◄ Proverbs 22:5 ►
Thorns and snares lie on the path of the perverse; he who guards his soul stays far from them.
Sermons
The Path of the PerverseW. Clarkson Proverbs 22:5
The General Conditions of a Good NameE. Johnson Proverbs 22:1-5
The Good NameE. Johnson Proverbs 22:1-16














Pulpit Commentary Homiletics
The Path Of The Perverse
Proverbs 22:5
W. Clarkson
By "the froward" we understand the spiritually perverse - those that will go on their own way, deaf to the commandments and the entreaties of their heavenly Father.

I. THE PATH OF THE PERVERSE, This is:

1. One of guilt. These froward souls who choose their own way, declining that to which God calls them, are most seriously guilty. Whether their disobedience be due to careless inattention or whether to deliberate recusancy, it is disloyal, ungrateful, presumptuous, offensive in a high degree. It is no wonder that it proves to be:

2. One of suffering. No wonder that "thorns" are in that way, thorns that pierce and pain - grievous troubles, poverty, sickness, loneliness, fear, remorse, forsakenness of God. Departure from God leads down to tangled places, causes men to be lost in thorny wildernesses where suffering abounds. It is also:

3. One of danger. It is a place of "snares." Without the "lamp unto the feet and the light unto the path," how should the traveller in "this dark world of sin" do otherwise than fall? Outside the service of Christ, and apart from his guidance, when the heart is uncontrolled from above, there is the greatest danger of the spirit giving way to one evil after another, of yielding to that multitude of strong temptations which attend the traveller's steps.

II. THE WAY OF THE WISE. There is no necessity for man finding the path of his life a path full of thorns and snares. It is true that no prudence or wisdom will prove an absolute guard therefrom; but if a man will "keep his soul" as he may keep it, he will be preserved in his integrity, he will even "be far" from the worst evils which overtake the froward and perverse. To "keep our soul" is to:

1. Understand its inestimable worth; to understand that it far transcends in value any property we may hold, or any position we may reach, or any prizes or pleasures we may snatch.

2. Realize that God claims it as his own; that to the Father of spirits, to the Saviour of souls, our hearts and lives belong; that to him they should he willingly and heartily surrendered, that they may be placed in his strong and holy keeping.

3. Guard it by the help of Divine wisdom; apply those precious truths which are in the pages of God's Word to its necessity; study the life and form the friendship of that One who himself is the Wisdom of God, walking with whom along the path of life we shall be safe from the wiles of the wicked one. - C.

Biblical Illustrator
By humility and the fear of the Lord are riches, and honour, and life.
Proverbs 22:4
Humility recommended
J. Lambe.
Every being pursues its own perfection, and would fain be satisfied in all the capacities it understands, and in all the importunate appetites it feels. God draws us insensibly to virtue and obedience, by annexing those good things which we all perceive, admire, and prosecute to the practice of those moral duties which are equally our happiness, but not so easily discerned. The text encourages humility, from the consideration of the great advantages we may reasonably expect from the practice of it, even all that is good and desirable in this present world — both riches, and honour, and life.

I. A DUTY RECOMMENDED. Humility, with the fear of the Lord. The definition, nature, and principles of humility in general. Humility is a habit or temper of mind, proceeding from a principle of religion, which subdues all lofty, false opinions of one's self, and disposes a man to cheerful acquiescence in all estates and conditions of life that God shall place him in. It is a habit of mind, a frame or temper of soul; for a virtue cannot be defined by single actions. It is such a habit of soul as must be framed and wrought by a principle of religion or the fear of God. Nothing can be a virtue in us that we have not chosen. Mere depression of mind is not humility. Christian humility consists in a modest, just opinion of ourselves, and a cheerful submission to the will of God.

II. THE SEVERAL PARTS AND EXERCISES OF THE DUTY SO DEFINED. The principal exercises of humility are —

1. In our desires and aims.

2. In our looks and gestures.

3. In our garb and habit. But principally —

4. In our conversation with our acquaintance, friends, and equals; with our superiors; with our inferiors.

III. THE REWARDS PROPOSED TO PERSUADE AND ENCOURAGE THE PRACTICE OF IT.

1. Riches, and honour, and life are real blessings, and the proper matter of reward.

2. Humility, with the fear of the Lord, will certainly procure them. They that seek God may expect to attain these rewards, by a natural power and efficacy in the virtue itself. By an efficacy moral, there is something in the practice of humility that disposes kindly to all those several ends. By an efficacy Divine and spiritual, the blessing of God will assist and forward the designs of the humble, and so dispose and order second causes that they shall live in plenty, peace, and honour, to a good old age. Set the example of our blessed Saviour before your eyes, who humbled Himself to death upon the Cross for us.

(J. Lambe.)

Humility, with fear
R. Wardlaw, D.D.
These two are naturally associated. They are indeed inseparable. Lowliness of spirit is an indispensable characteristic of a religious life. It is in the valley of humiliation that the sinner first meets with God, and comes into a state of reconciliation with Him. The spirit of pride cannot dwell in the same heart with the fear of the Lord.

(R. Wardlaw, D.D.)

