Clough Proverbs Lesson 38

Avoid Pitfalls of Life! – Proverbs 6:1-5

Proverbs is a book that deals with many of the details of life, and it organizes these details within certain institutions. So we are distinguishing here five divine institutions: the first one is responsibility, or volition or free will; the second divine institution is marriage; the third one is family; the fourth one is judicial authority or the right of the state to take life; the fifth is tribal diversity or international relations, and then finally there is a sixth, but it’s not really a divine institution, but it’s the Church, and by taking all of these institutions and organizing under them the various details of life we can understand where Proverbs applies.

Under the first divine institution we would indicate things like responsibility; under the first divine institution also would come labor, would come money, because economics, contrary to modern propaganda, is not a prerogative of the federal government, it is not a prerogative of any government. Economics is a prerogative of the producer and economics is a study of the value of labor that man has created and produced, therefore economics properly falls under the sphere of the first and not the fourth divine institution. The second divine institution in Scripture is marriage, sex, the doctrine of the best woman and the best man.

The third divine institution is we’re dealing things of the family, children, parents and notice with parents authority. Authority is learned in the home; authority is the thing that us the only real place it ever first occurs is in the home and if authority is not met with in the home then there is problems in the rest of life and in all the other spheres. People who have never learned the lesson of authority in the home are very sorry people and make a lot of people miserable, including themselves. Education also falls under the third divine institution. Please notice that many of these things that you and I have come to think of as associated with the fourth divine institution, government, are not so scripturally. From the scriptural perspective education has to do with the family, not with the government.

The fourth divine institution is in the blue in this chart because it falls after the fall. The two institutions that are post-fall occur in blue to mark the fact that they came in after man sinned. So the fourth divine institution includes things of justice, law and punishment. And of course military and so on under that. So the fourth divine institution is something that God has ordained. Capital punishment, by the way, is the heart of the fourth divine institution. It is always scriptural and biblical to support capital punishment; anybody who does not support capital punishment is very confused on the biblical doctrine controlling the fourth divine institution.

The fifth divine institution has to do with history, diplomacy, questions of war and peace. And these two later institutions are post-fall functions, that is, they are functions that are introduced presupposing man’s sin. And then finally the Church has come into history and it has to do with doctrine, with the authority of the local church, with spiritual gifts, with questions of missions and so on. Notice the Church is not the same as the fourth institution, they are separate, as the doctrine of separation of Church and State makes very clear.

So Proverbs deals with details within these categories, and the category of chapter 5 is the second divine institution, dealing with the problems of sex, marriage, the best woman and the best man. And this is advice that a father gave to his son. This is sex education in the Bible and it is dealing with the son’s needs, and to how he can satisfy these needs. Proverbs 5:1-14 dealt with the negative side, why the young man is not to become promiscuously involved with women who are not in the category of best woman. They are not the one that God has picked out to help him in his calling. And therefore the positive side in verses 16 through the end of the chapter deals with the command to seek his sexual fulfillment in the best woman.

We had two questions handed in last time about this and the teachings that we have devoted to Proverbs 5. The first question: We dealt with the norms and the standards of sex in the Bible and this question was does masturbation enter the picture here and does the same principle apply. In Scripture, in Genesis 38 it has been traditionally used to say that this is wrong; actually the Scripture does not give directives toward this question. The directives it gives are indirect directives, namely that whenever you engage in an activity that cultivates a mental attitude sin of adultery or fornication, that is a sin, and the second thing is that whenever you have any kind of sexual activity, whether it’s masturbation, bestiality, or anything else that distorts the normal sexual response patter of man then you are subtracting from the best woman or best man’s rights, according to Scripture. Remember the argument of Proverbs 5 is something you’ll never encounter in school or anywhere else, it is the idea that certain people, that you have a best man and a best woman, each has been invested, God has invested, so to speak, funds on deposit with the best man or the best woman, and whenever they engage in sexual activity outside of the second divine institution they are spending someone else’s funds, and that is the argument against promiscuity.

The second question that was handed in deals with Proverbs 5:16: your explanation of Proverbs 5:16 as the good overflow of sexual prosperity doesn’t seem to relate to the New ASV translation of this verse which translates it as, (quote), “Should your springs be dispersed abroad, should streams of waters in the streets,” be spread around in the streets. This would seem to better carry on the sense of verses 15 and 17 and that tells the male to drink from his own well and save it all for himself and for his wife. How can the conflict be resolved? The answer to that is that in verse 16 we have a difficult, difficult verse in the Hebrew. I did not have time last week to go through and justify why I agreed with the King James but I will now give you the two reasons why I prefer the King James translation of Proverbs 5:16-17 over the new translations.

