◄ Proverbs 22:27 ►
If you have nothing with which to pay, why should your bed be taken from under you?
Sermons
Right in Social RelationsE. Johnson Proverbs 22:22-29














Pulpit Commentary Homiletics
Right In Social Relations
Proverbs 22:22-29
E. Johnson

I. RELATIONS TO THE POOR. (Vers. 22, 23.)

1. Robbery and oppression are a breach of the positive external law (Exodus 20:15), much more of the inward and eternal law written in the heart, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."

2. The perversion of law and magisterial authority to this end is an aggravation of the offence. It makes the refuge of the poor the market for bribery.

3. Above all, such oppression shows contempt for the authority of God. Among his titles to the throne of the world are these - that he is Protector of the helpless, Father of the fatherless, Judge of widows. The judgment on Ahab and the Captivity in Babylon (1 Kings 21:18-24; Isaiah 33:1) may be referred to as examples of retributive judgment on the spoilers of the poor.

II. AGAINST ASSOCIATION WITH PASSIONATE AND PRECIPITATE MEN. (Vers. 24, 28.) It is a contagious temper. How soon is the habit of hot and violent language caught up from another! It is a dangerous temper. "Never anger made good guard for itself." It becomes more hurtful than the injury which provoked it. It is often an affected temper, compounded of pride and folly, and an intention to do commonly more mischief than it can bring to pass.

III. AGAINST THE RASH INCURRING OF LIABILITIES. (Vers. 26, 27; see on Proverbs 6:1-4; Proverbs 11:15; Proverbs 17:18; Proverbs 20:16.)

IV. AGAINST THE REMOVAL OF THE OLD LANDMARKS. (Ver. 28. See the express commands of the Law, Deuteronomy 19:14; Deuteronomy 27:17; Job 24:2; Hosea 5:10.) A strict respect for the righits of others is the foundation of all social order. And connected with this is the duty of respect for the feelings for what is ancient and time honoured. There should be no violent change in old customs of life and thought. Necessity may compel them; caprice should never dictate them. A spirit ever restless and bent on innovation is a nuisance in society. The existence of a custom is a proof of its meaning and relative worth; until it is discerned that the significance is now a false one, it should not be swept away.

V. ON THE PRINCIPLES OF SUCCESS. (Ver. 29.)

1. A man must know his business in the world. This is determined partly by his talents, partly by providential circumstances. "Know thy work "is as important a precept as "Know thyself."

2. He must be diligent in his business, doing "with his might" what his band finds to do, laboring "with both hands earnestly" in every good cause.

3. The result will be advancement and honour. We have shining examples in Joseph, Nehemiah, Daniel. Ability and capacity are no less acquired than natural; use alone fully brings to light the talent, and to it Providence opens the suitable sphere of activity. Men may seem to be failures in this world who are not really so. He alone can judge of the fidelity of the heart who is to utter at the end of the sentence, "Well done, good and faithful servant!" "Many that are first will be last, and the last first." - J.

Biblical Illustrator
That I might make thee know the certainty of the words of truth.
Proverbs 22:21
Certainties
William Birch.
This is an age of inquiry. The ideas of the ancient world are the ideas of the childhood of the race. The Bible is a human book, which we reverence and love as a sacred treasure on account of the Divine spirit which pervades it. Do not place the Bible on the altar of superstition and imagine it to be God. Seek God in it, but with this caution — that all of it is not the actual Word of God. Why should any man seek by unfair means to force another to think as he does? Does not Christ give us an example of mental freedom? He seeks the voluntary and unprejudiced consent of mind, heart, and will.

I. KNOW THE CERTAINTY OF THE WORDS OF TRUTH.

1. That God is the heavenly Father of mankind.

2. Our heavenly Father is just, merciful, and loving, and every man may have free access to the great parental heart.

3. Never attempt to escape from any penalty by doing wrong.

II. WHEREVER THERE IS A PENITENT SOUL THERE IS ALSO A KIND AND FORGIVING GOD. Penitence is not perfection.

III. THE TRANSGRESSOR MUST BEAR THE PENALTY OF HIS SIN. It is a just and merciful law of God that the transgressor shall bear the penalty. The Lord Jesus will not save you from the physical penalty of your sin; but He will give you grace to bear the thorn which your own sin has thrust into your life.

(William Birch.)

