Read Proverbs 6
There is
God’s way and there is everything else.
Let’s spend a little time putting a few things into the everything else
category.
There are 6
things that the Lord can’t stand, 7 if you really think about it.
#1. Haughty
eyes. Are these like Betty Davis eyes? It’s not really the eyes but the attitude.
It’s someone with excess pride and arrogance, even hubris. It’s contempt for a
person that one might perceive as being of lesser in stature.
It’s the
opposite of the attitude that cares for the least of these my brothers and
sisters. We are people known by our love, not our contempt.
#2. Lying
tongue. Don’t you wish that a liar’s pants really did
catch on fire? You can cancel cable and satellite television as the day’s
entertainment will be doing stop, drop, and roll somewhere in your
neighborhood.
It’s tough
to speak the truth in a spirit of love.
It’s part of our Christian maturity to be able to do that, but it’s just
wrong to lie.
#3. Shedding
innocent blood. This one requires little explanation. It’s not shedding of blood in combat. Combatants expect that they have some skin in
the game. It’s not shedding blood
defending yourself or your family. Turn
the other cheek is misapplied here.
It’s
shedding blood without legitimate reason; thus, it’s shedding blood for no good
reason. Life is precious and the taking
of life is seldom justified.
#4. Devising
wicked schemes. Think to the Apostle Paul’s words.
Finally, brothers
and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever
is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or
praiseworthy—think about such things.
Our thoughts
should be preoccupied with good things. An idle mind can drift to devious things. Devising wicked schemes stems from
laziness—not using our minds for good. Solomon has already given counsel to the
lazy—the sluggard.
#5. Rushing
into evil. I respect people who move towards the sound
of gunfire. I admire people who will
rush into a burning building to save someone.
These are generally considered honorable things, but rushing into evil
is another matter.
Rushing into
evil is not to consider whether our course is good or evil, or worse, not to
care. It’s depraved indifference.
What do we
do? Think on good things. Pray. Meditate upon God’s word. Use the sound mind that God gave us. And, if
we consider the first part of this chapter, make it your priority to get out of
a bad situation if you find yourself there.
If you
rushed into something evil, then your priority is to find a way out
#6. False
witness. We have come back to lying, in this case,
profuse lying and about someone. We live
in the age of fake news. False witness is a daily occurrence. When occasionally, the paper prints a
retraction, it’s on page 5. When the
television media corrects itself, it’s accompanied by twenty minutes of why it
was ok to tell the lie.
God loves
truth and hates lies. God’s people need
to keep this a simple dichotomy. Truth
good. Lies bad. Choose truth.
#7. Finally, number 7 on our list of 6
that grew to 7 is one who stirs up dissent. It’s fun to stir the pot in a light-hearted
discussion. It’s another thing to stir
up dissent for the sake of dissent.
Gossip thrives in people who love to stir up dissent.
If I can
make someone else look bad—whether my words or true or not—then I might feel
better about myself, at least momentarily.
Gossip is an addictive drug and it wears off in no time, so you have to
stir up something else to feed your addiction.
I’m not
talking banter such as might precede the Red River Rivalry or Bedlam. I don’t care if the Hook ‘Em Horns sign is right-side up or upside down. When I was
young, people on both sides of the river only used one finger to signal each
other before the big game.
I’m talking
about—Solomon is talking about—people who stir up dissent for dissent’s
sake. These people covet your peace but
won’t receive God so they can enjoy peace as well. They think because their life
is a mess, they will just feel better if they can make everyone else feel like
their lives are a mess as well.
Hubris,
lies, murder, wicked scheming, embracing evil, lies against another, and
stirring up dissent all go into the everything else category.
Do we want
to be a disciple of God whom we know in Christ Jesus or an adherent of
corruption? It’s a simple
dichotomy. Solomon just put a few
specifics to the everything else.
Amen.
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