Proverbs 14:1-35

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Let’s take our Bibles together and turn to the Book of Proverbs. We return this morning to a familiar term and a familiar idea in Proverbs—wisdom. That word חָכְמָה (ḥōk·māh), and its cognate חָכָם (ḥō·kām) meaning “the wise,” are used seven times in chapter 14. Even more obvious is the multiple uses for the words, “folly” and “fool.” 

And this entire chapter is really an exploration of two ways to live your life. There’s the way of wisdom, and there’s the way of the fool. There’s walking in wisdom. And then there’s walking in foolishness.

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And that contrast is immediately observable in the first verse. Solomon writes, 

1 The wisest of women builds her house, but folly with her own hands tears it down.

Ladies of Verse By Verse Fellowship, memorize that verse. You are not powerless; you are powerful. You are חַיִל, to use the language of Proverbs 31. You’ve got power. And how you steward that power makes all the difference. A wise woman builds up her husband. She strengthens and empowers her children. But a foolish woman can tear them down… with her words… with her actions… with her sinfulness. 

Go ahead and write this down as #1 in your notes. 

Those who walk in wisdom…

1) fear God and enjoy his benefits (14:1–7)

That expression in verse 1 “builds her house” is metaphorical. Although if you can find a wife who can use a table saw, that’s a bonus. 

To build your house, ladies, doesn’t mean you lay brick. It means you make your house a home with warmth and affection and also discipline. You train up your children to fear God because you fear God. And your children rise up in the morning and call you blessed (31:28). Maybe they won’t do that when they’re 13. But they’ll do it when they are 33, and they’ve got kids of their own.

Speaking of fearing God, Solomon writes in verse 2, 

2 Whoever walks in uprightness fears the Lord, but he who is devious in his ways despises him. 

That is what we call a binary, folks. You fear God or you despise him. Solomon doesn’t give the option of agnostic indifference. Agnostics are just atheists pretending to be deists.

Look at verse 3. And notice how Solomon switches things around now and starts with the fool, and then moves to the wise person. 

3 By the mouth of a fool comes a rod for his back, but the lips of the wise will preserve them. 

Fools use their mouths for evil and pay for it. Those who are wise use their lips for good.

4 Where there are no oxen, the manger is clean, but abundant crops come by the strength of the ox. 

Now verse 4 is intriguing. And you might wonder at first what is meant here. This is another maxim in the book of Proverbs that encourages hard work and diligence, although it comes at it in a unique way. The idea here is that industriousness is messy. 

Let me say it this way—if you’ve got cows, you’ve also got this thing called “cow patties.” If you got oxen, in the ancient world, you’ve got to feed them and clean their stalls. That’s not fun. That’s costly. But the juice is worth the squeeze, because with those oxen comes abundant crops. 

Everyone in this world is looking for the quick buck. Everyone is looking for a shortcut to comfort, financial stability, and personal wealth. But if you want those things, you’ve got to get your hands dirty. You’ve got to work. You’ve got to invest wisely. You’ve got to protect and take care of your assets. 

But if you want a nice, clean, sterile, safe, comfortable, risk-free life without any complications, then prepare to be poor. Prepare to go without. Prepare to live off your parents or the government. [Good luck with that last one. That’s going to run out eventually.]

The first point for this message is “fear God and enjoy his benefits.” And we see the benefits in this section. We’ve seen these things before. One benefit is wise lips (verse 3). That’s good. Another benefit is a solid work ethic (verse 4). That’s good too! Another benefit in verse 5 is a commitment to truth.

5 A faithful witness does not lie, but a false witness breathes out lies. 

As Christians, we live not by lies! We don’t lie in the workplace. We don’t lie in the courts. We don’t listen to lies in the media or perpetuate them in society. We don’t tell little boys that they can be little girls, and little girls that they can be boys. We don’t feed children puberty-blocking drugs, no matter how sincerely they embrace their own confusion.

