The lips of the righteous feed many, but fools die for lack of judgment. Sermons
I. THE POWER OF WEALTH AND THE WEAKNESS OF POVERTY. The former like a strong city or fortress; the latter like a ruinous dwelling, which threatens at any moment to tumble about the dweller's head. The teacher is thinking, as the following verse shows, on the one hand, of wealth wisely and honourably won, which becomes a means to other wise ends; on the other hand, of blameworthy poverty, which leads in time to further vice and misery. To desire competent means for the sake of worthy objects, and to fear poverty because of its temptations, is a right and true attitude of mind. II. THE TENDENCY OF WEALTH DEPENDS ON THE MIND OF THE POSSESSOR. (Ver. 16.) The "tendency of riches" is in itself an incomplete thought. Silver and gold have no tendency, except by a figure of speech. In the heart of man the directing force is found. Used justly, riches are a good; they are simply, like bodily strength, knowledge, skill, a mass of available means. Used wickedly, so that they simply feed our senses and our pride, or become corrupters of others' integrity, they simply increase the possessor's power and range of mischief. When we poetically speak of accursed gold, or base dross, we should be aware that these are figures, and that the curse can never rest on anything in God's creation except the will which perverts what is a means to good into a means to evil. III. THE CAUSES OF DIRECTION ADD MISDIRECTION IN LIFE. (Ver. 17.) Why do some men succeed, and others fail, in perpetual blundering and error? The particular cases may be complex; but as to the general rule there can be no question. In the one case there is admission of faults and attention to the correction of them. In the other, blindness to faults, inattention to warnings, obstinate persistence in error. Be not above taking a hint, especially from a foe. "Temper" is the bane of many. Any opportunity is sacrificed rather than the whim, the humour which seems to the man so thoroughly a part of himself that he cannot give it up. The habit of calm revision of one's progress and failures in the hour of prayer seems needful both to preserve from over self-confidence and from over-reliance on the advice of others. IV. CONCEALED HATRED AND OPEN MALICE EQUALLY ODIOUS. (Ver. 18.) Resentment that one dares not, or thinks it polite not to, express makes the lips turn traitor; and the victim is both "contemned and flattered." God has placed a natural hatred of duplicity in our hearts. It was levelled as a reproach against Euripides that he had put into the mouth of one of his characters the sentiment, "My tongue did swear, my heart remain'd unsworn." Not so dangerous in many cases, but morally worse, is the deliberate slanderer, who goes about to despoil his neighbours of that which leaves them much poorer, makes him none the richer. He is a fool, because his arts recoil upon himself. V. THE PERIL OF THE BABBLING TONGUE; THE PRUDENCE OF RESERVE. (Ver. 19.) The man may be confronted with his words. The "written letter remains," and "many witnesses" may serve equally well to convict of the authorship of a malicious speech. It is far more easy for men to forgive abusive things said to their faces than things reported to have been said behind their backs. And even injurious acts can be got over more readily than stinging words of sarcasm. Words have a more definite shape in thought than deeds; they reveal a certain view of you which has some truth in it. You cannot forget it, which means with most you cannot forgive it. A clean-cut sarcasm, a slander which has just that vraisemblance about it which gives currency to gossip, stamps a certain image of the victim in the public mind. The gentler motive to prudence is the hurt we may do others; the motive consistently here is the treatment we may experience ourselves. If a person, on grounds like these, were to take a pledge of total abstinence from "personal talk" of the critical kind, his prudence must be respected. An approach to this is found in well bred society. And how lamentable the condition of some so called religious circles, when there is so little culture that conversation gravitates as if by necessity to the discussion of the character and doings of popular preachers, etc.! VI. THE TONGUE AND THE HEART ARE IN IMMEDIATE CONNECTION. (Ver. 20.) Just as Napoleon said his brain and hand were in immediate connection. The analogy will serve. The "silver tongue" (no accents are silvery but those of truth) bespeaks the fine disposition, the noble heart. And what can the produce of the "worthless" heart be but "rot" upon the tongue? VII. GOOD BREEDS GOOD, WHILE EVIL CANNOT KEEP ITSELF ALIVE. (Ver. 21.) The lips of the just pasture many. Good words, good preachers, good books, - these are the food of the world, and there cannot be an oversupply. Bad books and teachers may be let alone. As Dr. Johnson said of a poem, it had not enough life in it to keep it sweet (or, "not enough vitality to preserve it from corruption"). - J.
