Proverbs 6 - Don’t Rush Into Things

Hello, and welcome back to Strength for the Day.

And it's great to be here with my normal co-host for our podcast, Bible Babbles. It's great to have you here on Strength for the Day, Carlos.

Glad to be here.

Yep, and we just finished recording a thing on the Children of Israel from the Book of Joshua, Joshua 3 through 5, the other day, and enjoyed that, and looking forward to that coming out this Friday.

In regards to things that are upcoming here for our church and a little bit for the podcast, tonight, Pastor Paul Chappell of Lancaster Baptist Church from California is going to be here with us tonight at 7 p.m.

So if you're able to make it, we would love to have you here. Pastor Chappell's a great preacher. He's been in ministry over 35 years, and we know he'll be a huge encouragement to you and your family.

So if you're able to make it here in person, definitely try and do that. And then if you are from somewhere else, you can tune in tonight at 7 p.m. And I think you will be very much encouraged and helped through tonight's message.

Because of that, we also will not be having our Strength of the Day podcast tomorrow. We will not have the podcast tomorrow. We're gonna be doing a little bit of some staff training and leadership, whatever, with Pastor Chappelwally's here.

So there will not be a podcast tomorrow. I will sub in our Bible Babbles podcast episode will be airing tomorrow. So if you just really need something for the day, you can find that and hopefully that would be an encouragement to you.

Do want to say one very important prayer request this morning. Jacob Lee has a surgery at 10 o'clock this morning. And so we'll start off with some prayer and then we'll end the podcast in prayer.

But just really want to keep him and the Holy Family in prayers. For those of you that maybe don't know Jacob, this would be Beth's brother, Beth Elliot's brother.

And so be praying for the family, for the surgery to go well, for the doctors to do exactly what they need to, and for all of the recovery and everything to go smoothly. So we're going to be in Proverbs 6 today.

But let's start off with a word of prayer and ask for God's blessing. Carlos, would you open us up in a word of prayer?

Father, thank you for this day. Pray, Lord, that you help us as we go through this chapter. Lord, that it be a blessing to those watching.

Lord, we just want to lift up Jacob today as he has his surgery soon. And pray, Lord, that you just help that to go really well.

Lord, that you give the doctors wisdom in that surgery, that everything would just be safe, Lord, and that Jacob will have a smooth recovery time. Thank you, Lord, for just having the medicine and the ability to work these things out.

Pray, Father, you'd be with us tonight as we have Pastor Chappell, Lord, that he would just be a blessing to our church and you would help him to get in safely. We love you, Lord, and we pray, amen.

Amen. Well, really the main thought for today, we're going through verses one through 15 of Proverbs 6. And really the main thought of this section is don't be hasty.

I almost titled this particular episode that, but it's don't rush into things. And there's three specific things that the passage kind of talks about, not rushing into, not being quick to do. And it starts here in verse number one.

My son, if thou be surety for a stranger, or collateral for a stranger, if thou stricken thy hand with a stranger, thou art snared with the words of thy mouth, thou art taken with the words of thy mouth. Do this now, my son, and deliver thyself.

When thou art coming to the hand of thy friend, go humble thyself and make sure thy friend, or plead with your friend. Give not sleep to thine eyes, nor slumber to thine eyelids.

Deliver thyself as a row or a deer from the hand of the hunter, and as a bird from the hand of the fowler, or the bird hunter.

And here in this first section is maybe a little bit confusing, but what Solomon says here is, hey, if you have kind of pledged yourself as collateral for someone else, if they, as a modern day example, if I'm collateral for you for your very nice

car, and you stop making payments on the car, if I've cosigned to that, if I'm like the collateral, then they can come after me for you not making your payments. Nice. It's kind of the general idea. I know.

It sounds great for you, doesn't it? But here's what Solomon's telling his son, Ray Bohm. He says, hey, don't rush into things, specifically in this instance, don't rush into financial decisions.

I was super helped by Brother Scully being here near the beginning of the year. And one of the pieces of financial advice that they always give is don't make snap financial decisions.

When you do that, when you do it just on spur of the moment, when you do it in fear, when you do it maybe even just in a thing of like, man, Dogecoin is really gonna do great, so I'm gonna invest a bunch of money in it, and then it crashes.