By the way, there’s a reason that historically we’ve had people place their hands on the Bible and swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. That’s because the Bible is a bastion of truth in a world awash with lies and deceit. And when people who fear God put their hand on this Bible and swear before others including a judge, that’s meant to be a terrifying inducement for the truth. The problem is we have people who don’t fear God anymore. We are a nation now of what you might call “scoffers.” 

And speaking of scoffers, look at verse 6.

6 A scoffer seeks wisdom in vain, but knowledge is easy for a man of understanding.

A scoffer is one who defies God, not fears God. And there’s no wisdom without the fear of the Lord. If you cut yourself off from the Creator of the world and the source of all knowledge and wisdom, all you have is, at best, dull, bland, narrow, factoids. But you don’t have wisdom. 

We used to have institutions in this country that were citadels of knowledge and wisdom. Almost every Ivy League school in this country was founded by God-fearing individuals who wanted to increase knowledge, wisdom, and devotion to the Judeo-Christian God. Now, most of those schools are just ideological cesspools. They are filled with scoffers seeking wisdom in vain. 

And Solomon says, 

7 Leave the presence of a fool, for there you do not meet words of knowledge.

Solomon says in 13:20, “Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.” Solomon says here, “Leave the presence of a fool.” If that sounds preachy, that’s because it is. This is one of the few places in the book of Proverbs where Solomon uses what’s called an imperative in Hebrew. In a book that has few direct commands, this is a command, “Leave the presence of a fool.”

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So, church, we must walk with the wise and leave the presence of fools. And when we do that, we experience the benefits of wisdom. Here’s another reason to walk with the wise. Those who walk in wisdom fear God and enjoy his benefits. They also…

2) realize things are not always what they seem (14:8–15)

Elizabeth Elliot said once that men today are a lot like astronauts who are cut loose from the mothership. And a lot of men out there are just floating about in outer space without any anchorage and without any clarity and without any bearings. 

Elizabeth Elliot, for the record, died about ten years ago. So whatever was true when she was alive is even worse now. We live in a world where young men especially don’t know the rules of life. They are just kind of floating about. “Should I work? Should I get married? Should I have kids? Should I go to church? I don’t know!”

The philosophical terminology for this is existentialism. You don’t have sound, biblical principles for life, you just kind of exist and make them up as you go. And what we see now is that existentialism is becoming a kind of nihilism among young people. There are no rules for life, and so there’s no meaning in life. If there’s no God and God hasn’t communicated with us, then why would any of this matter? I’d be prone to nihilism if I didn’t know God, fear God, and follow God. 

And what Solomon does in this section of Proverbs 14 is show us that things aren’t always what they appear. You need anchorage. You need to be tethered to the mothership to keep you from floating aimlessly in this world.   

And so he says in verse 8,

8 The wisdom of the prudent is to discern his way, but the folly of fools is deceiving. 

What’s hard in this modern-day world is that fools get all the airplay. Fools have the loudest voices in our world. You can’t turn on the TV or watch the news without foolishness gushing out all over the place. And so wisdom requires discernment. Wisdom requires selectivity. You’ve got to turn down the noise of this world and listen to the quieter voices.   

Solomon writes,

9 Fools mock at the guilt offering, but the upright enjoy acceptance. 

The word for “guilt offering” here is אָשָׁם. And it’s a reference to the OT sacrificial system. The אָשָׁם was one of the offerings prescribed in Leviticus to be used by the people (see 5:14–6:7). 

Fools say, “Why do I need a sacrifice?” Fools say, “Guilt is a social construct.” Fools say, “Sin is a social construct made up by overzealous, God-fearers with overactive consciences. And Christianity is a crutch.”

Fools in our modern-day world will say, “Why do we need a Savior? Why do we need saving? Why did Jesus have to die for sin?” But those of us who have come to terms with our sin and our guilt and have embraced Jesus as our savior, we are the … “upright [who] enjoy acceptance.” We, to use the language of Hebrews, approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that “we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb 4:16). 