The first reason has to do with the agricultural analogy. Remember you have a well, you have the water, and what do you do with the water. In verse 16 it says the rivers of waters, and it’s peleg, which is the Hebrew word for irrigation streams, and the irrigation ditches, obviously carry water. They carry the water that came from the well. Now to continue that, “Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad,” would carry the water of verse 16, but if you take verse 16 the way the new translations have it, as a question, then the water of verse 16 cannot be the same water of verse 15. If you make verse 16 a questions, “shall your fountain,” that would be saying shall the male’s initiating sexual activity “be dispersed abroad,” and “shall his resources be spread abroad.” Whereas the theme from verses 15-18 is not the male’s resources, it is the female’s resources. And so my first reason for sticking with the King James translation, making verse 16 a declarative statement and not a question is that it preserves the flow of the analogy.

The second reason for preserving the King James translation is that if you make verse 16 a question you make it a motivation clause and by the form of proverbial literature you always have a command and then you have motivation, and motivation clauses don’t seem to start until verse 20 and therefore since the motivation clauses don’t start there it’s silly to bring on in by itself in verse 16. So I hope I’ve justified my reasons for taking it… I do have reasons whether I have time to bring them out or not and those are the reasons, the preservation of the agricultural analogy, and the form of this kind of literature.

Now today we begin a new section in Proverbs 6. And this is an exhortation to avoid the pitfalls of life; the entire 6^th chapter is negative. Please notice the emphasis on negative teaching in Scripture. Again, this is the father talking to his son, whether it’s Solomon or David it becomes ambiguous here, I think it probably just goes back to Solomon now teaching his son, but the entire 6^th chapter deals with various pitfalls that a young man can face in life. Some will be repetitious; some of the discussion of these pitfalls repeats what has been said in chapter 5 except the first five verses of chapter 6 deals with money and finance. So we go from sex to money and if we didn’t get you one way we’ll get you the other way.

So Proverbs 6:1-5 deal with problem of finance, and more important problems and pitfalls in business relationships. And this was part of the father’s education of his son, what he has done to avoid these kinds of situations. Beginning in verse 1, “My son, if you be surety for thy friend [neighbor], if you have stricken thy hand with a stranger, [2] You are snared with the words of thy mouth, you have been taken with the words of thy mouth. [3] Do this now, my son, and deliver thyself, when you are come into the hand of your friend; go, humble yourself, make sure thy friend. [4] Give not sleep to thine eyes, nor slumber to thine eyelids.” [5] Deliver thyself like a roe from the hand of the hunter, and like a bird from the hand of the fowler.” Now what is this talking about?

Proverbs 5:1-2, let’s go back to the form of instruction literature; instruction literature always has at least two parts, sometimes three. The two parts it always must have is command and motivation. But in this case we have a third element pop in and that is circumstance. So verses 1-2 deal with the circumstances; in other words, the situation in which you follow the command is described. So the first two verses deal with the situation. Verse 3, the first part of it, up to the word “yourself” comma, deals with command; verse 4 deals with command, verse 5 deals with command. So we have Proverbs 6:3a, verse 4, verse 5, they deal with command, that’s the instruction on what to do. And then the last part of verse 3, Proverbs 6:3b deals with the motivation. Here we notice the motivation is a very small part of the total passage, whereas in previous passages we’ve noticed motivation plays a tremendous role. So we have circumstances, commands and motivation. Let’s look not at the first two verses, the situation.

The whole passages hinges on how you analyze verses 1-2. If you’re not clear on the first two verses you can never be clear on what to do because you can never be clear on what the situation is that you’re to do this thing in. So let’s get very, very clear in our minds what the situation is, not only in the time in which it was written but what situations in our lives today correspond to verses 1-2. Let’s look at verses 1-2 then.

“My son, if you be surety for thy friend [neighbor],” there’s this “if” clause, “if this happens to you. Now the problem of being surety, what does it means when it says “if you be surety for your friend?” To see this turn back to Genesis 43:9 and we’ll show you an example of a man becoming surety, and then perhaps this example will help you see different areas in your life where you can get yourself in similar jams. Genesis 43:9, the situation is this. The time is about 1890 BC, the family of Jacob has come into Palestine in full force, and there’s famine at this time in history and so therefore they have to go to some place where they can get food. But just before the famine began God providentially worked out a fight between Joseph and his brothers; Joseph was kind of mama’s boy and he was not well-liked by the rest of his brothers. In fact, from what we can tell of Scripture Joseph was a brat and his brothers couldn’t stand him and so they finally decided we’re going to sell him out and they did, literally, in a pit. And remember the Ishmaelites came by and Joseph was sold on a caravan that took him down into Egypt. And he was sold there as a slave, but under the sovereignty of God it just so “happened,” (quote, end quote), by sheer chance of course, that he was sold to the man who was in Pharaoh’s household and became a high person in Pharaoh’s household. By the time of chapter 43 Joseph is almost coregent with Pharaoh. Joseph would probably be classified in today’s term as Prime Minister. He was a tremendously strong man and if they ever get the chronologies worked out for Egyptian history we’ll probably find out that Joseph has been reported down through history under another name, and this name is the name of a man that appears in Egyptian records and so on, it’s not Joseph but Joseph does appear in Egyptian history, if the chronologies are taken in a certain way.

