Proverbs 1:1 The Book of the Proverbs of Solomon is a collection, under the guidance of inspiration, of the short sayings of wise and pious men which up to that time had been more or less current, with many of course of his own intermixed. When we have them before us, we seem to have an insight int... [ Continue Reading ]
Proverbs 1:1 It might seem at first as if no precepts of this kind, drawn from the experience of a social state most unlike our own, could be of much service to us. But much that is true of man at any time is true at all times. The counsels of the teacher look forwards rather than backwards. With b... [ Continue Reading ]
Proverbs 1:6 A great deal of the world's wisdom is contained in proverbs. But it must be allowed that some of the world's proverbs are faulty and imperfect, and therefore unsafe rules for a Christian to follow. The proverbs of Solomon are all good and holy in their tendency. How could they be other... [ Continue Reading ]
Proverbs 1:7 I understand by the fear of the Lord an abiding and reverent sense of the presence of God and of accountableness to Him. And in order for this to exist, God must not be the creature of each man's imagination, a fiction adapted to each man's prejudices and caprice, but that real, person... [ Continue Reading ]
Proverbs 1:7 Solomon grounds the fear of God, the basis of the whole religious life, upon the duty of obedience to parents. I. It is not mere children to whom he is speaking; he is addressing young persons who have come to that period of life at which they can go wrong if they will, when the actua... [ Continue Reading ]
Proverbs 1:10 There are two chief sources of temptation which Solomon indicates in these Chapter s, and which, when we have stripped off the figure or the accidental circumstances of age and time, are not less applicable to our days than to his. I. The first is sensuality, figured and summed up in... [ Continue Reading ]
Proverbs 1:20 The wisdom of God is a manifold wisdom. While it centres bodily in Christ, and thence issues as from its source, it is reflected and re-echoed from every object and every event. Every law of nature and every event in history has a tongue by which wisdom proclaims God's holiness and re... [ Continue Reading ]
Proverbs 1:23 I. Observe carefully what it is which God here requires from the scornful and the simple. He prescribes none of those lofty performances which in other parts of Scripture are distinctly affirmed to lie far beyond men's power; it only asks that they would "turn at God's reproof;" and i... [ Continue Reading ]
Proverbs 1:24. The words of the text are awful, but not hopeless; they pronounce God's judgment on the finally impenitent; the penitent they but awaken, that they may "hear the voice of the Son of God and live." I. The sentence pronounced is final. God is indeed longsuffering; He warns, calls, rec... [ Continue Reading ]
Proverbs 1:24 I. The person represented as speaking these very solemn and terrible words is that same wisdom which is represented in the verses before the text as making most gracious offers to all who will hear her voice. We shall make a right use of the language if we conclude from it that the wi... [ Continue Reading ]
Proverbs 1:28 Christ's Gospel gives out the forgiveness of sins; and as this is its very essence, so also in what we read connected with Christ's Gospel, the tone of encouragement, of mercy, of lovingkindness to sinners is ever predominant. But there is yet another language, which is to be found al... [ Continue Reading ]
Proverbs 1:33 I. The fear of evil is the element of it, with which man has most directly to do. II. It is precisely this fear of evil which, by God's help, we are to conquer; the evil itself is wholly beyond our power. "Man is born to trouble." III. How is the power to be won? (1) By realising ho... [ Continue Reading ]