imitate those who seem as if they thought it the mark of a manly and independent spirit to scorn and vilify all above them, and the higher others rise, to make it a point of honour to slight and traduce them the more; but, at the risk of the contempt and abuse of such, will remember the authority which condemns "speaking evil of dignities," and while they "fear God" will by that very fear be induced to "fear" and to "honor the king."



There is one motive by which the conduct enjoined is here enforced. Of all peoples on earth no people were ever so unjustifiable in being "given to change" as were the people of Israel. Even when Jehovah himself was their king, they were "given to change." Their very desire of an earthly king over them, like the other nations, arose from their infatuated love of change. They then rejected Him from being king over them: and in many instances did they suffer for it. But, when they had a king, it became their bounden duty to fear him. And in their history, various striking illustrations present themselves of the fulfilment of the words of this verse. The calamity of insubordination and rebellion "rose suddenly;" and both leader and led came to overthrow and ruin. And how frequent have been the exemplifications of the same thing in the history of modern Europe!-and never more than within the last half-century. How many aspiring demagogues, who have seemed for a time to get all their own way,-the tide of public favour rising and flowing along with them,-have experienced the instability of that favour, the fickleness of a mob, the sudden mutability of their likings and dislikings; have found themselves overtaken by unanticipated reverses, and have perished in their own ambitious devices:-up to the very throne today, and down to the grave to-morrow. Genuine patriots, it is true, there have been who, for their resistance to real tyranny and unrighteous oppression, have bled on the scaffold, and whose death has been their honour. It is not, I repeat, of such that Solomon speaks, but of the devotees of an ambitious selfishness, who bring upon themselves not "the wrath of the king" only, but the wrath of the King of kings:-and then, well may it be said-"Who knoweth the ruin of them both?"