So Joseph, then, reigns with Pharaoh. At the time of the famine the rest of his brothers come back down to Egypt; when they come down to Egypt they do not understand that the man they talk to is none other than their brother, Joseph. They don’t recognize him. So Joseph is going to have some fun. And so what he does is he says not look, what I’ll do is I will keep your youngest son and you guys go back and here’s Joseph and here’s Judah and the brothers. So we’ll put Joe here, Joe is an Egyptian now. And Judah and the brothers are down and they want food but he’s not going to give them food until they go back up to their father Jacob and Joseph says now look, I am going to give you food if and when you return your youngest brother and so they go back up to talk to Jacob. Well, Jacob has already lost Joe, he thinks, and so he’s not about to allow them to lose somebody else in the family. And so understandably Jacob is very hesitant about letting this younger boy go.

And so in Genesis 43:9 Judah, look at verse 8 first, “And Judah said unto Israel,” Israel is another name for Jacob, “And Judah said unto Jacob, his father, Send the lad with me, and we will arise and go, that we may live, and not die, both we, and thou, and also our little ones. [9] I will be surety for him, of my hand thou shalt require him: if I bring him not unto thee, and set him before thee, then let me bear the blame forever.” So obviously one of the things of becoming surety means that you become responsible for someone else or some condition.

Now let’s look, then, at the problem of surety. There are always three parties to a surety agreement. How we handle Proverbs 6 depends completely on getting these three parties straight. In a surety situation your first party is, in this case, Judah. This is the man who becomes surety. He is the surety because he presupposes or assumes responsibility for something. The second party can actually be a person or a thing, in this case it’s Benjamin, and we’ll say a party or a thing because actually in this case it’s his safety, it’s the safety of Benjamin, so in a way it is a thing. So the second part of a surety agreement is not only the man who is the surety but it is that for which he becomes surety, that is, that for which he accepts responsibility. I will be responsible for Benjamin’s safety. That’s the second part of a surety agreement. Now the third part of a surety agreement is the one to whom you are surety; in this case it is Jacob, and that is the one to whom you are a surety; to whom. The second party is the one for whom you are surety.

Now you got the three parts? Remember these because if you don’t understand these things… let’s make sure we all understand these three points because if we don’t there’s no way what you’re going to understand what Proverbs 6 is talking about and you’ll misapply Proverbs 6. The first party is the surety; the second party is the one for whom you become surety, and the third party is the one to whom you become surety. Notice also in verse 9 if you fault; if the second person or thing does not come to pass what is going to happen to the first party? The first party is held responsible to produce, and then it says, “if I bring him not to you,” Jacob, “I,” being Judah, if I, Judah, bring him, Benjamin, not unto you, Judah, “and set him,” Benjamin, “before you,” Judah, “then let me,” Judah, “bear the blame forever.” Notice the first part of verse 9, “Of my hand you shall require him.” So becoming surety means you become legally responsible for something. You become legally responsible to someone. So there are two things; you become responsible for something to somebody.

Now in Genesis 44:32 we have a construction that is necessary to master before we are prepared for Proverbs 6. Now if you can remember some simple English grammar it will help. You go to some of the schools that apparently some of you go to you don’t know any English grammar and if that’s the case let’s have a few English lessons. First, there is such a thing as a subject in a sentence and a verb. The subject noun, an adjective standing for a noun, and so on. And we have a verb, and there are such things as objects of verbs. And objects of verbs can have two parts, a direct object and an indirect object. Now in the Hebrew objects are denoted in special ways; and indirect objects are denoted in special ways. Now Genesis 44:32 sets up the grammar to understand which party is obligated to whom.

So in verse 32, “Thy servant has become surety for the lad,” now where it says “surety for the lad” the Hebrew has direct object. So the second party is linked to the verb as a direct object in this case. I become surety, and in the Hebrew it just rendered, now obviously here it’s rendered as object of a preposition in the translation but that’s not so in Hebrew; the Hebrew it’s direct, it literally reads: “I become surety him.” And it means I become surety for him, but you have the direct object. So therefore, check when we come to Proverbs 6; is the direct object going to be the second or the third party. It is going to be the second party. Then in verse 32, “For thy servant has become surety for the lad, to my father,” “to my father” is rendered as indirect object, or literally an object of preposition, “of,” so this is the third party. Remember our parties; Jacob is the third party, the one to whom you are a surety, indirect object. Benjamin is the thing for whom you have become surety, direct object. So now we have the subject and the verb and then we have a direct and indirect object. Now that is the normative way of expressing surety.