People
Solomon
Places
Jerusalem
Topics
Bed, Hast, Lack, Nothing, Pay, Payment, Snatched, Wherewith
Outline
1. A good name is more desirable than great wealth

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Proverbs 22:26-27

     5233   borrowing

Library
The Rich and the Poor
Chapel Royal, Whitehall, 1871. Proverbs xxii. 2. "The rich and poor meet together: the Lord is the maker of them all." I have been asked to preach here this afternoon on behalf of the Parochial Mission Women's Fund. I may best describe the object for which I plead, as an attempt to civilise and Christianise the women of the lower classes in the poorer districts of London and other great towns, by means of women of their own class--women, who have gone through the same struggles as they have, …
Charles Kingsley—All Saints' Day and Other Sermons

One Lion Two Lions no Lion at All
A sermon (No. 1670) delivered on Thursday Evening, June 8th, 1882, at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington, by C. H. Spurgeon. "The slothful man saith, There is a lion without, I shall be slain in the streets."--Proverbs 22:13. "The slothful man saith, There is a lion in the way; a lion is in the streets."--Proverbs 26:13. This slothful man seems to cherish that one dread of his about the lions, as if it were his favorite aversion and he felt it to be too much trouble to invent another excuse. …
C.H. Spurgeon—Sermons on Proverbs

The Formation of Habits.
School Sermon. Proverbs xxii. 6. "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." INTRODUCTION.--There is a district, high up in the Black Forest, where the ground is full of springs. It is a plain some nine hundred feet above the sea. Thousands upon thousands of little springs gush out of the soil; you seem to be on the rose of a vast watering-can. Now, from this great source flow a good many rivers, and they flow in very different, nay, opposite directions. …
S. Baring-Gould—The Village Pulpit, Volume II. Trinity to Advent

The Christian Business World
Scripture references: Proverbs 22:29; Romans 12:11; Psalms 24:1; 50:10-12; Haggai 2:8; Psalm 49:6,10,16,17; 62:10; Matthew 13:22; Mark 10:23,24; Job 31:24-26; Proverbs 3:9; Matthew 25:14-30; 24:45-51; 6:19-21; Luke 12:16-21. THE IDEAL IN THE BUSINESS WORLD There is often a wide difference between the methods actually employed in doing business and when they should be. Good men who are in the thick of the battle of competition and rivalry with other firms in the same line of trade, are the quickest …
Henry T. Sell—Studies in the Life of the Christian

Philip and the Emperor
Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before mean men.--Prov. xxii. 29. Kallias stayed a fortnight under the hospitable roof of Olympias, and during those days he had the pleasure of seeing how greatly his honest and genial simplicity brightened the thoughts both of his hostess and of his friend. The general outline of his own future seemed now to be approximately settled. Like Philip, he had acquired an incurable disgust for Constantinople, with …
Frederic William Farrar—Gathering Clouds: A Tale of the Days of St. Chrysostom

He Accuses Abaelard for Preferring his Own Opinions and Even Fancies to the Unanimous Consent of the Fathers, Especially Where He Declares that Christ did Not
He accuses Abaelard for preferring his own opinions and even fancies to the unanimous consent of the Fathers, especially where he declares that Christ did not become incarnate in order to save man from the power of the devil. 11. I find in a book of his sentences, and also in an exposition of his of the Epistle to the Romans, that this rash inquirer into the Divine Majesty attacks the mystery of our Redemption. He admits in the very beginning of his disputation that there has never been but one conclusion …
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux—Some Letters of Saint Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux

The Baptismal Covenant Can be Kept Unbroken. Aim and Responsibility of Parents.
We have gone "to the Law and to the Testimony" to find out what the nature and benefits of Baptism are. We have gathered out of the Word all the principal passages bearing on this subject. We have grouped them together, and studied them side by side. We have noticed that their sense is uniform, clear, and strong. Unless we are willing to throw aside all sound principles of interpretation, we can extract from the words of inspiration only one meaning, and that is that the baptized child is, by virtue …
G. H. Gerberding—The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church

"But Seek Ye First the Kingdom of God, and his Righteousness, and all These Things Shall be Added unto You. "
Matth. vi. 33.--"But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." The perfection even of the most upright creature, speaks always some imperfection in comparison of God, who is most perfect. The heavens, the sun and moon, in respect of lower things here, how glorious do they appear, and without spot! But behold, they are not clean in God's sight! How far are the angels above us who dwell in clay! They appear to be a pure mass of light and …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

We Shall not be Curious in the Ranking of the Duties in which Christian Love...
We shall not be curious in the ranking of the duties in which Christian love should exercise itself. All the commandments of the second table are but branches of it: they might be reduced all to the works of righteousness and of mercy. But truly these are interwoven through other. Though mercy uses to be restricted to the showing of compassion upon men in misery, yet there is a righteousness in that mercy, and there is mercy in the most part of the acts of righteousness, as in not judging rashly, …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

Proverbs
Many specimens of the so-called Wisdom Literature are preserved for us in the book of Proverbs, for its contents are by no means confined to what we call proverbs. The first nine chapters constitute a continuous discourse, almost in the manner of a sermon; and of the last two chapters, ch. xxx. is largely made up of enigmas, and xxxi. is in part a description of the good housewife. All, however, are rightly subsumed under the idea of wisdom, which to the Hebrew had always moral relations. The Hebrew …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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