Proverbs 23

God does not need our love, yet seeks it. Why does God desire us to give him our heart (Proverbs 23:26)? Not that he needs our heart, but that he may make it better.

4. We take God's name in vain, when we worship him with our lips, but not our hearts; this is to abuse God. It is the heart which God calls for (Proverbs 23:26): My son give me your heart; the heart is the chief thing in religion, it draws the will and affections after it, as th…

Drunkenness excludes a person from heaven (1 Corinthians 6:10): Drunkards shall not inherit the kingdom of God: a man cannot go to heaven reeling. King Solomon makes an oration full of invectives against this sin (Proverbs 23:29): Who has woe? Who has contentions? Who has babbli…

2. If you would have your children honor you, keep up your parental authority over your children; be kind, but do not coddle them: if you let them get too much head, they will contemn you instead of honoring you. The rod of discipline must not be withheld (Proverbs 23:14). You s…

And as for the adulteress, who can paint her black enough? The Scripture calls her a deep ditch (Proverbs 23:27). She is a common shore.

We cannot make riches sure, it is uncertain whether we shall get them. The world is like a lottery, every one is not sure to draw a prize: Or if we get riches we are not sure to keep them (Proverbs 23:5): Riches make themselves wings and fly: Experience seals to the truth of thi…

O what folly is it for a cup of pleasure to drink a sea of wrath? Sin will be bitter in the end (Proverbs 23:31-32). Look not on the wine when it is red, when it gives its color in the cup; at last it bites like a serpent.

4 Branch. If the righteous be more excellent than others, let not them envy the prosperity of the wicked (Proverbs 23:17). Let not your heart envy sinners.

All our professions, gifts and duties, signify nothing. 'My son, give me your heart' (Proverbs 23:26). God is pleased to call that a gift which is indeed a debt; he will put this honor upon the creature to receive it from him in the way of a gift, but if this is not given him he…

A vain show; an image, shadow, or dream, that vanishes in a trice. So (Proverbs 23:5), Will you set your eyes upon that which is not? It was not a while ago, and within a little while it will not be again, at least to us it will not be, we must shortly bid good night to all the…

1. Secret Prayer must be hearty Prayer: a heartless duty is a worthless duty; indeed the whole heart must be engaged in it (Psalm 119:10). With my whole heart have I sought you: It is the heart that God chiefly looks after (Proverbs 23:26). My Son, give me your heart: nothing el…

For otherwise, what difference is between us and the Ass, who wags his ears? God will be heard with the heart (Proverbs 23:26). As for a feigned audience, he utterly rejects it.

Think how unstable and changeable all these things are. What you glory in to day, may be none of yours to morrow, Proverbs 23:5 Riches make themselves wings, and flee away as an Eagle towards Heaven. As the Wings of a Fowl grow out of the substance of its body, so the cause of t…

What fruit (says the Apostle) had ye in those things, whereof you are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death, Romans 6:21 Doth not the Providence of God verifie upon them those threatnings that are written, in the experience of all ages? Proverbs 23:29 Proverbs 23:21…

Such are compared by Solomon to him that lies down in the midst of the sea, or as he that lies upon the top of a mast, secure and careless in the greatest dangers. They have stricken me shall you say, and I was not sick, they have beaten me and I felt it not (Proverbs 23:34-35).…

O the happiness! the eternal happiness, that there is in being espoused to Christ, when the breath of all clay-idols and beloveds will be out, and Christ still fresh in the communicating of his fullness to his people! O what a sad heart will many have, who have forsaken this fou…

However, the words hold forth something that proves it to be excellent, and not common, but such as is found among these who stand in this spiritual relation. 2. It is commended from this, that it goes down sweetly, that is, it is pleasant to the taste, and is not harsh, but del…

You may, for anything you know, redeem his life by it, and deliver him from the hand of justice, and eternal wrath of God, and save his soul from everlasting smart and torment. So (Proverbs 23:13-14) Withhold not correction from the child; for if you beat him with the rod, he sh…

Come, they say, and I will fetch wine, and we will fill ourselves with strong drink; and tomorrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant (Isaiah 56:12). The corners and beds full of vomit, the reelings about the streets, the contentions and wranglings, the wounds without c…

1. Drunkards, turn from your evil ways; overcharge not yourselves with excess, where God allows you enough for use. Look not upon the wine when it is red, when it gives its color in the cup, when it sparkles and moves itself aright: At last it bites like a serpent, and stings li…

O my soul let me press you to the serious view of heavenly objects, they are choice things, and deserve our study, rare wherein few have interest, yet absolutely necessary wherein all must have a share, or they are undone for ever: that is the first direction. 2. Reserve your he…

For in these reasons I would both convince the judgment, and persuade the affections; these are the chief motives I have: for I would spend most time in Direction. 8. This, and only this does discriminate between persons and persons: my meaning is, this heart-treasure puts a dif…

When once the sinner's eyes come to be opened at death, and he feels some sparks of God's wrath in his conscience, then he will cry out for horror, and be ready to lay violent hands upon himself. We may say of the pleasures of sin, as Solomon of wine (Proverbs 23:32): "Look not…

Sinners give God the worship of their bodies, but keep their hearts for something else they love better. The heart is a virgin God himself is suitor to (Proverbs 23:26): My Son give me your heart. To draw near to God with the body, but not the heart, is to abuse God.

