At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)

In all labour there is profit: But the talk of the lips tendeth only to penury…

Proverbs 14:23

Everyone knows that the book of Proverbs frequently contrasts work with laziness. Work leads to wealth, and laziness leads to poverty. So much is . . . well, proverbial.

But there are variations on the theme, and this proverb is one of those variations. This is not a proverb about hard work in the field and lying on the couch at home. It is not a comparison between work and sleep. Rather, it is a contrast between work and talking about work. 

Now of course, we have to be careful here because there is a kind of talking about work that actually is a part of the work. We call it planning, or brainstorming, or outlining. This is preparation for work that is the first part of the work. In fact, because this is part of the work, it is what gives the mere talker the cover he needs to justify his talk, the kind that leads only to penury. 

Penury is a condition of extreme poverty or destitution. Talking about not becoming poor is a great way to become really poor.

Anyone who is acquainted with those who know how to work hard knows how to tell the difference between the talk of workers and the talk of idlers. If you have ever gotten up early for a work day with a bunch of farmers, you know how they all like to pull up in their big rigs, get out of them in order to chat for about fifteen minutes. They do this as a preliminary exercise before putting in a hard 12 hour day.

But the talking idler is one who wants to substitute the chat in for the work. He wants to replace one with the other. And that leads only to poverty.  

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At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)

The house of the wicked shall be overthrown: But the tabernacle of the upright shall flourish.

Proverbs 14:11

There is a double contrast in this passage. The first and more obvious one is the contrast between the wicked and the upright. One category disregards the holy word of God, and the other embraces it, submitting to it. 

The other contrast is between a house and a tent, between a permanent structure and a temporary one. And with that contrast stated, each dwelling place has something surprising said about it. The house, the permanent dwelling, will be overthrown. The tent, the tabernacle, the temporary dwelling place, will flourish.

Put another way, the security of the wicked is insecure, and the apparent insecurity of the saints is founded on a rock. 

The wicked man likes to have a tangible scoreboard, something he can point to. “See, look at that, and see how I am prospering.” And God says to him, in effect, “you fool. This night your life is required of you” (Luke 12:20).

By way of contrast, the upright lays up treasure in Heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves cannot break in and steal (Matt. 6:19-20). He may look like a pilgrim, or a wayfaring stranger, but he is actually nothing of the kind. The tabernacle of the upright will flourish. Abraham dwelt in tents, but Abraham was also a very wealthy man—and with both kinds of wealth.

There are many places where this principle may be applied, but this is most certainly one of them. “Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment” (John 7:24).

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At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)

Go from the presence of a foolish man, when thou perceivest not in him the lips of knowledge.

Proverbs 14:7

All sin is equally sinful, but not all sin is equally apparent. All folly is equally foolish, but not all folly is equally apparent. The Bible teaches us this plainly. 

“Some men’s sins are open beforehand, going before to judgment; and some men they follow after” (1 Tim. 5:24).

In this proverb, the one who would be wise is instructed to get out of the presence of a foolish man, just as soon as the folly becomes apparent. This assumes that the folly is not obvious from the start. Some who behave foolishly send off warning signals that enable others to avoid dealing with them entirely. It might be their bumper sticker or tee-shirt, or it might be something you heard them say at a Bible study. The subtext of whatever it was is “stay clear.”

But sometimes the danger that fools present is a danger with a long, slow fuse. There are some whose folly is not apparent until a particular kind of situation arises, or until you have been with them for a while. The instruction here is clear. As soon as you perceive that your acquaintance is not someone who speaks with the “lips of knowledge,” it is time to start preparing your exit.

Those who walk with the wise will be wise (Prov. 13:20), and those who consent to walk with fools have made the first fatal choice that will result in their descent into folly. That same proverb says that a companion of fools will be destroyed, which is kind of a strong way of putting it.

We are to love all men, whether they are wise or simple, godly or ungodly, friendly or hostile. We are under orders to love all men. But we are not to be friends or companions with fools. We are not to hang out with them. We may minister to them, we may witness to them. But if we settle in with them, the “evangelism” is running the other direction.  

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At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)

Every wise woman buildeth her house: But the foolish plucketh it down with her hands.

Proverbs 14:1

We live in an era that does not want to acknowledge that women sin, and that when they sin, they sin in distinctively feminine ways. This is the teaching of Scripture, but we live in a time that does not want to admit this. It is also the case that when women are virtuous, they are virtuous in distinctively feminine ways. This is also the teaching of Scripture. But the secular androgynous imperative want us all to be bipedal carbon units.

But God created us, male and female, to reflect the image of God (Gen. 1:27). To throw everything into a blender, and to say that the resultant mess somehow represents “humanity” is the height of folly. It says here that foolish women tear down their houses with their own hands, and an acceptance of any kind of feminism is one of the ways this is done.

A wise woman has the grace to build her house. There really is something called “the woman’s touch.” Notice that is says that every wise woman knows how to do this. A woman who doesn’t know how to do this is, by definition, not a wise woman. Domesticity is an essential attribute of feminine wisdom. It is one of the glories of womanhood. 

And when a woman is foolish, she is abandoning her central glory, and consequently becomes a wrecking ball. When a woman accepts her calling before God, she can make the home a heaven on earth. When she rejects it, or twists her calling into something that serves her desires, she has the power to make the home a hell on earth. And both the glory that comes from a woman’s hands and the mayhem that comes from a woman’s hands share this distinctive feminine trait—that of being really powerful.   

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At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)

He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand: But the hand of the diligent maketh rich.

Proverbs 10:4

This is a proverb that is proverbially true, and everybody knows it, and yet we live in a time where we somehow want to invert the meaning of the proverb, where we want to make the exception the rule. But laziness still leads to poverty, and diligence leads to wealth. A little sleep, a little slumber, and poverty is waiting for you just around the corner like an armed thug (Prov. 6:10). And I saw a poster once in a (very) industrious tire center which read, “Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits.”

We live in an envious age, which wants to assume that wealth is a zero sum game, meaning that there is a certain amount of available goods, like a pie on the table, and if the rich guy gets a big piece of pie, then that is the reason why the poor guy has such a thin piece. And, because there are thieves in the world, that sometimes happens. Sometimes someone makes off with your piece of pie (James 5:1-6). But there are many other times when the truth of this proverb is on display, front and center. The poverty of many has more to do with their own behavior than it has to do with a systemic anything. The same goes for the diligent.

A slack hand is not your friend, and an industrious hand is.

As noted earlier, this proverb is proverbially true, not universally true. In other words, sometimes a lazy man wins the lottery, thus learning all the wrong life lessons. Sometimes an industrious man is plagued with a series of mishaps. But, as a general rule, money follows the one who works for it. 

Because it is not universally true, there are exceptions. Because there are exceptions, those egalitarians who do not want to live in biblical wisdom seize on the exceptions and try to make them the rule. They find one man who is poor because of the injustice of his employer, and then they use that fact to erase the wisdom of Scripture, and what pretty much everybody’s grandma knows about that boy.   

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