With that in mind let’s turn to Proverbs 6 and see if we can sort our way through there because most translations break down the Hebrew grammar at verse 1. “My son, if you be surety for thy friend,” now the way the English reads in some translations it reads as though it is saying, “My son, if you become surety to your friend,” it’s reading as though the word “friend” is the second party here, “if you become surety for thy friend,” it’s reading as though “friend” is the direct object, whereas in the Hebrew the surety mentioned here is indirect object. So the friend and the stranger are not what you become surety for, it is the one to whom you become surety; in other words, it is the one to whom you become indebted. And so “if you become surety to your friend, or if you have stricken thy hand with a stranger,” it’s a parallel sentence, it means the same thing; you’re obligated to the friend or stranger.

Now an analogy might be if you co-sign a check for somebody. Let’s break it down with the first, second and third party again to give a modern analogy. You are the first in this case, you are the one that co-signs the check or co-signs the note for someone. The second part would be the one for whom you signed the check, in other words, the other person. And the bank would be the third person; the bank is the one to whom you have become obligated to make sure that that note is paid if the other person defaults. So if party two defaults, then you become responsible to whom? To the bank. Therefore in Proverbs 6:1 the stranger, if you want to visualize this as we go through just think of co-signing a note. The friend and the stranger would be analogous to a bank today.

Now the friend and the stranger are two nouns that mean the same thing. And the next problem we have with verse 1 is we have to understand why it is that the word “friend” and “stranger” are used in parallelism. These two words seem to be antonyms, that means they tend to be opposite nouns that mean something different but yet here they’re used in parallelism. Why? The answer is that “friend” and “stranger” mean that the person can be a fellow Jew, he can be a citizen of the nation but he is a stranger in the sense that he is not of his immediate household; he is not of the immediate family. And in the Old Testament, you have to understand this in the time it was written, financial obligations were kept within the family, and by family they didn’t just mean father and mother, they meant grandson, aunt, uncle and everything else. There was a large unit. But the financial transactions were kept within the family. So when you have this in verse 1 you are talking about someone that goes outside and becomes obligated to someone in another family unit or outside of the realm of circle of friends. So here he has stepped outside by a loan or by some other system and has obligated himself to this.

Now applied to the Christian life the “friend” and the “stranger” become, if you’ll hold the place and turn to 1 Corinthians 6, Paul repeats this same principle as Proverbs 6 in 1 Corinthians 6:13. In verse 12, at the end of verse 12 Paul is talking about practices, in these practices he says, “All tings are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient; all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.” Now that is one beginning phrase that introduces you to Paul’s concern about becoming under authority of something else, it just turns out here it’s the sin nature. That is, he has an area of weakness in his sin nature and although something may be good by normative standards, they are wrong for him; he can’t engage in those activities without becoming in bondage to his area of weakness of his sin nature. And so therefore he says I do not want to lose my freedom; I do not want to become compromised in may freedom that God has given me in Christ.

Now that is an introduction to 1 Corinthians 6. Now turn to 2 Corinthians 6:14 and you’ll see where this principle is extended beyond the sin nature to people external from himself. The first principle is 1 Corinthians 6 where we deal with the sin nature; the second principle is found in 2 Corinthians 6 where it’s talking about people. And it says, “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers; for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion has light with darkness? [15] What concord has Christ with Satan? Or what part had he that believes with an infidel? [16] And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God….”

Now there’s the doctrine of separation, and that by the way should control some of you single people’s dating life. If you’re messing around with people who are unbelievers you are out of it. And I have met more jerks when it comes to premarital counseling and some little thing comes up, would you please counsel me, we’re going to get married two months from now. And I say fine, what about your partner, is he a believer? Well, I don’t know whether he’s a believer or not. Well don’t you think it’s about time you found out? And I’ve had more than one person get very irritated at me because I refuse to do premarital counseling till they find out. I’m not going to marry somebody that’s an unbeliever and a believer; it’s ridiculous. And this verse is my authority and justification for so conducting myself, and I always intend to conduct myself this way. So if you want to go out and marry some unbeliever you can get married somewhere else but you’re not going to get married here and I’m not going to bother to counsel with you because you’ve had my counsel; five minutes, done.

Now in 2 Corinthians there are other sins that have to do with the “yoking.” The yoking has to do with doing a job; the picture is obviously two oxen yoked together to do a job. And obviously it applies to the second divine institution, right? You have the best man, hopefully, and the best woman yoked together to engage in the calling of the man. Now that’s the way it works in marriage. But it also works, and here’s what Proverbs 6 it’s talking about, in the area of business or in the area of the first divine institution.