Who never were up before the sun, nor break an hour's rest; For your poor souls, as you have done so often, for a beast. Learn once to see the difference; between eternal things; And these poor transient things of sense: that fly with eagle's wings. (2 Corinthians 4:18; 1 Corint…

VVHat careful Husbands do, with respect to the provisions they make for their children, that all prudent Christians are bound to do, with respect to the truths committed to them, and do them, to be transmitted to succeeding Saints. In the first age of the world, even till the La…

Vvho has redness of eyes? They that tarry long at Vvine, they that go to seek mixt Vvine, Proverbs 23:29, 30. By this Enumeration, and manner of Interrogation, he seems to make it a difficult thing to recount the miseries that Drunkenness loads the outward man with: for look as…

Thus mutable and inconstant are all outward things, there is no depending on them: Nothing of any substance, or any solid consistence in them, 1 Corinthians 7:31. The fashion of this world passes away. It is an high point of folly to depend upon such vanities, Proverbs 23:5. Why…

God loves, that he may be beloved. When he comes to command the return of his received love to complete communion with him, he says: my son, give me your heart, Proverbs 23:26 — your affections, your love. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your so…

It is the last remedy which a parent can use: a remedy which may do good when nothing else can. It is by the Holy Spirit both expressly commanded, and also very often pressed under these and such like phrases, Chasten your son: correct your son: withhold not correction from the…

These words of our Savior are repeated with very little alteration in three Evangelists; only whereas Matthew and Mark have recorded them as above written, Luke reports them thus: arise and pray, that you enter not into temptation; so that the whole of his caution seems to have…

A stroke at the heart does it, which is the certainest and quickest death of any wound. For in this dying to sin, all the whole man of necessity dies to it, the mind dies to the device, and study of sin, that vein and invention becomes dead; the hand dies to the acting of it; th…

2. Though a natural man cannot love them spiritually, as graces of the Spirit of God, for so only the partakers of them are lovers of them; yet he may have, and usually has a natural liking and esteem of some kind of virtues which are in a Christian, and are not in their right n…

I saw, I coveted, and I took: the eye awakens desire, and desire that inclines to practice. So (Proverbs 23:31): Look not you upon the wine when it is red, when it gives its color in the cup, when it moves itself aright. Unless we shut the windows of the soul, this pestilent pla…

Haman was today high in honor, and tomorrow high upon the gallows. Riches make themselves wings, and fly away as an eagle towards heaven (Proverbs 23:5). The Holy Spirit seems there to compare riches to a flock of birds, which pitches in a man's field tonight, but tomorrow they…

We owe our hearts to him. (Proverbs 23:26): "My Son give me your heart." If you give him your hearts, you are sons, though you know it not.

‘Let not your heart envy sinners: but be you in the fear of the Lord all the day long. For surely there is an end; and your expectation shall not be cut off.’ {end: or, reward}—Proverbs 23:17, 18. Last Lord's Day we had for our texts two promises.

A sermon (Number 2152) intended for reading on Lord's Day, July thirteenth, 1890, delivered by C. H. Spurgeon at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington, on Lord's Day Evening, June twenty-second, 1890. “Heed, my son, and be wise, and guide your heart in the way.”—Proverbs 23:19.…

Delivered on Lord's Day evening, June twenty-sixth 1870, at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington, by C. H. Spurgeon. “Buy the truth, and sell it not.”—Proverbs 23:23. John Bunyan pictures the pilgrims as passing at one time through Vanity Fair, and in Vanity Fair there were to…

at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington, by C. H. Spurgeon. “My son, give me your heart.”—Proverbs 23:26. These are the words of Solomon speaking in the name of wisdom, which wisdom is but another name for the Lord Jesus Christ, who is made of God unto us wisdom.

4. To have frequent and Devout Thoughts of God witnesseth Sincerity. No truer Touchstone of Sanctity, than the Spirituality of the Thoughts: that a man is, that his Thoughts are, Proverbs 23:7. For as he thinketh in his Heart so is he.

Men think it a happiness to live without the yoke of religion, to speak, and think, and do what they please without restraint: but to be always in bonds and held under the awe of the word, that they count unreasonable and grievous (Psalm 2:3): "Let us break their bands asunder,…

And besides, there's an innate blindness and hatred of truth, which is natural to men, and therefore it's the Spirit of God that must help us to make a wise choice. Look as in practical things, we shall never choose the way of truth in opposition to the falsity of worldly enjoym…

What indeed will you render to him? Love will tell you; but lest you should miss, God himself has told you (Proverbs 23:26), My Son give me your heart. There is no need to wish for windows in your body: He searches the heart and tries the reins (Psalm 7:9).

Because the mind is so secretly enchanted with the love of those things it beholds, and are represented to it by the external senses; and (Ecclesiastes 4:8) there is no end of all his labor, neither is his eye satisfied with riches; that insatiable thirst is kindled in the soul…

There are some parts of the body that are never out of action, as the heart and lungs, wherever a man goes, and whatever he goes about, yet they always do their office: so some graces are of continual exercise, as the fear of God. (Proverbs 23:7) Be in the fear of God all the da…

2. There is a threefold remembrance of God for practical uses. 1. There is a constant remembrance: we should carry the thoughts of God along with us to all our businesses and affairs, and ever walk as in his eye and presence (Proverbs 23:17). Be you in the fear of the Lord all t…

Abraham could promise himself little security in a place where no fear of God was (Genesis 20:11), "I thought surely the fear of God is not in this place, and they will slay me for my wife's sake." Therefore (Proverbs 23:17), "be you in the fear of the Lord all the day long." 2.…

Certainly all true wisdom is from above, (James 3:17) The wisdom that is from above is first pure, etc.; he distinguishes there between the wisdom that is not from above, and that which is from above. Man has so much wisdom yet left as to cater for the body, and the concerns of…

Man has become so sottish and brutish, that he lives by sense: now sense will never look to God who is invisible (that is for faith) but to the creatures which are visible, and the objects of sense. How did Solomon set this out to the life, in his Ecclesiastes, namely, that sens…