Hello and welcome to Keeping a Young Podcast, conversations about marriage, family, and ministry life. I'm Dave. And I'm Bethlie. And we are the Youngs. We're so glad you've joined us again as we're continuing in the book of Proverbs. Hope all is well in your life and I hope you're having a great week wherever you are. And we are so thankful that we can join you today. Hope you enjoyed Proverbs chapter five last week. I felt like I learned so much from Proverbs five.
It was just, kept speaking to my heart in new ways and different ways. I'm enjoying actually for you that would want more information. I'm enjoying reading Matthew Henry's commentaries as I'm working through Proverbs with this study because he's just very practical and just applies things in a unique way. I'm really, really, I recommend Matthew Henry too. He's an old writer. Right. But very good stuff. And he does it in so many ways.
Yes, you can find all of his commentaries free if you download the Blue Letter Bible app. Or the e-sword. Yes, you can find all of his commentaries right on there. And he is, he's not a super easy read, but once you get the cadence of his writing style, then you will learn a lot. Yes, and so I recommend it. We've learned a lot. I have just really enjoyed going through there. Well, we're today heading into Proverbs chapter six.
Anything we need to announce or talk through or remind folks of before we just jump in and get going? Well, Mother's Day is coming. That's right. So why do we need to remind people of that? Oh, because moms like to be celebrated. And what are you hoping will happen on your Mother's Day this year? Oh, the same thing that happens every year since we have moved to Florida.
My wonderful husband, first of all, he usually takes me out ahead of time and we go to all of our local nurseries and I buy plants and flowers for my flower beds. So we just get a big old cart and we load it up with all the pretty flowers. And then he helps me plant them all, which is also a blessing. And he and the children help mulch it all. So that's a wonderful Mother's Day. And then on Mother's Day, he cooks me a wonderful, wonderful meal and I don't have to do anything.
I don't have to prep it. I don't have to cook it and I don't have to clean it up. That's the plan and that's what we're gonna do. So I hope you're making plans that way as well. It is coming up, isn't it? Mother's Day is coming fast. And I really, I didn't wanna go into all of that.
I just wanted to remind you all to be thinking about your mamas because all of you have one, whether she's in glory like mine is, or she's still here on this side of glory, just be thinking about her, being thankful for her. And then if she is still with you, then making sure that you let her know how thankful you are for her. Absolutely. Well, let's jump into Proverbs chapter six. It seems that Solomon is interrupting his teaching on immorality to discuss some other things here. Really?
And so he's no doubt about it. Chapter five was the main focus was on, you know, immorality and adultery. Yes, well, several chapters in a row are, and it goes back to it in chapter seven. But in chapter six here, before he gets into the issue of adultery, he brings up at least two or three or four areas to his son. Yes. And they're very important to talk about. He challenges his son and I can't help but think, you know, okay, what Solomon is in his heart there?
It may be that he's reminding his son that we are not the sum total of our actions, but that our life is the sum total of our entire being, our character, our integrity, our words, our lifestyle, our choices, just it's a whole bunch of things combined together. You can't just compartmentalize your sin and say, well, you know, I have this lustful part of my life or I have this lying part of my life. You are an entire being.
And so whatever besetting sin you might say, well, that's just off in the corner and I can compartmentalize it. It actually is a representative, a testimony of your whole being that there is something lacking. Absolutely. And so what Solomon is gonna do here is in his teaching is he's letting us know what we can do. There's lessons here for us. We can learn them, but the whole point is that we can train them to our children, teach them to our children.
And so let's get started in verses one through five and here is where it all begins in Proverbs chapter six. You wanna read those five for us? Yes. Chapter six, verse one says, my son, if thou be surety for thy friend, if thou hast stricken my hand with a stranger, thou art snared with the words of thy mouth. Thou art taken with the words of thy mouth. Do this now, my son, and deliver thyself when thou art coming to the hand of thy friend. Go humble thyself and make sure thy friend.