Now here the principle cannot obviously be applied to (?) because we live in Satan’s world and obviously we’re going to have business arrangements with non-Christians and worse than that, you’ll have business arrangements with Christians that are out of fellowship. And if you haven’t been burned by another believer, cheer up because you’ve got an experience coming. And don’t moan and groan because some other believer cheats you or something in business, just take it; everybody has a sin nature, you do to, move on. But I warn you that just because you happen to be involved in a business agreement with a believer doesn’t mean a thing as far as being gypped; you can get gypped by believers just as skillfully as you can get gypped by unbelievers; in fact, probably more so because you’re not on your guard.

So business arrangements have to be watched. And Paul definitely says whenever you engage in any kind of a contract you read the fine print very carefully because you never want to obligate yourself, or at least obligate yourself to a minimum to the unbelieving world. Your primary obligation is to the Lord. Let me give you an illustration. Many churches or many Christian organizations, when they get in a jam they put out frantic appeals for funds. And when they do this they get money, big people to contribute funds to them, regardless of whether those people have personally accepted Christ of not, with the result that you get Christian organizations and they become obligated to unbelievers, and this is how some of the great seminaries in the United States have gone down, because in the time of need they have gone to unbelievers in direct violation of 2 John and 3 John. The New Testament is very clear on this. And when unbelievers give then unbelievers have a right to determine policy and when you let a Christian organization under the control of unbelievers you have essentially made a pact with Satan right at that point, no matter how orthodox your doctrine is, you have essentially allied yourself and yoked yourself together with Satan. And that’s why Paul is very strong in his language in verse 15, “What agreement,” concord, agreement, working together “has Christ with Satan? Or what part has he that believes with an infidel?” So (?) primarily is applying to marriage but applied to the business world 2 Corinthians is saying this: keep your alliances to the minimum with regards to the non-Christian. Don’t get over obligated to these people.

Let’s turn back to Proverbs 6 and see if we can recapture the mentality in that day. The “stranger” or the “friend,” then, is one who would correspond to an unbeliever today; one who is a stranger to Bible doctrine, one who is a stranger to Christian fellowship. And since he is a stranger he’s outside of the household of faith and therefore this person, Proverbs 6:1 has become “surety to him.” Now I notice the Living Bible in Proverbs has it translated, “If you endorse a note for someone you hardly know.” Wrong! It should be “If you endorse a note to someone,” such as some bank, “that you hardly know.” The point isn’t the debt for which you become obligated; the point is to whom do you become obligated. The issue is not what, it’s to whom, that’s the issue.

Now Proverbs 6:2, “You have become snared,” in other words, you’re a sucker, the word “become baited” is used for bait of small animals and in the Old Testament small animals were looked upon as the most stupid ones, and this is a sarcastic reference in verse 2 to your stupidity, “son,” this is a father talking to his son, you’ve just got taken, “you have become ensnared with the words of thy mouth,” the “words of thy mouth” is a contract that has been signed, “you have been taken with the words of your mouth,” notice “words of your mouth” is repeated. This is very rare in Hebrew poetry, to have a parallelism where the words are repeated verbatim and wherever you have it repeated verbatim they are emphasized. So the emphasis of verse 2 is how did you get it? You got it with the words of your own mouth. In other words, he is saying we are dealing with something that has to do with the first divine institution, your personal responsibility and you got into it and now friend, you are going to have to get out of it. And don’t come running to me, notice what he starts out saying, there are seven imperatives beginning in verse 3, and the father says, son, you got obligated to this by your very own stupidity, now don’t come running to daddy and expect that daddy is going to get rid of it. You got in and brother, you get out, it’s your baby all the way.

So beginning with the word “Do” in Proverbs 6:3 we have a series of seven imperatives. These seven imperatives define the course of action that the son is to undertake immediately, whenever he realizes… you see, in verse 2 it’s all past tense, it’s Hebrew perfect tenses, he’s done this, he’s done this, he’s done this, he’s become ensnared, now all of a sudden it dawns on you what you got yourself into. And so beginning at verse 3 is a series of imperatives, not past tense. Imperatives, future, what you should do now that you realize the mess you’re in. “Do this now,” and here’s the word that means urgency, there’s a tremendous urgency in all of these seven imperatives, “Do this now, my son, and deliver yourself,” get yourself out of there, and “deliver yourself” is reflexive which means no one else can do the delivering except you; you got yourself into it, you get yourself out of it. Nobody else can do it, even dear old dad; he’s not going to help you either, you are going to do it. So you “deliver yourself.”

