Spite, cunning, and deceit
I. THE TALE BEARER AND MISCHIEF MAKER. (Proverbs 26:20-22.)
1. His inflammatory character. (Proverbs 26:20, Proverbs 26:21.) He keeps alive quarrels which, but for his vice, would die down for want of fuel. It is easy to fire the imagination with tales of evil, not so easy to quench the flames thus kindled. If the character is odious, let us beware of countenancing it by opening our ears to scandal. Personal gossip has in our day become an offence in the public press. But were there no receivers, there would be no thieves. If we cannot stop the scandalmonger's month, we can stop our own ears; and "let him see in our face that he has no room in our heart."
2. The pain he causes. (Proverbs 26:22.) Slander is deadly—it "outvenoms all the worms of Nile." "A whispered word may stab a gentle heart." "What weapon can be nearer to nothing than the sting of a wasp? yet what a painful wound may it give! The scarce-visible point how it envenoms and rankles and swells up the flesh! The tenderness of the part adds much to the grief." If God has given us a sting, or turn for satire, may we use it for its proper work—to cover evil with contempt, and folly with ridicule, and not at the devilish instigation of envy and spite. Let us dread and discourage the character of the amusing social slanderer.
II. THE BAD HEART. (Proverbs 26:23-25.)
1. It may be varnished over, but is still the bad heart. It is like the common sherd covered with impure silver, the common wood with veneer. The burning lips seem here to mean glowing professions of friendship. like the kiss of Judas.
2. Duplicity is the sign of the bad heart. The dissembler smiles, and murders while he smiles. The fair face hides what the false heart doth know.
"Neither man nor angel can discern
Hypocrisy, the only evil that walks
Invisible, except to God alone.
Oft, though wisdom wakes, suspicion sleeps
At wisdom's gate, and to simplicity
Resigns her charge, while goodness thinks no ill
Where no ill seems."
3. The need of prudence and reserve. "Trust not him that seems to be a saint." Indeed, it is an error to place perfect trust in anything human or finite. But the special warning here is against suffering flattery to blind us to the real character of one who has once been revealed in his true colours.
III. THE EXPOSURE OF WICKEDNESS. (Proverbs 26:26, Proverbs 26:27.) Vain is the attempt of men to conceal for any length of time their real character. What they say and what they do not say, do and do not do, reveals them sooner or later. And the revelation brings its retribution. The intriguer falls into his own pit, is crushed beneath the stone he set in motion. Curses come home to roost; the biter is bitten; and the villain suffers from the recoil of his own weapon. This appears also to be the sense of Proverbs 26:28. Though a lie has no legs, it has wings, and may fly far and wide, but it "hates its own master" (according to one rendering), and flies back to perch on his shoulder and betray him to his ruin.—J.
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON
Honouring the unworthy
There are different ways in which we may honour men, whether the wise or the unwise. We may
I. ITS PAINFUL INCONGRUITY. "As snow in summer, and as rain in harvest, so honour is not seemly for a fool." To hear a fool attempting lamely to discourse wisdom is suggestive of the motion of a man whose "legs are not equal." For the post of honour to be occupied by one who has disgraced himself by guilty foolishness, or who has neglected his opportunities, and is empty-minded and incapable, this is something which is manifestly unfitting; it offends our sense of the appropriate and the becoming. Shamelessness and honour, stupidity and responsibility, have no sort of agreement; they are miserably and painfully ill-mated.
II. ITS POSITIVE REVERSAL OF THE TRUE ORDER OF THINGS. The fool ought to be positively dishonoured. He need not be actually despised. There is too much of capacity, of indefinitely great possibility in every human spirit to make it right for us to despise our brethren. We are to "honour all men" because they are men, because they are, with us, the offspring of God, and may be his children in the highest and deepest sense (1 Peter 2:17). Yet is it our clear duty to see that folly is dishonored, that it is made to take the lowest place, that the man who does shameful things is put to shame before his fellows. Let those who dishonour God, disregard their fellows, and disgrace themselves, feel the edge of holy indignation; they should be smitten in faithfulness that they may be healed in mercy.
III. ITS INJURIOUSNESS. To honour the fool by giving him rank, or responsibility, or the opportunity of speech, is:
1. To injure him. For it is to make him "think himself to be something [or, 'somebody'] when he is nothing [or, 'nobody']." It is to fasten him in his present position of unworthiness, and thus to do him the most serious harm we can inflict upon him. The flatterer of the fool is his deadliest enemy.
2. To injure the community. It is "to drink damage," to bind a stone in a sling that is most likely to hit and hurt our neighbour, to smart with a wound from some sharp thorn. The foolish, the guilty, the wrong in heart and mind, do serious harm when they hold the reins of office or sit in the seat of honour. Their very elevation is itself an encouragement to folly and vice, and a discouragement to wisdom and virtue. They administer injustice instead of justice. They let all things down instead of raising them up. They advance those who are like-minded with themselves, and neglect those who deserve honour and promotion. Speaking from "the chair," they make falsity and foolishness to appear to be truth and wisdom, and so they mislead the minds and darken the lives and betray the souls of men.—C.