Making hasty or rash financial decisions is never a good idea. So that's kind of the first thing that Solomon says here. And I think as Christians, that's something that we need to really emphasize because our money is not our money.

Did you know that, Carlos? That when you get a paycheck, it's not your money. And when I get a paycheck, it's not my money.

It's the Lord's money. We are simply stewards of it. That everything we have is because of the Lord.

And because of that, God has specific instructions on how we spend our money. He wants us to spend our money to further the work of the Gospel. He wants us to spend our money to take care of our families and provide for them.

And be able to, as we'll see later in Proverbs, for people even to be able to give money to the next generation, that we would save money and be smart with that. That we wouldn't waste our money.

You'll see that several times in the upcoming chapters and Proverbs. But our money as Christians does not belong to us. It's not up to solely our discretion with what we want to do with it.

God has expectations. And when we make really fast decisions, when we make really rash decisions with our money, we are much more likely to make a big mistake.

Maybe in an investment, maybe on a purchase, in whatever area it is, be intentional with planning out how you're going to use your money, with how you're going to save your money.

In all of these things, these first five verses is don't be rash with your money. Can you read verses 6 through 11, Carlos?

Go to the end, thou sluggard, consider her ways and be wise, which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, provided her meat in the summer and gathered her food in the harvest.

How long without sleep, O sluggard, when would thou arise out of thy sleep, yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep, so shall thy poverty come as one that traveleth, traveleth?

Traveleth, yes, I don't know what I'm... And thy wants as an armed man.

Yeah, any thoughts on that?

Not yet.

Okay, the one thing that really stick out to me from this passage is don't be hasty, don't rush into making the easy choice or the easy decision.

The specific decision that's mentioned here is, hey, don't sleep your life away, especially during this time, like you had to get up and plow your crops, you had to plow the ground for it, you had to do all of these things in order to actually have a

harvest at the end of the year, and you would eat because you had a harvest. And so he's telling him, hey, if you do not take care of your fields, if you're not diligent in your work, if you just make the easy decision of, man, I'm just gonna sleep

in today, I'm just gonna stay in bed, obviously not in the thing of, hey, I'm feeling sick today, and I should stay in bed. Not at all like that. But even just a thing of laziness that says, man, I don't wanna work, I don't wanna put in the effort.

He tells him here what the result of that is going to be. Here in verse 11, he says, so shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth.

He says, basically, you're gonna just end up being really here a homeless vagabond that you don't really have one, you're just travelling through your life at this point.

And it says, and I want as an armed man, so you will have great need in your life because you have not done the hard work, you haven't done what you were supposed to do, you weren't diligent.

And so now it's coming back in a bad way of, man, I don't have any crops, I don't have any money. And so it could even connect with the thing above it that, hey man, now debtors, people I owe money to are coming after me because of this.

So don't make the easy decisions in life, make the right decisions in life. Now, that being said, when you make the right decisions, it will always be easier than the consequences of an easy decision.

So, you might say, man, working a nine to five for like 10 years is a lot of work. The easier decision might just be to rob a bank. But the consequences for robbing a bank are way tougher than working a nine to five for 10 years.

It's kind of a silly example, but oftentimes we want to take the easy route without thinking about the consequences of our actions. And so Solomon's telling his son here, hey, don't be afraid to make the right decision, not the easy decision.

Don't rush into, man, I'm just gonna go back to sleep. I'm just gonna stay in bed. I'm not gonna work today.

Have a good work ethic, and there will be benefits that come as a result of it, as opposed to the bad consequences that come about as a result of taking the easy way out. Any thoughts on the easy way out?

That's how I felt every morning at college. I had to wake up for first hour.

Yep, yeah, for students, especially in college, man, waking up can feel like, oh, this is such a burden, but I bet you're glad now that you've finished, you have a degree, you have a job, and that's so much better than being like, man, I failed all

of my classes, I wasted all my money.

I had roommates who didn't get out of bed, and they failed multiple classes because of it, and they didn't graduate.

