This is 15 to 23 tonight. This is an interesting text of scripture. And before we start, let's pray. Father, thank you for the word and those here to partake of it tonight. We pray your blessing on this hour, and we'll thank you for that. Pray that you would give us wisdom as we go through this study tonight, and we'll thank you for that as well. In Jesus' name, amen. One of the things that I like doing is, believe it or not, is I like cutting wood for the fireplace and certainly one of the things you learn when you do that is you want to keep that chain tight and you want to keep it on the on the bar that it's on, because if you don't you're going to have serious problems. You keep a tension on there that's just proper, because if it flies off there it could create great injury. And the thing of it is, the idea is you can't tell what it's going to do. If you let that thing get out of control, you don't know what it's going to do. So the whole point is you keep checking it, make sure it's tight. You want it, of course, sharp, but you certainly want the tension on there enough so that it's not going to fly off, because you don't know what direction it's going to go. When you come to this text of scripture tonight, you come to a passage of scripture in which Agur is talking about things that can go in some bizarre directions. In fact, what he's basically doing here is he's saying a wise person is going to be forever alert to ways that are foolish and sinful. And he was a man who looked at life and he saw certain dangerous things that would always be and certain things that would never be. And in viewing those things that will never be, he forms some conclusions that would enable him to live in a wise way. And what the principle that he sets forth tonight is there are things that will never be and a wise person is on guard against those kinds of things. Now he's not just out there talking about life in the animal planet or observing life in various existences. He's making a point here to communicate wisdom. What he's basically saying is there are certain things that will never be and you want to understand that and in understanding that make a wise application to your own personal and private life. So what he does down through these verses is very intriguing. There are three specific realities, never be realities. that he uses to communicate a point. Never be reality, number one, is seen in verses 15 to 17, and that is, there are things that are never satisfied, there are those who are never satisfied. Now notice what we read in verse 15, the leech has two daughters, Give, give, there are three things that will not be satisfied, four that will not say enough, Sheol and the barren womb, earth that is never satisfied with water, and fire that never says enough, the eye that mocks a father and scorns a mother, the ravens of the valley will pick it out and the young eagles will eat it. Now, what Agur is doing here is he's basically saying there will always be some things that will be insatiable and they want things that don't belong to them. And the particular illustration that he uses here is that of a leech. And the leech is a rare Hebrew word that actually describes a blood sucker. It's a leech that would latch onto like a horse or an animal and it would draw out its blood. It's taking something that doesn't belong to it. I mean, it's drawing its life, it's leeching its life off of something that really isn't itself. it's drawing off something that really isn't its own. Now the leech produces two daughters who are never satisfied. And three things are said about the leech. First of all, they're always crying, give, give. Secondly, they're never satisfied. And third, they never have enough. So what you have described here is someone that is wanting things that doesn't belong to them, it's not theirs, they haven't worked for it, they're not earning it, they don't deserve it, they're just latching on, they're leeching on to something, and they're just drawing it out, and it's insatiable, and it's never going to be enough, referring to things that really don't belong to them. And he uses four illustrations or four examples of existences that are never satisfied. Number one, you have Sheol is never satisfied. Now, Sheol, in the Bible, is a place where the dead go. In the Old Testament economy, it's the abode of the dead. It was said to be a place where the uncircumcised went. Sheol is really not referred to in a positive way in the Scriptures. It's always referring to somebody that's going to a dark, lonely existence, a place of disruption and damnation. The point is, Sheol's never satisfied. In other words, this is a place that always wants more. Souls are always wanted more in Sheol. Souls are certainly more wanted in Hell, even though God's the one who creates life and they don't really have a right to claim those souls. The Sheol is never a place that's satisfied and they always want more numbers. The second existence that isn't satisfied is the barren womb, where barrenness is never satisfied. And the word barren refers to someone who has been hindered from producing a child. And no matter how many children a woman has, or no matter whether or not she's had a child, the typical thing is there are some, unless they're right with God, they view it as they want more or they want another child. And there can be that tendency that can come out within a woman. Some women want more children, some women just want to have a child. It's the rare woman who says, I really want God's will for my life with or without a child. It's the rare woman who would basically say, I'm satisfied with what God has made me and what God's given me in life, and I don't need to have more or I don't need to produce more. And so this kind of woman also, the barrenness, is never satisfied. The third thing that's not satisfied is dry earth. Now of course, Agur is writing in the backdrop of the Palestinian culture and earth, which was a very dry climate. And when water would hit that Palestine ground, it was always wanting more. The fact remains that that earth would take that water in, you couldn't even tell if it rained. if you've ever been in a dry climate, you can get a downpour and in an instant it's gone, and you can't even tell there was water there. Now, I can tell you that personally from living out