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

Rob not the poor, because he is poor: Neither oppress the afflicted in the gate: For the Lord will plead their cause, and spoil the soul of those that spoiled them.

Proverbs 22:23–24

For those graspers who are cruel and greedy, the poor are certainly a tempting target. They obviously do not have deep pockets, and so those who would milk them have to make it up in volume. This is why the mistreatment of the poor is so often systemic. Wealth is skimmed off the poor as a class. An enterprising thief cannot seize on just one poor man, empty his pockets, and make off with anything much, and so he deals with the poor in the aggregate.  

This is why a proverb like this one is necessary. Precisely because the poor do not have a lot of resources, they do not have a lot of resources to defend themselves against entities, companies, institutions that have teams of lawyers. If you doubt what I say, drive through a poor neighborhood, and count the payday loan establishments. I wonder what the interest rates are? 

“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation” (Matthew 23:14).

Of course, it is just as sinful to steal from a rich man, but at least the rich man has a sporting chance. He has enough wealth to provide a jackpot for the person who succeeds in robbing him, but he also has enough wealth to pay for safes and locks and fences and offshore accounts and lawyers of his own. It is at least something of a fair fight. 

But when the poor are pillaged, it is often the case that they don’t even know that it is occurring. And when they discover that it is happening, they do not know how to identify whoever is responsible. Things can get so inverted that they turn to the thieves to provide them with the much needed protection, which is why their congressman keeps getting reelected.   

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

Make no friendship with an angry man; And with a furious man thou shalt not go: Lest thou learn his ways, And get a snare to thy soul.

Proverbs 22:24–25

In this proverb, we learn two important things at the same time. The first is that anger is a big deal. Having a bad temper is not a bagatelle, not a trifle. The second thing we learn is that we have authority over the friendships we make. Let’s consider these things in turn. 

First, anger is like a fire in the attic. You don’t want that in your house at all, not even a little bit. “An angry man stirreth up strife, and a furious man aboundeth in transgression” (Proverbs 29:22). A lot of damage follows in the train of anger. And because the ancient proverb is true—that anger is a brief madness—the damage that is done is often senseless, demented, and irrational. Anger destroys, and it frequently destroys things that it had no intention of destroying. 

If a man is given to anger, it does no good for him to say, after the fact, that the results were not what he wanted. This is like setting that fire in the attic and saying afterwards that you never intended for the whole house to burn.

But notice that the injunction given in this proverb is that we are to avoid friendships with men who have this problem. Christians are supposed to love everyone, including their enemies, but we are not supposed to be friends with everyone. Scripture forbids being friends with certain kinds of people. Bad companions corrupt good morals (1 Cor. 15:33).

We should be friendly toward all. So when you happen to sit next to an angry man on a plane, sure, go ahead. Have a friendly demeanor. But you are not supposed to settle into a friendship with such a man, and why? The “evangelism” will go the wrong way. You stand a better chance of becoming like him than he stands of becoming like you.

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

Whose hatred is covered by deceit, his wickedness shall be shewed before the whole congregation (KJV).

Though his hatred is covered by deceit, his wickedness will be revealed before the assembly (NKJV).

Proverbs 26:26

Those who are guilty of sin will always want to hide the fact. This has been the case since our first parents heard the voice of Lord walking in the garden in the cool of the day (Gen. 3:8), and they immediately took it upon themselves to hide. That was not exactly the smoothest of moves—“Quick! The omniscient one is coming. Let’s hide behind this bush.”

But even though our natural impulse is to hide sin, the Scriptures also teach us that some sins are more angular than others, and so parts of them stick out from their hiding places. Some sins are obvious, in other words, and some are not. “Some men’s sins are open beforehand, going before to judgment; and some men they follow after” (1 Timothy 5:24). And in other cases, the sin appears to cooperate with being hidden, but then later, at an inopportune time, tumbles out in front of everybody. This is the kind of thing that this particular proverb is talking about. Just like two chemicals might be volatile when mixed together, so also it is with hatred and deception (about the hatred). If a man carries hatred in his heart toward someone, it is like magma in a volcano, the kind near the top, the kind that wants to come out. You can’t fix that kind of thing by putting a tarp over the top of the volcano.

Moses told the people that their sin would find them out (Num. 32:23). This is true for all sin, in some way, shape or form, but certain sins give themselves away far more readily. You don’t have to go far to find people denying that they are bitter, or malicious, or spiteful, or envious, when that is the most obvious thing about them.

What this proverb promises us is that when people deceive themselves in this way, and seek to cover over their hatred with fair words, the truth is going to become obvious to the whole assembly. The truth will out.

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

He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool: But whoso walketh wisely, he shall be delivered.

Proverbs 28:26

If our secular age were to settle on a formulation of a great Secular Shema, it would certainly be something like “Follow your heart.” This is the central catechetical lesson that is drilled into the heads of our young people——whether in the curricula of our government schools, in our music, in our movies and sitcoms, and in the secular equivalent of Vacation Bible Schools.

Scripture teaches the opposite lesson, more than a little bluntly. The one who trusts in his own heart is a fool. This means that he is trusting in a fool’s heart. Just as man who represents himself in a court of law has a fool for a client, so also it is with a man who goes out into the world with his heart for an advisor. 

The man who walks wisely, it says, shall be delivered. Delivered from what? Well, delivered from all the snares, traps, pits, or deceptions that the fools walk right into. Whatever it is that a fool does not anticipate, the wise man anticipates—and guards against. 

If we remember what Scripture teaches us elsewhere, and if we consider the nature of the case here, we should be able to see that the mainspring of all the traps will be some form of flattery. 

“For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves: but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise” (2 Cor. 10:12).

The fool is someone who tells himself all manner of lies, all of them with a sweet smelling savor. That is the kind of sacrifice you offer up to a deity, right? The thing they don’t have is any kind of outside, objective check. That objectivity must come from somewhere outside the sinner’s ego. This should of course be Scripture ultimately, but it can also come from the unbending nature of reality, or the forceful rebukes of family and friends.

We live in a generation that does not understand what a grace it is, what a gift we have been given, in the possibility of being wrong.  

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

For the transgression of a land many are the princes thereof: But by a man of understanding and knowledge the state thereof shall be prolonged.

Proverbs 28:2

Scripture teaches us that there is an ethical interaction between the rulers of a land and those who are ruled. When the wicked rule, the people mourn (Prov. 29:2), but it is also the case, as we see here, that when the people are wicked, the rulers mourn.

More specifically, lack of integrity in the populace results in instability, and that instability extends upwards to the princes of the land. Inability to hold a government together is the result of a land’s transgressions. When there is an earthquake, the top floors of the skyscrapers would be the more exciting places to be. When high winds come, that is not the moment for climbing to the top of a tree.

This is why, when a state is in turmoil, repentance is appropriate everywhere. A radically unbiblical way of thinking is to say something like “don’t blame me, I voted for the other guy.” When judgment falls, it falls on the entire nation. The nation of Judah was taken into exile for their sins, but Daniel—a godly young man—was included in it. And then, as an old man, when it came time to pray for the return from exile, Daniel offered up a prayer of repentance that did not exclude himself. 

The flip side of the proverb is that a man of understanding and knowledge can head such a disaster off. One prince after another is a prelude to collapse, but a man of understanding knows what it will take to prolong the days of a nation. And when a people is caught in the grip of various follies and frenzies, as we most certainly are right now, the prayer of the godly should be for God to raise up a Dutch uncle, who will talk sense to us.

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