Give not sleep to thine eyes nor slumber to thine eyelids. Deliver thyself as a roe from the hand of the hunter and as a bird from the hand of the fowler. There's a ton of things in those five verses, but I summed it up in just this simple statement. Solomon challenges his son to be a man of character, just to have character in his life, to be honest, to be dependable, to be a man of his word, especially when, or maybe I should say even when, or especially when it is hard.
And because what he's saying here is that his son has made some statements and now it's like, ooh, that was way over the top. Well, be a man of your word, stand by it. And what a lesson. All of us should be people of character and our word should be dependable when we speak. It should have meaning to it. People should know they can trust us and that what we say, we mean, what we say, we're gonna back up and we're gonna honor our word.
It's all about having character and we've got to train that to our children. We do. What a lesson. And in this culture where it is the popular thing not to do the hard thing. You know, it is hard to get up every day and go to work. It is hard to keep house. It is hard to keep things up around your house, to work in your yard, or to work on things that break in your house. It is hard to make those phone calls.
I know that many of our adult children, that's one of the things they'll complain about. They're like, oh, I have to call the insurance company or I have to call the doctor's office or I have to call this. And I know waiting on the phone for those things is just hard work and you just don't wanna do it, but it has to be done and praise the Lord, our adult children do it. They don't like it.
None of us do, but it is so popular in our culture for people to be like, oh man, work was really hard today. I don't think I can do anything for the next two days. I just need to lay on the couch and watch Netflix. Don't train your children to be that way. Train your children to be children, adults of character. Absolutely. And you know, that is a lesson for us because we do live in the culture to where, that's so weird, but it is true that people just think this is so hard, I can't.
Yes. And moms and dads, if we don't overcome that in our culture, in a sense, forgive this word, we can cripple our children for their whole life. Absolutely. Because there's no doubt about it, life has to be lived. Decisions have to be carried through. Work has to be accomplished. That's how God designed the world and that's how the world will work. It is not possible to spend one's life successfully just sitting on a couch watching Netflix.
And the more we train our children to work hard, to have character, to be dependable, and to enjoy it, the more successful they're gonna be in life. And Beth and I, we've always made a point to try to get our children there. To where that, okay, here's a job to be done. There's nothing wrong with saying, you know what, I'm tired, I'm gonna take a day off. God rested on the seventh day, not because he was tired, but to set an example for us that we're limited.
I love how that Psalms, the book of Psalms talks about God giving his beloved sleep. And sleep is from the Lord and sleep does a ton of things. We know scientifically and biologically how that it restores our mind. So the rest is appropriate. Yes, it heals your body. And sleep is appropriate. And God is reminding us there that we are limited. There's no doubt, we can't do everything. We do have to pace ourselves. But we do have to develop character.
The generation we live in, the issue is not that they don't take time off. The issue is that it's almost impossible to find somebody to work. And I don't know if you've noticed or not, dear friends, but when you go to a store now, when you go to a restaurant, it is very difficult to find a waiter or a waitress who is all in, who is very diligent, just on. Or, and is enjoying their work at the same time. I know our charity, she's 15 years old.
And one of the things that I love about our charity, she just has a great zest for life. And she loves life and she's pretty happy about it all the time. She's not perfect in that, you know, she has bad days. But one of the things that charity has embraced is, well, if the job has to be done, then we're gonna do it. We're gonna do it to the best of our ability and we're gonna enjoy it while we're doing it.
Yes. So she will, she'll play music or she'll think to herself, okay, I want to read this book. So I'm gonna Zoom through all of these jobs so I can have some time to sit down and enjoy my book. Or she'll wanna talk while she's doing it. So we'll fold laundry together and she'll just talk up a storm and just enjoy her time. And I love that she has embraced that because work is something, character is something, she's gonna have to have the rest of her life.
She's gonna have to show up and get the job done. And I love that she's just embracing it. Absolutely. And you know, there's a point of personality there. If you have a child that is, you know, by personality, more laid back and maybe even on the lazy side of things, then you have to work really hard. If you have a child who tends to speak but doesn't mean it, then you have to work at this. Solomon begins here by challenging his son to be a man of character. When you speak, mean it.