there in the west in dry climates, that that's the way it is in those desert areas. If you, for example, go and work outside in this humidity that you have here, and you wear a t-shirt, your t-shirt will be soaked. And if you take that t-shirt off and hang it up expecting to wear it again, not wash it first, you'll discover that the next day the t-shirt's still damp. It's still soaked. Even though it might be not as much soaked as it was when you took it off. When you're out west, you could actually go jogging, get your shirt drenched, take it off and hang it up, and within an hour it's dry. And that's the way it was out there. That's the way the climate is that Agur is describing here. So when water would hit that climate, it would just take it in and it would never be enough. It would always cry more and more. That's the illustration he's using. The fourth existence is fire. Fire's never satisfied. Now you start a fire and it starts burning or a lightning starts a fire. They've just had a number of them start in Idaho. Lightning, dry heat, lightning, cracked some fires open out in the mountains north of Boise and several fires broke out and they just spread. I mean they're gonna go after anything they can go after to try and get more and more to just burn more and more. Now the reason why he's doing this is He's basically saying there are some things that are just never satisfied and a wise person isn't going to be a person who is like that. A wise person will realize they're thankful for what they have, they're thankful for who they are, they're thankful for what God has given them, they're appreciative of all that the Lord has done, they're very quick to praise God for things that He has, and they're not like a leech that just wants more and more from things that don't belong to them. They're contented people. They're wise people. They realize the blessings that God has given them. They rejoice in the blessings that God has given them. They're a satisfied people. And you could also draw an analogy that would say this. A person who is never satisfied is one who's heading toward a dead, barren, dry, fiery existence. And when life is finally done, they'll be able to go out of this world never content with anything and never enjoying anything they had because it's always not satisfying enough. So I believe what Agur is doing here is he's as he's making an analogy here to say wise people aren't like leeches. Wise people don't just want to take everything that doesn't belong to them and just no matter how they get it, wise people are not going to be like that. Now, when you come to verse 17, it seems to be so odd in its context, because here you have this parallelism in Hebrew, in which Ger is making a point here about leeches, and then he gets on to the children, and he goes, well, there's an eye that mocks the father and scorns the mother. You see, children can be like leeches. They can be, children can be those who actually are disrespectful to their parents and they can leech off them. they can actually take anything that those parents have, and not even bat an eye. Not out of respect, not out of love for their mother or father, but there can be young people who are so proud that they actually mock their father and their mothers, and they'll drain them, they'll pull off them, they're like a leech. They want to take everything they have, they haven't earned it, it doesn't belong to them. But these kids actually are mocking what's right before the Lord, and they act just like leeches. Well, Agur is using that to draw that connection between a child and his attitude toward his mother and father, and this attitude about leeching off of them. And then he says at the end of this thing, the ravens of the valley will pick it out and the young eagles will eat it. He basically warns the foolish child who takes this position, he says, I want you to understand something, your judgment's gonna come. God will see to it that you're tracked down and you'll end up basically in serious trouble. God will see to it that the ravens of the valley will pick it out and the young eagles will eat it. In other words, God will see to it that everything that you think you've leeched off of someone that didn't belong to you, it'll come back and haunt you. And so the whole point of this is you don't want to be this kind of person. Learn to be a person that thankful for what God has given you, thankful for what you have, thankful for who you are, and just enjoy life in that context. That's the mark of wisdom. Now the second reality that will never be is that there will always be people who are never predictable. There will always be things you cannot predict. There will always be people you can't depend on. These are foolish people, but that's the analogy here. Another way to say this is there's always going to be people who you just can't predict what they do because they're so fickle. And you'll notice what he says in verse 18. There are three things which are too wonderful for me for which I do not understand. Now the words in Hebrew wonderful and understand are words that describe things that are very extraordinary. These were things that Agur was looking at. He was marveling at these things because he couldn't figure them out. He was obviously a guy who liked the outdoors. There's no doubt about that. He studied things out there. But there were things that he couldn't figure out. Notice what he says in verse 19. The way of an eagle in the sky, the way of a serpent on a rock, the way of a ship in the middle of the sea, the way of a man with a maid, this is the way of an adulterous woman. She eats and wipes her mouth and says, I've done no wrong. Now, Agur names four specific actions that caught his eye. You can't make heads or tails out of what direction they're gonna go. The first one that he cites is the direction of an eagle. Now this is really true. If you ever have a chance to watch an eagle, and I don't see a whole lot of them around Michigan, but man, they were all over the place out west. You'd see them all the time. These eagles are impressive. They glide through the air with the greatest of ease, and one of the things that impressed him, impressed Edgar, is that you can't track which way it's going to go, and you can't. I have seen this personally. An eagle take off from the top of its