The heart of the wicked is little worth. It is a dangerous opinion that however a man may deviate in his general practice from the habits of morality and religion, yet still he may be possessed of a good heart at bottom. If we trace the rise and progress of this baneful opinion, we shall find its origin in the confusion of ideas prevalent relative to the determination of what is to be called good, and what evil. This has given rise to so untoward and irreligious s separation of the heart of a man from his outward actions, as to decide that the former may continue to be good, while the latter are continually evil. This notion is supported by much irreligious literature. There are writers who affect to measure the worth of every action by the standard of sensibility — an ambiguous word, that is made to overleap every fence of judgment, to throw down every bulwark of rational conviction, and to exalt itself above everything that is serious, solid and virtuous. The heart of such an one as pursues wicked courses, notwithstanding all the insinuations, assertions, and misrepresentations of most dangerous and deceitful writers of every kind, "is of little worth," and yet it is a false and sinful principle to maintain the contrary. If such a heart can be called good, then must virtue and vice have changed their names and qualities; then must religion consist in a total disregard for all serious impression and an absolute forgetfulness of Almighty God; then did our blessed Saviour deliver the admirable precepts of Christianity, to be corrected, revised, altered, and overturned by the maxims of worldly honour. As youthful folly is but too generally the foundation of sin, so is infidelity but too often its superstructure or final result; and the heart is undoubtedly the seat or fruitful parent of both. The heart, in a natural sense, is the seat of life and action. The heart signifies, in a moral sense, the vital principle of all good and evil, of all that purifies or defiles a man, of all that procures him blame or praise, and that renders him justly liable to reward or punishment, either in this life or another. "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he," so are his actions. Is, then, every one who doeth any evil corrupt at heart? No; every one doth evil at times. But it any one should think he might do much evil without corrupting his heart, he is grievously mistaken, and will soon find himself so. May not a man's actions be so poised between good and evil, that it is hard to determine which preponderates? There is a mixture of good and evil in every character, but this is seldom in such equal proportions as makes it difficult to ascertain whether the good or evil preponderates. It is hardly possible for any length of time to keep the balance even betwixt the good and the evil. Either good habits will ere long gain the ascendancy in the heart, or evil ones. Another objection is — Do we not say there are no hopes of reclaiming such an one, he is bad at heart; and does not this seem to imply that a man may have committed a great deal of evil before he can be said to be bad at heart? While the heart is balancing between good and evil, we may not call it bad; when it bends down and keeps down on the evil side, it is bad, and most difficult to be reclaimed by any human means. Yet we may not say that any heart becomes so bad as to be beyond all convicting and converting influences. But it may be said — Is there not a degree of evil actions where the heart is manifestly good? The persons hinted at in this objection are those who have the best intentions in the world, the best dispositions, but whose understandings and judgments do not keep pace with the excess of their goodness. Such persons do not always plan with discretion, or execute with prudence. And they are often the dupes of crafty and designing persons. A good heart is liable to error. Since, then, there is no foundation for that pernicious opinion that a man's heart may be good whilst the general tenor of his actions is immoral and evil, let us earnestly avoid being misled by such idle sophistry, such false reasoning. Let us not listen to the specious allurements of refined sentiment, or to the subtleties of vain philosophy. Let us not set up the imaginations of man above the plain doctrines and precepts of God.(C. Moore, M.A.) People SolomonPlaces JerusalemTopics Death, Delight, Die, Feed, Foolish, Fools, Heart, Judgment, Lack, Lips, Nourish, Righteous, Sense, Understanding, Upright, WisdomOutline 1. Proverbs of Solomon: observations of moral virtues, and their contrary vicesDictionary of Bible Themes Proverbs 10:21 5164 lips Library The Two-Fold Aspect of the Divine Working'The way of the Lord is strength to the upright: but destruction shall be to the workers of iniquity.'--PROVERBS x. 29. You observe that the words 'shall be,' in the last clause, are a supplement. They are quite unnecessary, and in fact they rather hinder the sense. They destroy the completeness of the antithesis between the two halves of the verse. If you leave them out, and suppose that the 'way of the Lord' is what is spoken of in both clauses, you get a far deeper and fuller meaning. 'The way … Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture The Folly of Slander. Part 1. The Folly of Slander. Part 2. Sanctions of Moral Law, Natural and Governmental. The Desire of the Righteous Granted; Lii. Trust in God. The Death and the Raising of Lazarus - the Question of Miracles and of this Miracle of Miracles - views of Negative Criticism on this History The Christian's Hope Letter xxxi (A. D. 1132) to the Abbot of a Certain Monastery at York, from which the Prior had Departed, Taking Several Religious with Him. The Poor in Spirit are Enriched with a Kingdom The Heavenly Footman; Or, a Description of the Man that Gets to Heaven: How the Simple and the Crafty are to be Admonished. Letter xv (Circa A. D. 1129) to Alvisus, Abbot of Anchin Jesus Heals Multitudes Beside the Sea of Galilee. How the Silent and the Talkative are to be Admonished. "But Seek Ye First the Kingdom of God, and his Righteousness, and all These Things Shall be Added unto You. 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