Now begins the motivation clause, notice the motivation clause, the rest of verse 3, here’s why. In a nutshell this is the entire Hebrew philosophy in controlling economics. Now if we had time we could go back into some of the great passages on business and money and banking in the book of Leviticus and the book of Deuteronomy, but underlying all of those dozens in the Old Testament there is this philosophy. The word “when” should be because, it’s the Hebrew word kiy, and kiy can mean when or it can mean because but here we know it means “because” because of the context. “…because you have come into the hand of your friend,” that’s the reason, and your “hand” here is kaph, you know when it says in the Old Testament the hand of Jehovah is raised against the nation, that is an anthropomorphism for power; God’s omnipotence spread abroad against the nation, God’s hand. So when it says “the hand of your friend” it means the authority of your friend. Again, who is the friend? The friend is the stranger of verse 1, same context. And this is why you under go these seven imperatives; you have come under the authority of this person.

Why is this so critical? Let’s relate this to the pitfalls of life. In Proverbs 6 the father is telling his son how to stay free. And this is why when he gets into the problem of the right woman and the best woman down at the bottom of the passage when he deals with marriage it’s how to stay free. The whole theme of this is don’t hinder your freedom as a responsible being operating under the first divine institution God has given you a calling in life, and that calling may be a business man, it may be something else, it may be in the military, it may be in industry, but God has given you a calling in life and every piece of advice in Proverbs 6 is directed to keeping your freedom, and the freedom to carry out your calling. In other words, said another way, if the son does not put Proverbs 6 into practice in his daily life he is liable to destroy his calling because he will destroy his freedom that gives him the right to do that calling; he will become encumbered, he will become ensnared, he will become hindered by all of these agreements and everything else and finally he will realize that in the last analysis he has no freedom to do what God wants him to do.

So the rule in the Old Testament business philosophy is stay as free as you can… stay as free as you can, because you live in Satan’s world; Satan does not want you to be free if you’re a Christian. And if you’re active in applying the Word of God what way would Satan use to hinder a man who is in business who wants to do something for God? Obviously wrap him up in a business agreement with somebody else that Satan can control. It’s very simple, and what we have here is something that applies to our own generation. This is how to stay free in Satan’s world, and the people in the Old Testament are very, very acutely conscious of how Satan can bring into bondage through economic deals and tie up believers completely.

This is why during the Tribulation one of the great tools of Satan is called Babylon. Babylon is political and economic cartel that ties up the world’s money and during the Tribulation no one will be able to pay, buy or sell without the mark of the beast. There will be a credit card system and to get this particular credit card you will have to declare your undivided allegiance to the beast; without this credit card there will be no cash, there will be no money, nothing; you will have only one credit card and if you don’t have this credit card that’s it, you don’t buy food, you don’t buy anything, you don’t even have water. So during the Tribulation Satan accomplishes his objective and that is to tie up the world’s money so that believers can’t use it. And this has always been Satan’s objective in the role of economics. This is why today, as Satan gains more and more control we find more and more emphasis against the individual. This is why we have laws that says the United States citizen can no longer older own gold. It’s destroying his economic freedom. When you have the so-called cash-less society, and so on, [tape turns].

… it is operating to destroy your ability to use your money the way you want to use it and so this anticipates Satan’s ultimate means. This is why economics in God’s Word, the key is to always keep your freedom, and this is why on an individual basis why in verse 3 he says you have lost your freedom. And so notice the reaction, “you have come into the hand of your friend,” you’ve destroyed your freedom, you have limited what you can do in business because now your friend is going to tell you what you can and cannot do because you’ve become obligated to a non-Christian, you’ve become obligated to somebody that Satan can control and because of this, now they are going to dictate what you will do and what will not do with your money and with your job and with your business. You have just tubed it as far as an operational freedom goes to carry out God’s will in your life. You have destroyed the freedom that God gave you.

All right, now a series of emergency moves are made, and notice each one of these seven imperatives tells you hurry up, do this, do this, and there’s a tremendous emphasis on speed, get out of that agreement, break it, do anything you can, and the most powerful verbs are used in the Hebrew language to connote urgency, even if you have to grovel at the person’s feet, get out of that agreement. And so it says, “Go, humble yourself,” now the word “humble yourself” looks like this, raphas, and it is what they call the hithpael stem in Hebrew which is reflexive. In other words, this is not an active verb, it’s not a passive verb, it’s a verb that goes in a circle; you do this to yourself is what it’s saying; you “humble yourself,” and literally this verb means to stamp down, and it is the most humiliating type of humbling that is possible in Scripture. This is the extreme of the vocabulary available to the writer of Proverbs. If you have to go to the ultimate of humiliating yourself get out of that agreement, break it, convince the other person, do something, whatever it takes get out of that agreement. So “humble yourself,” not “make sure thy friend, [importune thy neighbor],” this means pester him, it’s the Hebrew word to cause confusion, go after him and hound him and hound him and hound him and hound him until you get rid of that.