And when you've given your word, follow through on it. And what great lessons for us. And so speak wisely and make that a major part of your life. So his first lessons, be a man of character. Right. Have you ever thought about that? Well, I think I already was spilling over into the next one so we can just announce that one. Verses six through 11 then, he's saying to his son, you have to be diligent and industrious. Yes. And we really need to read all those verses.
So read verses six through 11 for us. Be diligent, be industrious. Listen to these verses. Go to the aunt thou sluggard, consider her ways and be wise, which having no guide, overseer or ruler, provideth her meat in the summer and gathereth her food in the harvest. How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? When wilt thou arise out of thy sleep? Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep. So shall thy poverty come as one that traveleth and thy want as an armed man.
That's pretty powerful, isn't it? It is. And I have a smiley face right in my Bible over verse 11 because we always have to giggle over. So shall thy poverty come as one that traveleth because we travel all the time in our ministry. And we're like, yep. That always makes us laugh. We're like, okay, might as well smile about that. Yes. Traveling is expensive. And I read in Matthew Henry's commentary, he said that Solomon condemns the slothful who do nothing. He also added to it.
He also condemns the wicked who do damage. And right here in particular, he's condemning the slothful who just don't do anything at all. And what a reminder that we must learn again to work hard in our culture. I tell our children frequently that if you learn how to work hard, to be dependable, to be on, to get the job done, there's coming a day in our culture, if our culture continues the way it is, that you can pretty much name your salary.
Yes. Because we hear so many times bosses who will say, I can't find workers. In my local town where we live, I was in one of the stores and one of the men said, I'm so sorry you've had to wait. He said, we just, we can't find people who are qualified to work. They can't pass a drug test. They can't pass, you know, the competency, you know, exam, but they just, we just can't find people that, and it wasn't really even a hard job. It's just, there was nobody to do the work.
So Solomon is saying to his son, listen to me, son, in the midst of this perverted, messed up, godless world, here's what you've got to learn. You have got to learn to be diligent and industrious. And Beth and I have said this so many times, and we believe with all of our heart, we have to teach our children to work hard. Yes. And my goodness, let's talk about that because each of our, each of our kids learned to work hard. And we, because we emphasize that.
Well, and you don't want to, there are so many parents today who don't want their children to have to do hard things. And so they'll hire someone to do the lawn. They might hire someone to come in a couple of days a month to clean the house. There is, I have no problem with you getting help if you have the money to do it. But if you have children, they also need to learn to do the hard thing.
And keeping a house and a yard and all of those things, those are the hard things that they're gonna have to learn how to do. And if you just grumble about it or you keep them from it, you're not helping them develop character or industriousness. Yeah, I even had a dad say to me some months ago, there was a project that needed to be done at his house. And I said, well, you know, you got sons. And he said, well, you know, I hate to ask them to do it because they got basketball season right now.
And I thought, no, wait a minute, wait a minute. Basketball season will not necessarily last very long. In fact, very few of our children will make a living or have a future in sports. In professional sports. But our children will always have a future in work. My dad is just a few years shy of 80. And one of the reasons my dad is healthy and well is because he works. And he came from a culture that where you had to work to eat, where you had to work to live.
And we're no longer there, but it doesn't change the fact that work is absolutely essential to a successful and prosperous and godly life. Yes, and what an opportunity to teach your children that life does consist of, yep, I get up in the morning and I go to work. And when I come home, I still have some jobs to do. It's not just, oh, I clock out at five and I come home and I'm just on the couch and nothing needs to be done after that.
So yes, your children may have a busy schedule with school and maybe sports and other things that they have to do, but make sure you're fitting in those jobs that they have to accomplish because they do live in your house and they do need to learn to work. So here's a couple of suggestions, Melton, I would offer in light of where Solomon is here. We had chores daily for our children. And daily chores are just the set in stone. We're gonna do them every day. This is just part of the routine.