Fools mock at the guilt offering. Fools mock atonement. We don’t. We know we need it.

Look at verse 10.

10 The heart knows its own bitterness, and no stranger shares its joy 

That’s true. Empathy can only extend so far. You can bear one another’s burdens. And we should according to the NT (Gal 6:2; cf. Rom 12:15). But each individual deals with joy and bitterness personally. We are individual units. We are individual “image-bearers.” We are not members of The Borg. 

Look at verse 11.

11 The house of the wicked will be destroyed, but the tent of the upright will flourish. 

12 There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death. 

Sanja and I were at the Nimitz Museum in Fredericksburg this last week. And we saw all these WW2 displays including planes and submarines and artillery. It’s a great museum. And one of the exhibits at that museum talks about how despicably some nations viewed other nations because of ethnicity. It wasn’t just the Germans who were infected with a view of Aryan superiority. The Japanese thought of themselves as ethnically superior. Many European countries were xenophobic and ethnocentric. Even Americans were infected with ideas about eugenics and ethnic superiority. Nobody ever talks about that anymore, but it’s true. 

In fact, eugenics was quite popular in our country at the turn of the twentieth century. It’s the logical outworking of a Darwinian worldview. If the strong eat the weak, then why not eliminate the “weaker” entities in our world? And… look at verse 12!

12 There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death. 

“What’s the cure for a Darwinian worldview, Pastor Tony? What’s the cure for racism, Pastor Tony?” It’s an old doctrine called creation ex-nihilo. And it’s another old doctrine called imago Dei. God created everything and we are accountable to him. And God created all human beings in his image. We are all image-bearers. And we don’t get to remove God out of the equation with our man-centered, religious or pseudo-religious systems. 

When I was a kid, we sang a song about that. It went like this: “Red and yellow; black and white; they are precious in his sight.” That little God-honoring ditty protected my little heart from the idiocy of Darwinian theory and the wickedness of eugenics when I wasn’t even old enough to write my own name.

Look, when you are sucked into the vortex of outer space and you are floating aimlessly, you need a lifeline. You need handles. You need protection from the “way that seems right to a man… but its end is the way to death.” 

Look at verse 13.

13 Even in laughter the heart may ache, and the end of joy may be grief. 

Things aren’t always what they seem. And life is bittersweet. I had a professor at Moody say once that an A+ marriage can turn into a C- overnight after a wife has a miscarriage. And an A+ “walk with Christ” can turn into a B- after a scarry health diagnosis. And real spiritual maturity isn’t found in laughing all the time or grieving all the time. It’s not found in an easy life with no trials and difficulty. It’s found in the juxtaposition of joy and sorrow, laughter and grief. 

14 The backslider in heart will be filled with the fruit of his ways, and a good man will be filled with the fruit of his ways. 

In other words, you reap what you sow. We might say it this way, “You get what’s comin’ to you.” And that’s why, verse 15… 

15 The simple believes everything, but the prudent gives thought to his steps. 

When I first went to plant a church, I had this church-planting coach who gave me some advice. I’ll paraphrase. He said, “Tony, nobody wants to follow a pessimist. Pessimism will kill a church. But nobody wants to follow a wide-eyed optimist either. You have to be cautiously optimistic.” And I’ve tried to be as a pastor. 

I don’t want to be gullible. I don’t want to be naïve. But I don’t want to be a cynic either. I want to prudently give thought to my steps. That’s the way of wisdom. 

15 The simple believes everything, but the prudent gives thought to his steps.

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Write this down as #3. Those who walk in wisdom “fear God and enjoy his benefits.” They “realize things are not always what they appear.” And thirdly, they… 

3) elude folly with all of its trappings (14:16–35) 

Now stay with me, because we’re going to move fast through this last section of verses. And we will drill down on some of them. But I want you to keep coming back to this broad theme of wisdom and folly. There’s the way of wisdom, and there’s the way of folly. There’s walking in wisdom, and then there’s foolishness with all its trappings. So here we go. 