People
Solomon
Places
Jerusalem
Topics
Froward, Guards, Holdeth, Keepeth, Keeping, Keeps, Lie, Nets, Path, Perverse, Snares, Soul, Stays, Thorns, Twisted, Watch, Wicked
Outline
1. A good name is more desirable than great wealth

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Proverbs 22:5

     4520   thorns

Library
The Rich and the Poor
Chapel Royal, Whitehall, 1871. Proverbs xxii. 2. "The rich and poor meet together: the Lord is the maker of them all." I have been asked to preach here this afternoon on behalf of the Parochial Mission Women's Fund. I may best describe the object for which I plead, as an attempt to civilise and Christianise the women of the lower classes in the poorer districts of London and other great towns, by means of women of their own class--women, who have gone through the same struggles as they have, …
Charles Kingsley—All Saints' Day and Other Sermons

One Lion Two Lions no Lion at All
A sermon (No. 1670) delivered on Thursday Evening, June 8th, 1882, at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington, by C. H. Spurgeon. "The slothful man saith, There is a lion without, I shall be slain in the streets."--Proverbs 22:13. "The slothful man saith, There is a lion in the way; a lion is in the streets."--Proverbs 26:13. This slothful man seems to cherish that one dread of his about the lions, as if it were his favorite aversion and he felt it to be too much trouble to invent another excuse. …
C.H. Spurgeon—Sermons on Proverbs

The Formation of Habits.
School Sermon. Proverbs xxii. 6. "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." INTRODUCTION.--There is a district, high up in the Black Forest, where the ground is full of springs. It is a plain some nine hundred feet above the sea. Thousands upon thousands of little springs gush out of the soil; you seem to be on the rose of a vast watering-can. Now, from this great source flow a good many rivers, and they flow in very different, nay, opposite directions. …
S. Baring-Gould—The Village Pulpit, Volume II. Trinity to Advent

The Christian Business World
Scripture references: Proverbs 22:29; Romans 12:11; Psalms 24:1; 50:10-12; Haggai 2:8; Psalm 49:6,10,16,17; 62:10; Matthew 13:22; Mark 10:23,24; Job 31:24-26; Proverbs 3:9; Matthew 25:14-30; 24:45-51; 6:19-21; Luke 12:16-21. THE IDEAL IN THE BUSINESS WORLD There is often a wide difference between the methods actually employed in doing business and when they should be. Good men who are in the thick of the battle of competition and rivalry with other firms in the same line of trade, are the quickest …
Henry T. Sell—Studies in the Life of the Christian

Philip and the Emperor
Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before mean men.--Prov. xxii. 29. Kallias stayed a fortnight under the hospitable roof of Olympias, and during those days he had the pleasure of seeing how greatly his honest and genial simplicity brightened the thoughts both of his hostess and of his friend. The general outline of his own future seemed now to be approximately settled. Like Philip, he had acquired an incurable disgust for Constantinople, with …
Frederic William Farrar—Gathering Clouds: A Tale of the Days of St. Chrysostom

He Accuses Abaelard for Preferring his Own Opinions and Even Fancies to the Unanimous Consent of the Fathers, Especially Where He Declares that Christ did Not
He accuses Abaelard for preferring his own opinions and even fancies to the unanimous consent of the Fathers, especially where he declares that Christ did not become incarnate in order to save man from the power of the devil. 11. I find in a book of his sentences, and also in an exposition of his of the Epistle to the Romans, that this rash inquirer into the Divine Majesty attacks the mystery of our Redemption. He admits in the very beginning of his disputation that there has never been but one conclusion …
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux—Some Letters of Saint Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux

The Baptismal Covenant Can be Kept Unbroken. Aim and Responsibility of Parents.
We have gone "to the Law and to the Testimony" to find out what the nature and benefits of Baptism are. We have gathered out of the Word all the principal passages bearing on this subject. We have grouped them together, and studied them side by side. We have noticed that their sense is uniform, clear, and strong. Unless we are willing to throw aside all sound principles of interpretation, we can extract from the words of inspiration only one meaning, and that is that the baptized child is, by virtue …
G. H. Gerberding—The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church

"But Seek Ye First the Kingdom of God, and his Righteousness, and all These Things Shall be Added unto You. "
Matth. vi. 33.--"But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." The perfection even of the most upright creature, speaks always some imperfection in comparison of God, who is most perfect. The heavens, the sun and moon, in respect of lower things here, how glorious do they appear, and without spot! But behold, they are not clean in God's sight! How far are the angels above us who dwell in clay! They appear to be a pure mass of light and …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

We Shall not be Curious in the Ranking of the Duties in which Christian Love...
We shall not be curious in the ranking of the duties in which Christian love should exercise itself. All the commandments of the second table are but branches of it: they might be reduced all to the works of righteousness and of mercy. But truly these are interwoven through other. Though mercy uses to be restricted to the showing of compassion upon men in misery, yet there is a righteousness in that mercy, and there is mercy in the most part of the acts of righteousness, as in not judging rashly, …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

Proverbs
Many specimens of the so-called Wisdom Literature are preserved for us in the book of Proverbs, for its contents are by no means confined to what we call proverbs. The first nine chapters constitute a continuous discourse, almost in the manner of a sermon; and of the last two chapters, ch. xxx. is largely made up of enigmas, and xxxi. is in part a description of the good housewife. All, however, are rightly subsumed under the idea of wisdom, which to the Hebrew had always moral relations. The Hebrew …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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