This is part of your life. It's like getting out of bed. It's like brushing your teeth. It's like eating. This is what we're gonna do every day. And in our family, not everybody would do it the way we did it, but in our family, our children clean the bathroom every day. Right, it's not a full scrubbing down of the bathroom every day. We did do that once a week, but our children would get us a fresh hand towel so that we're not using the same old one day after day after day.
They would just wipe down the sink and mirror, make sure it looks good, see if there's anything that needs to be cleaned up and wiping out the toilet every day because there were so many of us in that house using it. So we cleaned the bathroom every day and we cleaned the kitchen. This was a rule in our house. We cleaned the kitchen immediately after every meal. Right. Which meant that when the meal is over and the conversations are ended and we're finished. Well, we're still conversing.
We're just working as we're conversing. So we make it a family matter. Our children, it was a time to, we accomplished so many things at the same time. We were sharing, we were talking, we were laughing, we were building relationships, but we were working and that involved, you know, we're gonna wash the dishes, we're gonna dry them, we're gonna put them away, we're gonna sweep the floor, we're gonna remove the trash. Yes, we're gonna just take care of the kitchen.
And how many mamas have to, you know, they go throughout their evening and then they come back to the kitchen and it's time to go to bed and oh, I still have to clean that up or I'll just wait for it in the morning. Now, you don't have to do it the way we did it. We're just saying these are some ideas to help your children just automatically know, okay, this is what needs to be done every day and it gives them a good work ethic.
And what we discovered was that, you know, in my opinion, it's better to do it immediately than to let it build up and do it all later at one time. Yes. And first of all, it's easier to do it when, and it hasn't sat, you know, it hasn't sat there forever. And it's easier to just get it done and be finished with it so that you can walk into a clean kitchen. Things are put away, everything looks normal.
And within literally, when a meal has finished in our home, within 30 minutes, a half an hour, everything is back to normal. Oh, usually not even that long. The meal, everything is cleaned up, everything is put away, the kitchen looks clean and we are ready to move on with our day. That was just a daily chore. We made that a priority. The other one was we vacuumed every day. And that became more of a priority for two reasons in our family.
One is for 16 years, we lived in an RV, five children and me and Bethle in a 42 foot RV. And living in there, because it was such a tiny space, there was a greater accumulation of dirt in a specific location. And so we vacuumed that every day. And if necessarily, sometimes twice a day. Now we have a golden retriever and this was something that I was not necessarily ever thinking would happen in our family. My wife grew up with a dog that was indoor. It was a little dog, indoor.
And I just never have had an indoor dog and never preferred that, never liked that. But my wife, growing up that way, we bought our last golden retriever. The thing was tiny and a puppy and wound up in the house. You know, it was kind of by default. She was scared. See, listen to that. And so here's the scared little dog, it's gotta come into the house. And now she is part of our family in the house. And she's a golden retriever. So the children vacuumed every single day.
And we vacuumed her bed and we vacuumed, we even vacuumed her with a wand. We had to make her lay down. The rest of the family doesn't do that. David does that. And poor Payne, you should just see her. She sees that vacuum coming and she'll just lay down and look so resigned. Like, really, you're gonna vacuum me again? She looks so pitiful. But all we're doing there is it's just a job. And we're getting vacuuming the floors every day and being aware of cleaning things up was a job.
So what Solomon is saying to his son here is something we can practice in real life with our children and it makes a difference. So I have chores daily. We even had work periodically. Listen, dad, if you're cutting trees and splitting wood, there's not a thing wrong with having your son helping, learning how to split wood, learning how to cut trees, learning how to pick up brush, or those things, when we're picking blueberries, remember blueberries, having the kids help.
Or when you're working in the, whatever. If you are periodically having work that needs to be done, get the children helping you to do it. Yes, projects around the house. And of course, age appropriate. You probably, if you're repainting your kitchen, don't want your three-year-old to be painting your kitchen. But you can certainly get your junior high student or your high school student involved in that.