Solomon says in verse 16, 

16 One who is wise is cautious and turns away from evil, but a fool is reckless and careless.

Verse 17 says, 

17 A man of quick temper acts foolishly, and a man of evil devices is hated. 

18 The simple inherit folly, but the prudent are crowned with knowledge. 

Solomon uses this word “prudent” three times in Proverbs 14. It’s a very popular word in Proverbs, and it’s closely correlated to wisdom. And it’s a word that is sometimes translated “cunning” or “crafty” or “shrewd.” I prefer the translation “shrewd” to “prudent,” because shrewdness has more of an edge to it. And a Christian can have both integrity and shrewdness. Shrewdness is the opposite of gullibility. Jesus said we should be shrewd as serpents, and innocent as doves (Matt 10:16).

Look at verse 19.

19 The evil bow down before the good, the wicked at the gates of the righteous. 

20 The poor is disliked even by his neighbor, but the rich has many friends. 

21 Whoever despises his neighbor is a sinner, but blessed is he who is generous to the poor. 

A wise person knows that money is a means to an end, not an end in itself. Jesus even encouraged the use of wealth to make friends (see Luke 16:1–13). And verse 20 isn’t a statement of good or bad, it’s just a statement of fact. Rich people have many friends. Rich people have hangers-on. 

And if you find yourself in that spot, don’t begrudge that. Use it for good not evil. Use it to make friends and build influence. And make sure you are generous to the poor. Because “blessed is he who is generous to the poor.” Jesus said, “blessed are the poor” in the NT (Luke 6:20). Well, Solomon said, “blessed is he who is generous to the poor” in the OT.

Look at verse 22.

22 Do they not go astray who devise evil? Those who devise good meet steadfast love and faithfulness. 

The word “devise” in Hebrew is חָרַשׁ (ḥā·rǎš). And it’s a morally neutral word. You can חָרַשׁ evil, or you can חָרַשׁ good. And those who devise good, meet two of God’s greatest things: חֶסֶד and אֱמֶת. Those two words are often combined in the OT to describe God’s goodness poured out on his people. 

Look at verse 23. 

23 In all toil there is profit, but mere talk tends only to poverty. 

My high school basketball coach used to tell us, “Don’t write checks with your mouth that your body can’t cash.” Talk is cheap. And some people approach life and work like they are part of a think tank. We don’t need more “think tanks” in our world, thank you very much. We need less talk and more doing. 

24 The crown of the wise is their wealth, but the folly of fools brings folly. 

That is so redundant. It’s trying to make a point with its redundancy—“the folly of fools brings folly.” If you get stuck in a circular motion of foolish living, it’s a death-spiral downwards that you can’t pull out of. That’s why wisdom is a matter of life and death. It’s not like, “Gee, I wish I had ‘wisdom.’” “I wish I had wisdom, like I “wish” I had more bells and whistles on my Ford F-150.” No, you need this! Because the alternative is devastating. It’s devastating for you. It’s devastating for society at large. 

Look at verse 25.

25 A truthful witness saves lives, but one who breathes out lies is deceitful. 

If you’ve got a whole society of people perpetrating lies and perpetuating lies and pressuring people to promulgate lies, you’ve got a broken society. You’ve got people that can’t be trusted. You’ve got a society coming apart at the seams. You’ve got confused children being raised in a deceitful world, and they can’t tell their right from their left. They can’t find “true north.” And so they are sucked out into the vortex, and they don’t know which ways up and which way is down.

“What do we do about that, Pastor Tony? How are our children going to survive in a world like this?” Here’s how. Look at verse 26. 

26 In the fear of the Lord one has strong confidence, and his children will have a refuge.

Let’s drill down a little bit on this verse. I don’t want to zip by this too fast. Verse 1 was about women and mothers. But verse 26 says “his,” so I’m going to emphasize fathers for this point. 

