Proverbs 20:9

The Bible says in Proverbs 20:9, “Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?” The answer is obvious. No one can say that truthfully. We are all sinners heading towards death and then judgment. Nothing sinful or unclean can enter into heaven. Therefore, what is the solution to this problem: Jesus. When Jesus came into the world as a baby, the angel said, “Thou shalt call his name Jesus because he shall save his people from their sins.”

The Bible says in Proverbs 20:10, “Divers weights, and divers measures, both of them are alike abomination to the Lord.” This has to do with honesty in financial dealings with other people. It has to do with treating other people the way you would like to be treated. One of the Ten Commandments is “Thou shalt not lie.” Another one of the commandments is “Thou shalt not steal.” If you cheat someone so that you can profit from them, you are lying to them and you are stealing from them. You are also dishonoring God because God does not like it when human beings are that way. The judgment is coming.

The Bible says in Proverbs 20:11, “Even a child is known by his doings, whether his work be pure, and whether it be right.” You know people by their works, and not by their words. Just because someone says something does not mean that is what they do. You need to realize the importance of this truth in many situations in life. A young woman needs to look at the actions of the man she considers marrying. If he is a womanizer before he gets married, then he will be one after he is married. The opposite is also true. If she uses alcohol or drugs before they get married, then she will keep using them after they are married. Jesus referred to this principle concerning religious teachers. Many false teachers are very good speakers. They can be very entertaining, and very interesting. But Jesus said, “Beware of wolves in sheep’s clothing.” Jesus also said, “You shall know them by their works.”

Of course, we also want to look at Proverbs 20:11 in regards to understanding children. Starting at a very early age, children are making decisions that determine what direction they go in life. Proverbs chapter one is written from the perspective of a father asking and pleading with his son to make the right decisions. Will a child seek what is true and right and good, or not? Will a child be properly selective of the friends that they accept and that they hang around with? A wise child will look at their future just a little bit and see where they are headed. A wise child will know that they must turn to the Lord, or who knows how much evil they will fall into? In the age in which we live many children have several strikes against them from the start because of not having both a loving mother and a loving father to raise them up, or because of being subjected to all kinds of drama in the home due to drugs and alcohol, or domestic violence, or physical or sexual abuse. How will the children survive? There is only one sure way that I know of: turn to the Lord Jesus and learn to rely upon Him and His help.

The Bible says in Proverbs 20:12, “The hearing ear, and the seeing eye, the Lord hath made even both of them.” God made everything. “In the beginning God created…” “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made by Him and without him was not anything made that was made.” Everything that God made, He made for a reason. God gave each one of us ears and eyes for a reason, so make sure that you use them. There is so much to learn if you listen, and especially if you listen to the Word of God. Jesus said, “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear…” There is so much to learn if you use your God-given eyes or other senses to pay attention to what is really happening around you.

The Bible says in Proverbs 20:13, “Love not sleep, lest thou come to poverty; open thine eyes, and thou shalt be satisfied with bread.” The previous verse was about having your eyes open spiritually speaking. This verse is about literally having your eyes open from a physical standpoint. When you sleep, your eyes are closed. Open your eyes, and get up out of bed and get moving. People who just want to sleep in are going to miss part of the day, and are not going to be doing the work that they need to be doing. You have heard the old saying: “Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.” That is what Proverbs 20:13 is saying. There are a lot of reasons that some people are poor. One of the reasons is laziness.

The Bible says in Proverbs 20:14, “It is naught, it is naught, saith the buyer: but when he is gone his way, then he boasteth.” It is human nature that when some people get involved in financial transactions, you cannot trust what they say. They will say one thing when they are trying to make a deal, but then say something else entirely different after the deal is made. Christians should not be like that: they should always tell the truth. Their word should be as good as gold.

The Bible says in Proverbs 20:15, “There is gold, and a multitude of rubies: but the lips of knowledge are a precious jewel.” Do you know what is really valuable? Everyone knows about the values of gold and rubies, but how many understand how valuable are “the lips of knowledge?” Many people say things that they should not say. Many people say things in the wrong way and at the wrong time. “the lips of knowledge are a precious jewel.” And so one of the important things that we need from God is for Him to give us wisdom on knowing the right words to say.

The Bible says in Proverbs 20:16, “Take his garment that is surety for a stranger: and take a pledge of him for a strange woman.” This verse is saying that if you do not know someone, you must be on your guard about them. Unfortunately, there are many dishonest people in the world, and so if you do not know someone really well, you do not know what they are going to turn out to be like. You cannot take them at their word. That is why this verse recommends that whether it be a man or a woman, you take collateral before making them a loan. William Shakespeare knew this same truth. He wrote in Hamlet, “Do not dull thy palm with entertainment of each new-hatched unfledged comrade.”