And you should, because these are all things that they will need to be doing as they grow up. Absolutely, and the Bible says later here in the book of Proverbs, the desire accomplished is sweet to the soul. Yes, I was just thinking while you were talking about how we get the kitchen all cleaned up and it's all done, I was thinking, and then we light the candle and we turn out the lights and we leave the kitchen so that we can all go get ready for bed or just have some family time.
But when we come back into the kitchen, anytime I walk back in just to get a drink or a snack or to get something for David, and I'm just like, oh, this kitchen looks so good. Yeah, so that desire accomplished is sweet. The Bible is absolutely accurate there. I would even say, I'd make this suggestion to you moms and dads. Beth and I would challenge you to get creative. One of the things we learned from her dad was no trash in the cars. Absolutely not.
Her dad, the moment he pulled into the garage, the first thing you do, any trash gets removed and placed in the trash can in the garage. Yes. And there was never, ever trash in dad's car. No. And that's a little thing. Yes. But it teaches, number one, we're taking care of our possession. And number two, we're making it look good, vacuuming the car, washing the car, cleaning the house, doing the laundry, learning to make money. All of that is just get creative with your children and teach them.
You're working, so teach them to work. Yes. And dad, listen, and I don't wanna get on a sidetrack here, but that in our culture, the average age now of video gamers is in the 30s. Oh my. And dad, that's not fair to your children that you waste four, five, six, seven hours a day on a video game. Video games aren't necessarily wrong, but they are addictive, they are distracting, and they accomplish nothing of lasting value. So it's a waste.
And so don't let your son, don't let your son begin developing habits of hours of video games, hours and hours of video games. If your son needs something to do, give him something to do that teaches a life lesson that prepares your sons and daughters for adulthood. That is so important. So get creative about it. And then a couple other suggestions we have here. We had responsibilities. What were some of the responsibilities that each of our children had?
Well, they know that they just, when they get out of bed in the morning, the bed needs to be made. That is something you will just have to remind them of. And sometimes they get a little older and they come home, you know, from college or whatever, and they're thinking, I'm just home, I don't need to do anything. And you just remind them, nope, in this house, you do make your bed, please make your bed.
But clothing, they are not to just leave their clothing on the floor, they're not to leave their school books everywhere. If they have little projects they do, Charity does, she has many little art projects that she'll get out and do, but she is very good about, you know, I don't leave this out. I just pack it all back up and put it back where it goes. And I know sometimes you think, oh, she's just gonna go back to it tomorrow. But it's just a nice thing to teach them.
You know what, I have some responsibilities to this family. I'm not the only one who lives here. I have to clean up after myself. That sounds great. And then one more here, we have job training. And when Solomon is talking to his son here about being diligent, going to the aunt and considering her ways, one of the things we as moms and dads can do is do job training. Cooking and cleaning and laundry require training. We should celebrate jobs well done and jobs that are finished.
And I know, I know moms and dads, sometimes as you're in those training years of this is how you fold the laundry, this is how you wash the dishes, this is how you sweep the floor, it is so much easier and so much faster just to do it yourself. But those training years do pay off.
I was thinking as we were referring to Proverbs six, verse six about going to the aunt, that would be really nice if you could just say, hey, go out there and watch the aunts and you're gonna learn a lot about how to do life. Now they will learn that aunts are very diligent and they just do not stop until the job is done and it seems like their job is never done. But the aunts outside are not going to train your children how to do things in the house. That is up to you.
So take the extra time because it does pay off. Yes, and we're gonna run out of time here, but one of the things I was reminded of as we're talking about this is that each of our children are unique. Bethlehe mentioned our Charity who is just happily, happily running, running, running, getting the job done. Our son Joshua was more steady. He was just the steady plotter, calm about it. And so sometimes we have to slow Charity down. You know, don't go so fast that you don't do it well.