What to fear
Fear enters largely into human experience. It is an emotion which is sometimes stamped upon the countenance so that it is legible to all who look upon it. Under its baleful shadow some men have spent a large part of their life. We may well ask what to fear and how to be delivered from its evil There are some—
I. THINGS THAT HAVE BEEN, BUT NEED NOT HAVE BEEN, FEARED.
1. Men and women have dreaded "the evil eye" of their fellow men. They have been alarmed by evil omens, by signs and portents that have boded misfortune or calamity, by presentiments of approaching death, etc. All these things have been purely imaginary, and they have added largely and lamentably to the burdens and sorrows of existence. It is painful to think how many thousands, how many millions of mankind have had their hearts troubled and their lives darkened, or even blighted, by fears that have been wholly needless—fears of some evil which has never been more or nearer to them in fact than the shadow of the bird's wing as it circles in the air or flies away into the forest.
2. Of these imaginary evils that which is conspicuous among others is the curse of the wicked—"the curse that is causeless." The bitter imprecation of the heart that is full of unholy hatred may make the spirit quiver at the moment, but its effect should be momentary. Let reason do its rightful work and the anxiety will disappear. What possible harm can come of the bad man's curse? He has no power to bring about its fulfilment. Not in his hand are the laws of nature, the issues of events, the future of the holy. Let the feeling of apprehension pass away with a reflection that all these things are in the hand of the Supreme. Let it be as the wing of the flitting bird, out of sight in a moment. Let it be "as the idle wind which we regard not."
II. THINGS THAT MUST SOMETIMES BE BRAVED. Although we may entirely disregard the malediction of the guilty and the godless, we are obliged to attach some importance to their active opposition. When implication passes into determined hostility, we have then to lay our account with it. We have then to consider what we must do to meet it. But if we are obviously and consciously in the right, we can afford to brave and breast it. We are not alone. God is with us. Almighty power, irresistible wisdom, Divine sympathy, are with us; we may go on our way, doing our duty and bearing our testimony, fearless of our foes and of all their machinations. There is, however—
III. ONE THING FROM WHICH IT IS NATURAL TO SHRINK; the enmity of a bureau begirt. We may make light of the weapons of our adversaries; we may be fearless of their designs and their doings; but from the feeling of hatred in their hearts we do welt to shrink. It is far from being nothing that human hearts are actually hating us, malevolently wishing us evil, prepared to rejoice in our sorrow, in our downfall. We should not surely be entirely unaffected by the thought. It is a consideration that should move us to pity and to prayer. We should have a sorrowful feeling that ends in prayer that God would turn their heart, that leads also to the first available opportunity of winning them to a bettor mind. And there are those who should cherish—
IV. ONE SALUTARY FEAR. (Proverbs 26:3.) Those who are wrong in heart and life may dread the coming down upon them of that rod of correction which is found to be the only weapon that will avail.—C.
The two ways of meeting folly
They are these—
I. THE CAREFUL AVOIDANCE OF REPEATING IT. (Proverbs 26:4.) Only too often men allow the foolish to draw them into a repetition of their folly, so that one fool makes another. Folly is contagious, and we are all in some danger of catching it. This is the case with us when:
1. We let the word of anger provoke us to a responsive bitterness; then we are "overcome of evil" instead of "overcoming evil with good" (Romans 12:21).
2. We allow one exaggeration to lead us into another. When two men are in conversation, one is often tempted to lead the other into statements that exceed the truth; and exaggeration is only another name for falsehood.
3. We accept a foolish challenge. The young, more particularly, are fond of exciting one another to deeds of folly, and it often requires courage, steadfastness, even nobility of spirit, to refuse to follow the leading of unwisdom.
4. We indulge in idle gossip; letting the first statement about our neighbour, which is unfounded and slanderous, conduct us to idle and mischievous talk in the same foolish strain.
5. We permit ourselves to follow the lead of the man whose thoughts and words are in the direction of a doubtful, or a dishonourable, or a defiling region. In all these cases it behoves us "not to answer a fool according to his folly," to be silent altogether; or else to break away into another and worthier strain; or even to "take up our parable" against that which has been said in our hearing. But here we reach the other method, viz.—
If. THE WISE CONDEMNATION OF IT. Folly is sometimes to be rebuked (Proverbs 26:5). Silence on our part would be mistaken and abused; it would be regarded as acquiescence or as incapacity to meet what has been said, and folly would go on its way, its empty head held higher than before. We must use discretion here; must understand "when only silence suiteth best," and also when silence would be a mistake and even a sin. The times to answer a fool according to his folly, i.e. in the way which is demanded by his folly, are surely these:
1. When ignorance needs to be exposed.
2. When pretentiousness and presumptuousness want to be put down.
3. When irreverence or actual profanity requires to be rebuked and silenced.
4. When vice or cruelty deserves to be smitten and abashed. Then let the true and brave man speak; let the name and the honour of his holy Saviour, let the cause of truth and righteousness, let the interests of the young and the poor and the weak unloose his tongue, and let him pour forth his indignation. In so doing he will be following in the footsteps of the Lord of truth and love, and of the noblest and worthiest of his followers.—C.