This is a good place to remind ourselves that proverbs are proverbs—they are generally true, and they are wise words to live by. At the same time, they are not axioms in geometry. There has never been a triangle that didn’t have three sides, but there have been hasty men who did not wind up in the flop house.

At the same time, most of the time, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. You can bank on it, more or less.

The import of this proverb appears to relate to the subject of planning. The thoughts of the diligent tend one way, while the hasty one (who did not have the time or patience for planning) winds up in poverty. The diligent are thoughtful, and their thoughtfulness begins before the actual work begins. The hasty, who rush in because “something must be done,” often find that it was false that something had to be done. Making a hasty hash of it might well make things worse than they were. And if you don’t have time to do it right, then how will you have time to do it over?

This proverb also helps prevent us from attributing poverty to false causes. We are talking about the behavior of people, which is not the same kind of thing as putting a billiard ball in the corner pocket, or getting an item out of a vending machine. It is true that the book of Proverbs warns regularly against the poverty that does come from laziness. But we are not encouraged to believe that poverty comes only from laziness—it can come from a number of other sources. And as we see here in this proverb, it certainly can come from an industrious stupidity.

The Bible teaches us that sin is fun. But Scripture also teaches us that we must learn how to look down the street and around the corner. Sin has long term consequences, and those are no fun at all.

Those given over to folly are therefore, by definition, short term thinkers. Those who are in pursuit of wisdom have learned to think things out for a few more steps than that. They are long term thinkers. When it comes to a broad understanding of the moral universe we live in, we can generalize in this way. Sweetness now and gravel later, or gravel now and sweetness later.

Sometimes the godly make the mistake of maintaining that sin is never fun, not now, not ever. But this is contrary to Scripture and common sense both. In this verse, we see that there is a real kick in pulling off a successful deception. It is “sweet to a man.” But we are also told to look at the video, not just the snapshot. The gravel is coming.

The sweetness is compared to bread in the mouth. The contrast is to a mouth full of gravel, and no milk to get it down. The unpleasantness of the long term consequences far surpasses the pleasantness of the original lie. But make no mistake—the lie was sweet for a time.

We can see this in many areas. Just because something is bad and wrong does not make it unattractive. The devil showed Jesus all the kingdoms of men, and their glory. If sin were wholly repulsive, there would be no temptation.

Picture it this way. A mother is standing at a supermarket check-out line with her soon to be adolescent son. There, at right about his eye level, is a magazine that is displaying more of a woman than ought to be displayed, but the family friendly line was too long. And so, after they are out in the parking lot, she reminds her son how awful that looked, and how detestable sin is. She is right about the second part, but not about the first. And her son starts to wonder. “Why is my mother telling me falsehoods?”

Bait looks good. If it didn’t look good, it wouldn’t work as bait. If we learn the lesson that all evil looks like evil, we are setting ourselves up for some grave disappointments.

Scripture calls us to live our lives with understanding, which is not at all the same thing as understanding our lives.

Since the fall of our first parents into sin, the perennial temptation for us has been the one summarized by our proverb “his eyes were too big for his stomach.” There are only two ways to live—the first is to walk in a manner that trusts God, while the second is to walk in a manner that seeks (somehow, on some level) to be God. And when we trust God, we are walking by faith and not by sight.

When we trust God, we limit ourselves to what He has told us. We honor His law. We respond to His gospel. We respect the processes that He has established for us. Precisely because He has established them for us, it is possible for us to understand them.

It is possible for us to see what we are supposed to do. It is impossible for us to see what will result from whatever it is that we do. We can see actions, but we cannot see downstream outcomes. Those downstream outcomes are not our department. This is why James tells us that it is conceited and arrogant when we declare that we will go to thus and such city, start a business, and make a pile of money (Jas. 4:13-14). We don’t know that. Our lives are a mist. There is not a man on earth who understands his own way.

If he is wise, he might understand some of it as it presents itself in the rearview mirror. As he gives thanks to God, he is capable of seeing that the lines have fallen for him in pleasant places (Ps. 16:6). But when it comes to the future, we cannot begin to comprehend it.

And this is why it is crucial for us to focus on how we are doing what we are doing. If we focus on what we are doing, we might make the mistake of thinking that our planned result is what is going to happen. Is it God’s will for you to be married this time three days from now? You have no idea. You might be singing in the choir invisible at that time, while your spouse is picking out the coffin.

We cannot function without planning, but we need to make sure that it is always planning with a heavy dose of humility mixed with it. Our plans are not what we believe them to be.

In the world as it is described by Proverbs, we do not see the wise who know they have wisdom, and the unwise who know that they do not. This is because knowing that you lack wisdom is actually a form of . . . wisdom. The actual division is between those who possess wisdom, and those who falsely think they do.

Notice in this passage that if someone has understanding, that understanding is like an artesian well. It is a wellspring of life to the one who has it. And when it says this, the assumption is that the one who has understanding is the one who is refreshed by it.

The contrast is with the fool. Notice that the fool here is a teacher. He instructs. Not only does he believe he has wisdom to impart, there is frequently a classroom of people assembled in front of him who believe the same thing. Occasionally there will be a wise student in there who can see that the instructor is blowing smoke, but the foolish instructor, who pours out his folly from quart jars, believes that obtaining an audience somehow vindicates him. But the flow does not rise higher than the source, and if a fool teaches, folly fills the curriculum.