And then finally, Proverbs 6:4, “Give not sleep to thine eyes, nor slumber to thine eyelids. [5] Deliver thyself as a roe from the hand of the hunter, as a bird from the hand of the fowler.” Not this is very significant and those of you who have been following Psalms will immediately recognize what’s happening here. Do you know what the fowler is? The fowler in Scripture is a picture of Satan. Why? What does the fowler do? He traps birds. Why are birds always pictured as believers? Now that is a good title, the birds, but the birds are used as pictures of believers because a bird is an animal that is free and whenever you have the imagery of the bird and the fowler or the snare and the fowler in Scripture it is always showing how Satan hinders the freedom of a believer to live for God.

You see, use your head here, Satan is the greatest genius of all time. He will get you either (?) into carnality, you’ll get out of fellowship, that’s one way he can hinder your freedom. But if you are the kind of believer that has a minimum of carnality, you have a maximum therefore of growth, you have tremendous spiritual strength, if Satan can’t get to you through your own soul he will get to you through your personal relationships. He will have you marry the wrong person; if you’re a business man he’ll get you into some wrong deals.

That’s why I’ve never been able to understand why men who are in business take such a flippant attitude to the Word of God, well I understand why some of them do because some of them have had a presentation of legalism and so on and they think the Word of God is for somebody under three who is female and with that image of the Word of God I can understand why some men act the way they do. But a man who is a Christian and is involved in business has one of the most fantastic set of pressures upon him of any kind of Christian today. The men who are the most pressured by Satan today are Christian businessmen. College students have pressures academically; college students have pressures intellectually, but college students have nothing compared to the kind of pressures that a business man has. A businessman is under fantastic pressure and he has got to continually watch his deals because Satan is continually there, particularly the stronger the Christian the more aggressive Satan will be in trying to hinder you, trying to set a trap to destroy your business and your freedom to move. He will always be after you there. So it behooves you, the stronger you are as a believer actually the more direct satanic attacks you attract.

So, Proverbs 6:5, “Deliver thyself as a roe … and as a bird from the hand of the fowler.” Get out of the agreement.

Now as always we come to a very interesting thing. Throughout the book of Proverbs, every time we move into a passage like this what are we learning? We’re learning something about the real creation. Today, in this passage we have dealt with something about the first divine institution, labor and money and business. Now that’s fine, but do you realize that when you learn something about the details of life and if you’re thinking Scripturally, don’t stop there, go on because once you have mastered knowledge of a detail of life, guess what? The same God who has made the universe and the details of life has also made our spiritual relationship with Him mirror these things, so when we pick up a truth out of the details of life, you take that truth, focus it up here, and lo and behold, it turns out you’re rewarded doubly. Not only do you have an insight into business relationships but it turns out that you’re going to have greater insight into the plan of salvation.

Now let’s see how. We have reviewed the problem of surety. Now do you realize that the entire plan of salvation is in direct contrast to Proverbs 6:1-5 and here we’re going to see one of the most amazing demonstrations of God’s grace? God is sovereign, God is righteous, God is just, God is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, immutable and eternality. One of His attributes is love. Now His attribute of love was focused upon creation from the time of creation, but after the fall love becomes even greater and turns into grace. Grace could not exist before the fall. Grace could not exist before the fall because grace, by definition, is love toward a creature who does not merit it. There’s not one person sitting here that merits God’s love; none of us merit God’s love. It is grace all the way. The reason why Jesus Christ died on the cross wasn’t because we earned it; Jesus Christ died on the cross because He loves you. Jesus Christ died on the cross for the worst people who have ever lived because He loves them. People that you can’t stand Jesus Christ loves so much that He would go to the cross if even just they were existing.

So you pick out a person in your own relationship with friends and enemies that you can’t stand; now just think of that one person that you can’t stand, it just grates you every time you see them. Now, Jesus Christ would have died for just that person, even if you weren’t around. Now that’s the love that Jesus Christ has poured out. That’s grace. Love covers the unlovable and unmerited. Now how does this tie in with surety? Because the concept of Proverbs 6 is going to be used in four places in the New Testament to show God’s grace.

Let’s turn to the first one in Hebrews 7. Once we master a detail of life it turns out that God the Holy Spirit can now turn this detail of life over and use it to illuminate the plan of salvation. Now this is why you parents, who have children who may not be believers, this kid may not be a believer, he may have rejected everything you taught him about the Word of God, but if you have been continually teaching him the details of life, how to master this situation, that situation, you have developed some chokmah in him, wisdom. And if he has wisdom over the details of life he has the ability that can be used by the Holy Spirit later to understand spiritual truth, and this is a beautiful illustration. We’ve understood something in the economic and business realm and now in Hebrews 7:22, Jesus Christ is pictured as a surety. Notice in verse 22, “By so much was Jesus made a surety of a better contract.” Now look at that, this is amazing.