Men, do you want to do something good for your children? Do you want to bless them? Love them? Set them up in life? You can work and put food on the table for them, and you should do that. You can discipline them. You can love them and take them on fabulous vacations. If you can do that, you should. 

But the best thing that you can pass on to your kids is your reverence and your worship of the God of the Universe. If you give them that, they’ve got confidence. If they know that their dad, the most important authority figure in their life, is submitted to a Heavenly Father, that gives them security. That lets them know that even when dad fails them, they can trust in a Heavenly Dad that never fails them. 

I want my son to have a refuge. I want him to have strong confidence. I want him to know that the president of the United States of America isn’t the ultimate authority in this world. I want him to know that even if this whole world falls apart, nothing happens apart from God’s sovereignty and nothing thwarts his ultimate plan. Let me say it this way—I want my son to know, “He’s got the whole world in his hand.” 

Dads, the most important thing that you can do for your children is teach them to love and fear God. Moms, the most important thing you can do for your children is teach them to love and fear God. 

And some things are caught, and some things are taught. So if you teach them to fear God, you better fear God yourself! Don’t tell them to read the Bible, if you don’t read the Bible. Don’t tell them to go to church, if you don’t go to church. Don’t tell them to trust, God if you don’t trust God. Don’t tell them to stop being foolish, if you’re hell-bent on being foolish. The more you talk, the more your actions will do the talking for you. And you’ll undermine everything you say.

And by the way, this is a matter of life and death. Look at verse 27.

27 The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, 

“Why should I teach my children to fear the Lord, Pastor Tony?” Because it’s a fountain of life!

27 The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, that one may turn away from the snares of death. 

Can you just put a pin in verse 27? Because I’m going to come back to that verse in a moment. 

Verse 28 says this,

28 In a multitude of people is the glory of a king, but without people a prince is ruined. 

When the communists took over China after WW2, they eliminated the two-thousand-year-old Chinese monarchy. And everyone thought that Mao and the Communist government in China would put the crown prince to death, a man named Puyi. But they didn’t. 

Mao didn’t want to kill the king. He wanted to humble him and incorporate him into his Communist regime. And so that’s what he did. Puyi became an everyday, normal citizen in China. Puyi had actually never brushed his own teeth or tied his own shoelaces. But when he came back to China, Mao made him a street-sweeper. So Puyi, this great king from a royal dynasty of 2,000 years, became a humble street-sweeper in Communist China. Mao knew that…

without people a prince is ruined. 

This might come as a surprise to you, but the Millennial Kingdom won’t function as a democracy or as a communist state. You better vote now, because you won’t be voting later. The Millennial Kingdom will be a monarchy ruled by King Jesus. And the entire world will be ruled by one king. And that king will be the glory of his people. And his people will be an extension of his glory. 

Verse 29 says this, 

29 Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who has a hasty temper exalts folly. 

The slow to anger language here is literally “long of nostrils.” When God is described as slow to anger, he is described anthropomorphically as having long nostrils. And it’s good for humans to imitate God in this way. 

The opposite of “long nostrils” in this verse is “shortness of breath.” Just envision someone hyperventilating because they are so angry! You don’t want to be a person who is of “short breath.” You don’t want to have a “hasty temper,” as the ESV renders it. That’s evidence of foolishness.

“Pastor Tony, I can’t help myself. I’ve got a short fuse and a bad temper.” People say that like it’s some unchangeable aspect of their nature. “I’m a hotheaded person, Pastor Tony. I can’t help it.”

I love these people who use their personality traits to justify their sin. Have you ever seen people do that? “I’m an #4 on the Enneagram.” Okay? What does that mean? “I’m an ESTJ. This is just how we are.” I’m OCD with ADHD and that makes me ODD with SAD and BPD. Okay, well maybe you need to R-E-L-A-X. And turn to Christ and ask him to produce inside of you the love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control that he promised by his Holy Spirit. 

And here’s a little incentive for that. Look at verse 30.

