Proverbs 20

If the tongue has so many evils in it, how are they perfect? (Proverbs 20:9) Who can say I have made my heart clean, I am pure from sin? He makes a challenge to all the world.

I think I hear God speak, as (Isaiah 14:21): Prepare slaughter for his children for the iniquity of their fathers. Use 2. See what a privilege it is to be the children of good parents: the parents are in covenant with God, and God lays up mercy for their posterity (Proverbs 20:7…

To devour things set apart to holy uses. It is a snare to the man who devours that which is holy (Proverbs 20:25). Such a one was Dionysius, who robbed the temple, and took away the silver vessels.

He who dares use deceit will not spare to oppress. Secondly, there is deceit in friendship (Proverbs 20:6). But a faithful man who can find?

For it is God's will, that we should not cast the care of heavenly things only, but all our care upon him (1 Peter 5:7). And he has elsewhere commanded that earthly things should be asked at his hand (1 Kings 8:35), and the same has been asked in prayer of Jacob (Genesis 28:10),…

The first is the testimony of the scripture, which ascribes the event of all particular actions, even such as are in themselves casual, as the casting of lots and such like to the disposition of God: which very thing also teaches that even men themselves, endowed with reason and…

O, says nature, revenge is sweet — but O, says God, the effects thereof shall be bitter. How plainly has God forbidden this flesh-pleasing sin: Proverbs 20:22, 'Say not, I will recompense evil'; Proverbs 24:29, 'Say not, I will do so to him as he has done to me'; Romans 12:17, '…

The perfect ones have the fullest pitch of the noonday Sun of glory; it shall never be afternoon, nor the evening or twilight sky with them; nor shall any night-shadow, nor cloud go over their Sun. 5. In the kingdom of perfection there shall be no in-dwelling of a body of sin, n…

Still Antinomians betray their engine; if we say, even being justified we have no sin, we lie; and who can say I have cleansed my heart, I am pure from sin? And there is not a just man on earth, that sins not (1 John 1:10; Proverbs 20:9; Ecclesiastes 7:20). Then there cannot be…

Coloss. 2. 10. and not complete of our selues, by him. Lastly, the Scripture shuts up all men under sin, even the most sanctified (Proverbs 20:9; 1 John 1:9). Job confesses he cannot answer one of a thousand (Job 9:3).

For they are restrained by his providence, which drives them to and fro, and often turns their wicked plots to a good end, though they meant the clear contrary. But God (whose proper office it is to direct men's paths (Proverbs 20:24)) conducts them which way it pleases him. He…

How can he doubt whether he stands in a child-like Relation to God, when he plainly sees a child-like Union between God and his Soul, and hence does boldly, and as it were, naturally and necessarily cry, Abba Father? And whereas the Apostle says, the Spirit bears Witness with ou…

So such words as justify, condemn, accept, reject, prize, slight, approve, renounce, are sometimes put for mental acts, at other times for an outward treatment. So in the sense in which the apostle James seems to use the word justify, for manifestative justification, a man is ju…

And the prophet confesses the corruption of our natures, and the imperfection of our best performances (Isaiah 64:6): We are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. Solomon challenges the best and holiest upon this point (Proverbs 20:9): Who can…

He that curses his father or his mother, shall surely be put to death. And (Proverbs 20:20): He that curses his father or his mother, his lamp shall be put out in obscure darkness. Secondly, we must likewise show them reverence in our gestures, and comport ourselves with all low…

David professes himself to be a companion of those that fear God, and he, though a great king, esteems the saints more excellent, than all his courageous worthies, or grave senators, and therefore professes that all his delight was in them (Psalm 16:3). But it is not enough to b…

As the woman in the Gospel did light a candle, and search for her lost groat (Luke 15:8). So conscience is the candle of the Lord (Proverbs 20:27). A Christian by the light of this candle must search his soul if he can find any grace there.

Now meekness is a grace of the Spirit, that moves upon the face of the waters and quiets them, smooths the ruffled sea, and stills the noise of it (it is now mare pacificum) — it casts forth none of the mire and dirt of passion. The waves mount not up to the heaven in proud and…

It is the speech of an Ancient, That a reproacher is beneath a man, but the reproached that bear it well, are equal to the Angels. The Hebrew word that signifies scorners, has many other significations which set out the vileness, the dangerous evil there is in a scornful spirit;…

When men sit till Wine have inflamed them, and reason be disturbed (for Drunkenness is the privation of reason, caused by immoderate drinking) then do they come under the guilt of this horrid and abominable Sin. To the Satisfaction and refreshment of nature, you may drink; for i…

Such husbands cannot but neglect other more weighty matters, which more properly belong to them. For observe it and you shall find, that such husbands as are most busy about the private affairs of the house appertaining to their wives, are most negligent of such affairs as apper…

Their duty at that time in general is to do what lies in them, that it may go well with their children after their departure. Both the reasons which are often urged by the Holy Ghost, to stir up parents to yield obedience to God, taken from extent of God's blessing (in this kind…

