Hazards Ahead: Watch Out!
(Proverbs 27:4-7)
1. Moms come in all varieties. Rather than share a joke about moms, today I will share a couple of humorous true stories:
My mother, a master of guilt trips, showed me a photo of herself waiting by a phone that never rings. “Mom, I call all the time,” I said. “If you had an answering machine, you’d know.” Soon after, my brother installed one for her. When I called the next time, I got her machine: “If you are a salesperson, press one. If you’re a friend, press two. If you’re my daughter who never calls, press 911 because the shock will probably give me a heart attack.” —Susan Starace Balducci
2. My mother had just finished taking a CPR class at a local college when she and I were in the mall and saw a big crowd gathered around a still body. Mom took off running at a speed I didn’t know she could muster, yelling, “Everyone back! I know CPR!” Just as she threw herself next to the body and was about to begin, a pair of strong hands pulled her to her feet. “Ma’am,” said a police officer beside her, “we are trying to arrest this man.” —Talea Torres [both from rd.com]
3. This second mom could have easily gotten herself injured.
4. But whether you are a mom or not, life has its hazards. And Proverbs helps us prepare for them!
Main Idea: Life is like a journey on a winding mountain road; we need to be alert to the hazards!
I. The Hazard Potential of the Nuclear Emotions: Wrath, Anger, and JEALOUSY (4)
A. Wrath can make one act CRUELLY.
• Hitler was cheated by a Jewish family when he was a young man, and his hatred for the Jews grew worse within a nation that was already Anti-semitic.
• King David was full of wrath when Nabal refused to offer he and his men hospitality after they helped with his livestock. He planned to kill every male in the family, but Abigail made him see sense – for which he was thankful.
B. Anger can easily OVERFLOW.
1. Esau was angry at Jacob; Jacob fled for his life; eventually Esau cooled off.
2. One of the greatest predictors of marital happiness is controlling anger.
3. Sometimes people who get angry often have better control because of practice. They learn to speak up EARLY, before anger gets out of hand.
4. Both wrath and anger are destructive, violent, and irrational.
C. Angry people may cool off, but jealousy is especially INSIDIOUS.
1. Jealousy for someone is good (as, for example, God), but jealousy of someone can be warranted at times, but is often wrong and certainly dangerous.
2. Jealousy seems like such a childish emotion, but adults simply disguise it better.
3. Jealousy contrary to humility. Humility says God has blessed me more than I deserve. Jealousy says God has cheated me, He has blessed others in greater ways.
4. Charles Bridges says, “Men cannot endure the real or reputed excellency of others.”
5. Cain was jealous of Abel.
Matthew 27:18, “For he knew that it was out of envy that they had delivered him up.”
Song of Solomon 8:6b, “…for love is strong as death, jealousy is fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire…”
II. The Hazard of LIP-ZIP When We Should Be Vocal (5-6)
A. Some people are vocal about EVERYTHING, so don’t take them seriously.
1. Some people are whine babies; result: “boy who cried wolf!”
2. “Love covers a multitude of sins…”(I Peter 4:8) picky picky
3. When someone who doesn’t normally complain speaks, people listen.
B. Love that can REBUKE and wound us for our good is the stronger love.
1. The letter to the Galatians is a case in point; Paul rebukes the people for considering some of the false teachings they had tolerated. Galatians 4:16 says, “ Have I then become your enemy by telling you the truth?”
2. Motive is so very important… why am I confronting?
C. Love that is HIDDEN is a lower level of love.
• Notice there are two contrasting levels of love: silent love and a love that is willing to confront. One type of love is strapped by fear, the other takes courage.
• “Perfect love casts out fear” (I John 4:18)
D. Flattering, deceptive love might be INSINCERE at best and HATRED at worst.
1. Judas is an example of an enemy kissing.
2. So are Absalom, Ahithophel, and Joab in the OT.
Application: Why is it some of the best medicines taste so bad? Or the treatments with the nasty side-effects are most effective? Confrontation is unpleasant but sometimes needed.
III. The Hazard of Ignoring How SATIATION Changes Our Perspective (7)
A. Food is an illustration, and deals with the MATERIAL things of life.
1. Derek Kidner: “This is not a truism about food, but a parable about possessions.”
2. The Laodicean church was wealthy/ satiated with material things; this dampened their appetite for spiritual things. Rev. 3:17., “For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.”
B. Haves and have nots look at life DIFFERENTLY.
1. Quite difficult for a rich farmer in rural America to understand the life and thinking of a single mom in the ghettos of Chicago or New York. The opposite is true.
2. Most of us are concerned only about what concerns us, and the rest of the world can do whatever it wants to do. We don’t even try to understand.
C. We tend to be more appreciative of what we LACK while the novelty of what we have wears off.
1. We live in an OCD culture, more is better culture; many things to the extreme.
2. Instead of borrowing or buying equipment we might only use one time, we buy it.
3. More isn’t always better. A time to say “enough!”
4. But we have a hard time believing that.
D. When we are blessed, we must work HARD at being thankful.
• It is difficult to fight off an attitude of entitlement.
Deuteronomy 8:11-14, 17, “Take care lest you forget the Lord your God…when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery… Beware lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.’”