And with our Josh, we had to sometimes speed things up and he was unique and different than she was, but each of our children had to learn to be diligent, to be industrious, to follow through, to finish the job. What Solomon says to his son here is absolutely vitally important in the culture we live in. It is, and as I just said, it is so worth the training. I can absolutely say that every single one of our children are hard workers and happy workers.
They do what the Lord has given them to do happily. And sometimes they are tired and sometimes they have to remind themselves, you know what, it's been a while, I need to take a break. We were just talking to Matt and Kareth yesterday on the phone and they were saying, I don't remember the last time we had a day off. So today's been a good day. We took a day off, we needed some rest and we do need that time, but they are all industrious.
And I just praise the Lord for that because we didn't always know what to do, but the Lord did help us. And so train those babies to work hard. There's a couple other things here in Proverbs 6 before we run out of time today. Verses 12 through 15, Matthew Henry says that Solomon is challenging his son to be aware of sorry people and just be aware of that. Read those just briefly to us, 12 through 15. A naughty person, a wicked man, walketh with a froward mouth, that's a twisted mouth.
He winketh with his eyes, he speaketh with his feet, he teacheth with his fingers, frowardness is in his heart, he deviseth mischief continually, he soweth discord. Therefore shall his calamity come suddenly, suddenly shall he be broken without remedy. So think about this. He says to his son, I want you to be a man of character. I want you to be diligent and industrious son. And I want you to be aware of sorry people.
Remember when I said a moment ago was that Solomon condemns the slothful who do nothing. Here he is condemning the man who does evil and tries to do as much as he can. And we need to be aware of that. Absolutely. And teach our children to be aware of that. There's one other thing he says here in the text before we run out of time today. And it's the verses that all of us probably know quite well. Solomon reminds his son to be aware of that thing that God hates.
And he says here, there are six things God hates and seven, the seventh one is an abomination. So let's just read this list and we'll be out of time and we'll close with this. These six things doth the Lord hate, yea seven are an abomination unto him, a proud look, a lying tongue and hands that shed innocent blood and heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, a false witness that speaketh lies and he that soweth discord among the brethren.
Aren't those an interesting, that's just such an interesting list. Such an interesting thing to think through there. It's very weighty. It is. Solomon is reminding his son to be a man of character. Remember that? He starts here by saying, son, you need to be honest and dependable, you need to be a man of your word, how you treat others matters. And it does seem that he's concluding this little section with a reminder of that.
This list is about the sins against others, arrogance and how you treat others, treating others arrogantly, that proud look of condescension and condemnation and looking down on others and just mistreating them. That's sinful to God. Yes.
And he mentions lying several times in the passage, how we, you know, he mentions it, that we're to be honest, we're not to be a false witness, we're not to treat others inappropriately in that way and we're not to be destructive of the innocent or of unity and peace.
Nothing we should do should damage other people around us and when our lives damage other people, whether it's our pride or our dishonesty, whatever this is, is sowing discord among the brethren, when we damage other people, we are displeasing almighty God and literally are under the judgment of God. God hates these things. Yes. So it matters how we treat each other. What a lesson for a family that we get along. What a lesson for how we respond to each other in the church.
Yes. We're to be loving, we're to be gentle. This list is the exact opposite of the fruits of the spirit of Galatians chapter, what is it? Galatians chapter five. They're different, it matters how we treat others and Solomon reminds his son here, God hates these things. Don't let these in your life.
Don't be dishonest, don't be arrogant, don't be condescending, don't bear false witness against somebody else and certainly don't sow discord among brethren, don't try to damage good relationships because of your foolishness and what a powerful way to end. So we are out of time. I feel like we could do a whole episode on those verses. Maybe we should next time. I think you should write that and we'll do it. I think I just got handed the baton of writing the notes. Isn't this exciting?
So ladies and gentlemen, tune in next time and we'll see where we go with that. Thank you so much for joining us today. We are out of time. It's always an honor to share with you the word of God and practical wisdom about life and family and ministry. We're honored you would let us do that. We hope you have a great week. Thanks for listening to Keeping It Young podcast and whatever you do this week, make sure that you serve the Lord with gladness.
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