Yep, and so the easy decision of staying in bed had more difficult consequences, had harder consequences of not graduating, having to take a class again, having to spend more money than if they would have just done the right decision, the good

decision of a good work ethic. So first five verses here, don't make hasty financial decisions, verses six through 11, don't make fast, don't be hasty in making easy decisions, choose the right decision.

And then here in verses 12 through 15, a naughty person, a wicked man walketh with a froward mouth. He winketh with his eyes, he speaketh with his feet, he teacheth with his fingers, frowardness is in his heart or perversion is in his heart.

He deviseth mischief continually. And this would be evil or perversity. It's more than just a prank.

It's not that kind of mischief. He deviseth mischief continually. He soweth discord.

That's disunity. It's bickering among people that wouldn't have otherwise argued or disagreed or fought with each other. So in here, you have a person that is in kind of a, I think a little bit of an older sense, he's a fast talker.

And I see few people on here. You might remember that term. I forget if I've heard it on maybe old TV shows where people are like, man, he's a really fast talker.

This would be a salesman, like a slick oil salesman. This would be the guy that would come into town and would sell you, oh, this thing will cure cancer. It'll cure anything you have.

If you don't have a good singing voice, it'll get you a good singing voice. I think of there's an old musical, I believe it's entitled The Music Man. And my wife loves the movie, introduced me to it.

I think Pastor probably loves it too. But this is that kind of a person. This is someone that is always trying to really get in with people.

You can see some characteristics of him, where it says here in verse 12, a naughty person. That's a person that's a worthless person. It's a person that's not really good in any way.

This is a person that is always trying to get the best of people, to pull one over on people. He's a wicked man. He walks with a perverse mouth.

It's someone that doesn't speak good, wholesome language. And here in verse 13, where it says, he winketh with his eyes, he speaketh with his feet, he teacheth with his fingers. He does a lot of signaling and shuffling.

This is kind of, I think of a lot of maybe Las Vegas magicians, but those that are very, very tricky with a lot of their things that they're doing.

This is what this person that is talking about is kind of doing, where he's trying to pull one over on people, he's trying to get things from people. And I don't know that many people watching this particular podcast would really have this ban.

I don't think Mike Gazelle is really much of a fast talker and trying to pull one over on people. But be aware that these kinds of people are absolutely out there. And so don't rush into hasty financial decisions with one of these people, for sure.

But be aware that we can all have a natural bent because of our sin nature to want to take advantage of other people, to get the best possible deal for ourselves instead of just being fair and kind.

So really from this section, I don't think the application to many of us would be, hey, don't be a trickster, don't be a fast talker. The application for many of us might just be, hey, remember to be kind and fair in our dealings with others.

Don't always be trying to get the best of other people and also to beware of people that would be like this, that man, they're really smooth talkers, but they are, I believe the older phrase would be, it's just a flash in the pan.

It's just there and it's gone. Just like the music man. Have you seen that movie?

Nope.

Okay, if you haven't seen the movie, watch it at some point later.

It'll give you a great insight into this kind of person. Well, I hope some of those would be an encouragement to you. Don't be fast, don't be hasty in your financial decisions and your business decisions.

Don't be fast to always take the easy route, take the right route and then don't be fast to try and get the best of others and don't be fast to just really believe anyone but be fair and equitable in what you do and be cautious about who you listen

to. So hope these would be an encouragement to you. And as was mentioned at the beginning, we're praying for Jacob Lee as he has a surgery today here in 14 minutes. So I'm going to pray and thanks so much for tuning in to Strength for the Day.

Dear Lord, we want to thank you so much for your word and for the encouragement and the practical help it can give to us today. We ask God that you would be with Jacob and the rest of the family.

As he's going into surgery, we ask that you would guide the doctor's hands, that they would know exactly what they need to do.

We ask that the recovery and everything would go as planned, that there wouldn't be any complications, any infections, but that Jacob would just heal up great.

And Lord, we love the Lees and we're thankful for them being at our church and God, we ask that you would provide them with your grace and your peace during this time, that they wouldn't feel afraid, but that they would know that you're with them.

God, we love you. We pray all this in your name. Amen.

Well, thank you so much for tuning in to Strength of the Day.