A Sermon (Number 2766) intended for reading on Lord's Day, February 16, 1902 delivered by C.H. Spurgeon at New Park Street Chapel, Southwark on a Thursday Evening, during the Winter of 1859. “The sluggard will not plow by reason of the cold; therefore shall he beg in harvest, an…

1. Then, sincere obedience is required; Blessed is the undefiled in the way. At first hearing of these words, a man might reply, Oh, then none can be blessed, if that be the qualification, For who can say my heart is clean? (Proverbs 20:9). I answer, This undefiledness is to be…

When well principled and seasoned in youth, it sticks by them, before sin and worldly lusts have gotten a deeper rooting. If Solomon's observation be true, a man's infancy and younger time is a notable presage of what he will prove afterwards (Proverbs 20:11): Even a child is kn…

God gives not only life, but the constant motion of that life. Natural things do not act without his daily providential influence; and therefore it is said (Proverbs 20:12), God gives the hearing ear, and the seeing eye: not only does give the eye and ear, the faculty, but the a…

As to success (Proverbs 16:9): A man's heart devises his way, but the Lord directs his steps. Events cross expectation; we cannot foresee the event of things in the course of a man's life, what is expedient, and what not (Proverbs 20:24): Man's goings are of the Lord, how can a…

They find their purposes towards that which is good very weak, their resolutions variable, their inclinations to evil very strong. Proverbs 20:9. Who can say my heart is clean? And therefore they go to God, if there be any degree of insincerity, any spared sin, any remainings of…

Sometimes it signifies an abusing of others, by violent and lewd actions: so we read that the Hebrew Servant, says Potiphar's Wife, came in to me to mock me (Genesis 39:17). Sometimes it signifies an exposing of men to shame and dishonor: so the wise man tells us, wine is a mock…

That this is the common case of Jew and Gentile, that is, all men, the Apostle assures us (Romans 3:9-11). Yes, men themselves declare it; and I may say of man, as Solomon does of the fool (Ecclesiastes 10:3), when he walks by the way, he says to every one, that he is a fool; th…

1. Take heed of lying and equivocating, which is a thing grown so common in buying and selling, that it passes but for words of course; It cost me more, and yet sell it for less; I cannot afford it, yet take the money; I will get nothing by you, as if men could buy and sell, and…

Our bodies are called the temples of God, of which our souls are (as I may say) the Holy of Holies, or as we call it, the Chancel, and it is through sloth that this glorious fabric decays so much (Proverbs 18:9). He that is slothful in his work, is brother to him that is a great…

Kiss the Son lest he be angry, and you perish; perishing is at the heels of his anger (Psalm 2:12). The fear or terror of a King is like the roaring of a lion; whoever provokes him to anger, sins against his own soul (Proverbs 20:2). Oh what dread is there then from the anger of…

The wrath of kings is very much dreaded, especially of absolute monarchs, that have the possessions and lives of their subjects wholly in their power, to be disposed of at their mere will. Proverbs 20:2: 'The fear of a king is as the roaring of a lion; whoever provokes him to an…

Second, a peaceable spirit is honorable. Proverbs 20:3: It is an honor for a man to cease from strife. We think it a brave thing to give way to strife and let loose the reins to our passions.

And the fault were the less, if our works were only called the way to the kingdom, not the cause of reigning, but they are called perfect, both in their nature, and conform to the rule, and also in order to the end, to justify us before God, and to save us. And if so, all in Chr…

Remember, the Kingdom of Heaven is taken by force, not by fraud. Let men know, after this golden sop the Devil enters: they squeeze a curse into their estates: they had need repent quickly: Though the bread of falshood be sweet, (Proverbs 20:17). yet many vomit up their sweet mo…

There is a light in nature, which is the power of a man to discern the things of man, an ability to know, perceive, and judge of natural things. It is that spirit of a man which is the candle of the Lord, searching all the inward parts of the belly (Proverbs 20:27). But by the l…

The prophet Jeremiah cries out: "I know, Lord, that the way of man is not his own, neither does it belong to man to direct his own steps" (Jeremiah 10:23). And Solomon says, "The steps of man are ruled by the Lord, and how shall a man dispose his own way?" (Proverbs 20:24). Now…

7th Commandment: You shall not commit, etc. He breaks this commandment: who looks on a woman to lust after her (Matthew 5:28); who commits incest (Leviticus 18:22); who commits sodomy (1 Corinthians 6:9); who commits fornication with married or single or contracted people (Deute…

Therefore says Augustine excellently, Contra Iulian, book 6, chapter 5: Sanat vitiatum a reatu statim, ab infirmitate paulatim: God heals the sinner from his guiltiness (it is a law word, and a law cure) presently, but from his infirmity by degrees, by little and little. And Gre…

2. The surety never injured the creditor by injustice done against the eighth Commandment, but the broken man has failed in this. But I would be resolved what truth can be in those scriptures — 'Who can say I have made my heart clean?' (Proverbs 20:9); 'Who can bring a clean thi…

The Wrath of Kings is very much dreaded, especially of absolute Monarchs, that have the Possessions and Lives of their Subjects wholly in their Power, to be disposed of at their mere Will. Proverbs 20:2. The Fear of a King is as the Roaring of a Lion: Whoso provokes him to Anger…