The Bible says in Proverbs 20:17, “Bread of deceit is sweet to a man; but afterwards his mouth shall be filled with gravel.” The truth is that many people love wrong-doing who are not rightly related to God through faith in Christ. Since they did not turn to the truth, these types of people especially love lying. They think that by being deceitful, they are going to gain from it. And so when they deceive someone, they think, “How sweet it is.” What they do not realize is that God will punish lying. The sweet feeling they had when they lied will not last. They will pay because the truth will be manifest: sometimes in this life and certainly at the judgment.

The Bible says in Proverbs 20:18, “Every purpose is established by counsel; and with good advice make war.” There is a lot that we do not know. Only God knows everything. But other people on any given subject will know more than we do. An old saying about this same principle is: “Two heads are better than one.” The more important is your decision, the more important it is that you get some good counsel about that decision. Of course, Jesus is the best counsellor. In Isaiah 9:6 Jesus is called “Wonderful Counsellor.”

The Bible says in Proverbs 20:19, “He that goeth about as a talebearer revealeth secrets: therefore meddle not with him that flattereth with his lips.” People have the right to keep certain secrets or to keep certain information about themselves private. It is more and more difficult to do in this information age. In America we have protections against unreasonable search and seizure partly for this very reason. In the information age, it is more and more difficult to keep private information private. Those who do not understand the right of privacy are not good people. If something is told to you in confidence, then you should not repeat it unless you have the consent of the others involved, and the same is true about other things that you discover no matter what is the means of discovery. Why do people gossip? One reason is to cause harm to the person that is being gossiped about. Another reason is for personal gain: a talebearer is attempting to win favor with others by showing what they know and impressing them. That is the same reason for flattery. Flattery is complimenting someone, but not genuinely: with an ulterior motive.

The Bible says in Proverbs 20:20, “Whoso curseth his father or his mother, his lamp shall be put out in obscure darkness.” This verse expresses the result of whoever does not obey the commandment that says, “Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.” Out of the Ten Commandments this is the only one that directly addresses the parent-child relationship, and the responsibility is put onto the child and not onto the parent. The child is responsible to honor father and mother. If the child goes the wrong way in life, it is the child’s fault. Every person ultimately makes his or her own decisions. This commandment also has a warning with it in regards to how long you will live on this earth. One of the ways to die young is to have a lack of honor for your parents. That is because loving parents will give good advice and teachings to their child. Listen to the parents and you will become wise and make better decisions and prosper from those decisions. Proverbs 20:20 goes even farther because it speaks of someone who not only does not honor father and mother, but who actually “curses” their parents. If you are heading away from God, you will become worse and worse, and the consequences of what you do will get worse. If you curse your parents, your “lamp shall be put out in obscure darkness.” Light and darkness have to do with spiritual issues. If you reject your opportunity for light, which might come from God through your parents, spiritual darkness is your destiny. Parents symbolize God. How can you learn from God if you will not learn from your parents?

The Bible says in Proverbs 20:21, “An inheritance may be gotten hastily at the beginning; but the end thereof shall not be blessed.” The key word in this verse is the word “hastily.” The emphasis here is to make sure that you make proper plans before entering into any venture. God has planned the whole history of the human race from the creation of Adam to the return of Christ. If God makes such intricate plans, then we also need to carefully plan if we want to be more like Him.

The Bible says in Proverbs 20:22, “Say not thou, I will recompense evil, but wait on the Lord, and he shall save thee.” One of the common faults of human beings is to get even or to hand out what they think is justice. The court system knows this and they come down hard on those who take the law into their own hands or who hand out vigilante justice. It is true that we have a strong sense of justice and we want to see justice done, but if we are going to live by faith, we must exercise our faith even in the situations where we feel strongly about something. That includes the concept of people getting the punishments that they deserve. Unless you are a prosecutor or a judge, guess who decides what punishment people deserve: God. Jesus is the Judge. We do not know the hearts, but God does. Sometimes we are wrong. God is never wrong. Also, God’s timing is never off. God knows when someone should be punished. Many people will not be punished until they stand before God and receive the righteous recompenses for their deeds. It will be glorious, it will be good, and it will be right; and believers will be a part of that judging. It says in First Corinthians 6:2, “Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world?” In this life, have faith in God. His judgment is coming. “…wait on the Lord, and he shall save thee.”

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