Sunday, March 21, 1999 This Week's Lesson:
In this week's lesson, which came from Proverbs 6:1-15, we learned about several ways that we can stay away from potentially damaging situations. The first is that we can guard against making inappropriate or unwise financial dealings. Namely, we can avoid situations where we make a financial pledge for someone else. This process of pledging our financial support for another person is called co-signing, and it means that we promise to pay if the other person does not. As Christians, we should always seek to help those around us, if we are able. But whether Christian or not, we should never let ourselves enter into a financial arrangement that will hurt either our family or ourselves. We are called to help others, but we are also called to be good stewards over all that we have. We should honor our commitments, but we should also be very careful about those things to which we commit. Taking on the financial burdens of others when we are not able is poor stewardship. Not being able to care for our own because we have foolishly tried to help others beyond our means is also poor stewardship. I Timothy 5:8 says, "But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel." When we find that we have foolishly entered into a financial pledging situation, Solomon said that we should try to undo that which we have done. Promising to help someone and then having to back down from that promise is a humbling and humiliating experience. But for the sake of our family, we might sometimes have to do it.
The second way that we can avoid potentially damaging situations is by not letting ourselves be unduly lazy. According to Solomon, laziness leads to poverty. He compared the ant to the diligent, disciplined worker. The ant does not have a guide, overseer, or ruler yet still provides her meat in the summer and gathers food for the harvest. He told the lazy person to examine the ant and learn. He also told the lazy person that their poverty would come as one that travels and that their wants would come as an armed man. He was teaching that the path from laziness to poverty is imminent, not that it might happen but that it will happen. Commenting on these verses, Matthew Henry wrote, "Life runs to waste; and poverty, though at first at a distance, gradually draws near, like a traveller; and when it arrives, is like an armed man, too strong to be resisted." The third way that we can avoid potentially damaging situations is by avoiding evil people. Solomon described the characteristics of an evil person. He said that such a person pursues mischief and acts on that mischief, that such a person devises mischief continually, and that he or she speaks against others. However, Solomon also wrote that this kind of evil person would not go unpunished. He said that the mischievous person will run into calamity and that that person will be broken without remedy. When God is ready to bring an evil person down, Solomon said that no one will be able to stop Him.
In this Book of Proverbs, Solomon wrote much about seeking wisdom and understanding. In this week's lesson, he provided some valuable tips for living that when applied will spare us much grief. As you go through the coming week, study his teachings and try to apply his words of wisdom to your life.
Tom of Spotswood"He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life." (I John 5:12)
"And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart." (Jeremiah 29:13)
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