30 A tranquil heart gives life to the flesh, but envy makes the bones rot.

Another way to translate this word “tranquil” is “contented” or “healthy.” A “healthy heart” gives life and vitality to this meat-sack. But envy is like cancer. This is another verse that shows us that sometimes sickness is in fact psychosomatic. The physical often follows the psychological and the spiritual.

31 Whoever oppresses a poor man insults his Maker, but he who is generous to the needy honors him. 

32 The wicked is overthrown through his evildoing, but the righteous finds refuge in his death. 

How do you find refuge in death? If Solomon believed that there’s only this life and nothing afterwards, how could someone find refuge in death? That’s nonsensical. Log verse 32 away. I’m coming back to it in just a second. 

33 Wisdom rests in the heart of a man of understanding, but it makes itself known even in the midst of fools. 

That’s interesting. There’s wisdom to be found even by watching fools. There is such a thing as a cautionary tale. And for the observant person, even a fool can point you towards wisdom.

34 Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people. 

35 A servant who deals wisely has the king’s favor, but his wrath falls on one who acts shamefully. 

Verses 34 and 35 have to be understood in their original context. When the nation of Israel was righteous, it was a glorious thing in the OT. King David. King Hezekiah. King Asa. King Jehoshaphat. King Josiah. When those kings and their people honored God, they were like a beacon of light shining before the world. And the world took notice. 

But more often than not, it wasn’t like that. For every King David, there was a King Manasseh. For every King Hezekiah, there was a King Ahab. For every King Asa, there was a Queen Jezebel or Queen Athaliah or King Jeroboam or King Jehu. Josiah was a good king, but he had three wicked sons and a wicked grandson who followed him. And verse 35 assumes a righteous king, which were few in far between in Israel. Even Solomon veered from this ideal, and to serve a wicked king wisely doesn’t always result in the king’s favor. 

But there is a king who always deals with his servants favorably. And his wrath will justly and fittingly fall on those who act shamefully. At his return, Jesus will have a sword protruding from his mouth, and he will have a robe that reads “King of kings and Lord of Lords” (Rev 19:16). And he will put all his enemies under his feet. And for those servants of King Jesus, for those subjects of the Kingdom, they will have the Lord’s favor forever. 

Can I interest you in that? Can I interest you in a truly righteous king that rules and reigns over a righteous kingdom? I want to be a part of that in Jesus’s Millennial Kingdom. And I want to be part of that in the Eternal State showcasing the New Jerusalem. 

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Which brings me back to verse 27. 

27 The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, that one may turn away from the snares of death. 

And verse 32. 

32 The wicked is overthrown through his evildoing, but the righteous finds refuge in his death. 

How are we going to escape death? How are we going to find refuge even in death? How do these verses even make sense in the book of Proverbs? I thought Proverbs was just about practical living in this present world. It’s not about eternity. Is it?

If you were to come to me today and say, “Tony, how has your view of Proverbs been changed since we started this series?” I would say to you this. There are more glimmers of eternity; there are more allusions to life after death in Proverbs than I thought there were. There are more of those than I assumed before we began this series. I guess that’s why we preach through books verse by verse.

And what Solomon says in these verses is clear. Let me spell it out for you. God is at work helping people escape death. God has a plan, an ancient plan, to save humanity from itself. And Solomon had just a shadowy, misty notion of what that would be. But he knew something was coming. 

And we know, on this side of the cross, that Solomon’s “greater than” Son, Jesus Christ, provided that ultimate remedy for death. Jesus says it this way in the book of Revelation, “I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades” (1:18). And that’s why John says in 1 John, “Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life” (5:12). 

Can we really escape death? Can we really have eternal life? Yes, you can. But you’re not going to do it apart from Christ. You’re not going to do it by being cryogenically frozen or launched into outer space. You’re not going to do it by putting a chip in your brain and becoming a cybernetically enhanced organism. The only way… the only escape… is Christ. Put your faith in Christ. 

Taught by Tony Caffey

Senior Pastor of Verse By Verse Fellowship

Proverbs