Let’s go back to our three parties that we started with; party one, party two, party three. Party one was the surety; in this case it is Christ. Christ is the surety; Christ is the surety about what? He is the surety about the new covenant. He is taking the responsibility to bring the new covenant to pass. Then who is Christ responsible to? This is the amazing thing. To us, that’s the amazing thing. To the Father, yes, but also to us. Now look at this; what has been the mentality in the Old Testament over and over and over and over again. Don’t get obligated for people who are outside the will of God. And what does Jesus Christ get around to? (?) obligated. Do you know why? Because He loves us; He, so to speak, risks getting obligated for the salvation of people who are completely outside the Father’s will, and Jesus Christ becomes surety that the new covenant will come to pass. Jesus deliberately obligated Himself to this cause, and the reason is because He loved us.

What does it mean “obligate to bring the new covenant to pass”? First of all, it means that He is obligated that many believers will come to know Him during the church age. The second thing is that He is obligated that these believers will become sanctified. The third thing is that He is obligated that the millennial kingdom will be established. Now that’s the obligation Jesus Christ has undertook, and Jesus Christ, by Proverbs 6 didn’t have to do it. Nowhere in the Mosaic Law does it say become surety to something. This was a free act of grace where Jesus Christ loved the world and He undertook voluntarily to become surety for this kind of thing.

We have another passage, Ephesians 1, this involves the third personality of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. What does it say in Ephesians 1:14, [13b] “you have been sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, [14] Who is the earnest” and the word “earnest” is the same word as surety, the Holy Spirit “who is the surety of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of His glory.” Now look at this; let’s put our three part analysis again. Who is the one who is the surety here? It’s the Holy Spirit. What is it that He is assuring us of? What responsibility does the Holy Spirit undertake on behalf of us as believers? To “the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession.” Do you know what the Holy Spirit is saying? He’s taken the responsibility to get us conformed to Christ. He’s taken the responsibility to bring us into the line of predestination so that we are now going to in the future be conformed to Christ. And the Holy Spirit has said to the Father, I take responsibility for that. There again you have the grace attitude shown by the Holy Spirit. He has undertaken, and by the way, in loud and clear letters this spells the doctrine of eternal security. The Holy Spirit has become a guarantee that we will arrive in the state for which we have been ordained.

But what is the last analysis of all of this? We have seen other passages, 2 Corinthians has two more passages but they’re analogous to Ephesians 1:14. The idea is that God the Son and God the Holy Spirit have become surety; they have become surety out of no obligation to us. That’s grace. They have become surety of the Word of God because the new covenant and the doctrine of predestination is the Word of God. They have guaranteed the performance of the Word of God. Now look at that.

When you claim, as a believer, a promise, Romans 8:28, “All things work together for good,” just think a minute. When you think of 1 Thessalonians 5, “In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” When you think of 1 Peter 5:7, “Casting all you care upon Him, for He cares for you,” do you realize that behind those promises are two people who have guaranteed, like Judah guaranteed to Jacob that is this son doesn’t return Jacob, I take responsibility forever. Do you know what Jesus Christ has done for you and for me? If the Word of God doesn’t come true in your life I take responsibility forever. Christ has voluntarily become surety for God’s promises. And so we have an economic insight into the plan of salvation.

But there’s one further point, one further application that is needed and that’s in Matthew 5. We have seen the economic sphere, we have seen how the economic sphere mirrors part of the plan of salvation, gives insight to it, and now the reason why in the economic sphere you act one way, whereas God in the sphere of grace acts another way.

In Matthew 5:33 we have Jesus Christ teaching this statement. “Again, you have heard that it has been said by them of old, Thou shalt not forswear [perjure] thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths; [34] But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven, for it is God’s throne; [35] Nor by the earth, for it is his footstool; neither by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. [36] Neither shalt thou swear by your head, because you cannot make one hair white or black. [37] But let your communication be Yea, yea; Nay, nay; for whatever is more than these comes of evil one,” not of evil, “of the evil one.” Why is this? Christ is again asserting the same theme of Proverbs 6, believer choose your freedom, don’t you get obligated to something. And you can’t, as He says here, change, “make your one hair white or black.” This is why God can enter a surety agreement, because He is God. And God can guarantee because God has the sovereign power to back up His guarantee.

But when a believer, operating in Satan’s world, puts himself as a surety he becomes obligated to some person, some organization and behind that organization is Satan. And that’s why Christ says you watch it, don’t you get yourself sucked up into obligations because the one behind that is the evil one. This verse is not saying there are not legitimate kinds of contracts because obviously in Christ’s own physical trial He Himself accepted the idea of swearing in court; this is not an attack against all swearing in court, this is not an attack against all concepts, it is using wisdom to select the ones that are wise and reject the ones that are satanic.

Maybe some of you as believers never realized this before, but you watch it in your business; you watch it in areas where you can hemmed in by getting in league or in obligation with people that you know you should have no business getting in league with. Pick your friends, even your business associates, wisely. Satan’s active there just as he is on every other front.