perch, up on the side of a mountain, and you're watching this thing fly, and you're assuming it's flying that way, because that's the way it's going, and all of a sudden it just goes, just like that. You can't determine what way it's going to go. And I've seen an eagle all of a sudden take off and circle right back around and go just the opposite way. That's exactly what a girse saw in watching eagles. They have the ability to take off and you can't predict what they're going to do. And nobody else can predict what they're going to do. The second action is the direction of a serpent. You don't know what way a serpent is going to move. You don't know what way a serpent is going to strike. This principle is known by reptologists and zoologists because this principle is important for them staying alive. When you go into having to work with an area where there are deadly serpents, you have to be very careful because of the unpredictability of that serpent and how it can strike. It can strike from all kinds of angles and all kinds of different ways. You can't predict what a serpent is going to do. I read an interesting story about Jay Rathman who was out in the wildlife area of Red Bluff in northern Colorado and he climbed out on a on a rocky gorge area, and he raised his head to look over the ledge, and he saw some movement to the right of his face, and a coiled rattler struck at him with speed, and I just thought you might enjoy it if I read his story, because he tells his story. It's pretty interesting. The four-foot snake's fangs got snagged in the neck of my wool turtleneck sweater, and the force of the strike caused it to land on my left shoulder. It then coiled around my neck. He grabbed it behind the head with his left hand, could feel the warm venom running down the skin of his neck, the rattles making a furious racket. He fell backward and slid headfirst down the steep slope through brush and lava rocks, his rifle and binoculars bouncing beside him. As luck would have it, he said he, in describing the incident to the Department of the Fish and Game, This chap and I were eyeball to eyeball, and I found out that the snakes don't blink. He had the fangs like darning needles. I had to choke him to death. It was the only way out. I was afraid that with all the blood rushing to my head, I might pass out. When he tried to toss the dead snake aside, he couldn't let it go. I had to pry my fingers from its neck. Rathman 45, who works for the Defense Department of San Jose, says that the encounter with that snake lasted 20 minutes. When he met Warden Dave Smith, he said, he walked toward me holding the string of rattles and said with a sort of grin on his face, I'd like to register a complaint about your wildlife here. That's how dangerous one of those rattlers can be. You don't know how it's going to strike. The third action you don't know the movement of is that of a ship. You put a ship in the middle of the sea and in the ocean and it can move without any effort. I just talked to a guy just this week who was in the Navy and he said when he was out at sea they were on a huge, huge ship. It weighed thousands of tons. He said in some storms those waves could pick that ship up and he said you'd be heading on this course and all of a sudden that storm would just move you. I mean you couldn't, even with a ship that was designed to take the storms and designed to go to war, he said there were moments out there where you couldn't determine what way the ship was going to move because you were in the middle of this storm. And of course the fourth action is the direction of a foolish man. And that's where all that's headed. I mean, what Agur is basically doing is he's using these analogies to say there are certain things that are unpredictable. You can't ever predict what a man will do when he spots a maid. And the word maid is a Hebrew word that speaks of a young lady of marriageable age. And the point is you can't predict what a foolish man will do when he comes across a woman. And if you don't have a wise man of God, they can do stupid things. I mean, I personally know the men who've given up families, careers, and ministries for a woman. I've sat in restaurants and seen some old geezer acting like some goodly-eyed teenager because he's got a nice-looking lady waiting on him. Samson forfeited his strength, David forfeited his tranquility, Solomon forfeited his worship. You put a young good-looking woman in front of a man, and unless you've got a wise spiritual man who's in tune with the things of God, he can end up doing stupid things you can't predict. And it's clear from verse 20 that the woman's not innocent in this. In fact, verse 20 says, this is the way of an adulterous woman. So there are women who will lure a man to do the unpredictable things, and then she'll say, well, it's really not my fault. I mean, it was his fault. He really, he's the one that's the culprit. In all reality, God says, I'll hold both accountable for what they've done. Her immorality's as commonplace as eating a meal, and she doesn't think there's anything wrong with it, but the fact remains, it's a fool who's going to live life like this. A wise man's gonna be on guard. A wise man is going to keep his defenses up. A wise man is not going to get fooled. He's not going to get tripped up. A wise man is going to live his life in a way that pleases the Lord. He'll keep himself pure. He'll ask God to direct him. He'll get away from things that can perhaps harm him or do damage to him or pull him down. A wise person is a dependable person and keeps close monitoring of his own life and of his own mind and of his own heart because there is this unpredictable thing that can happen. Which brings us to the third never be reality. There will always be those who are not bearable. Verses 21 to 23. Now the contextual reason why you have the society becoming unbearable is because you have unqualified people in every one of these instances and positions they have no business being in. What you have here is you have people who are in situations that they shouldn't be in, they shake things up, they make things unbearable and miserable for everybody else because they can't deal with the power. They can't handle the position. Now there are four situations that are described here by Agur, and he says they're just unbearable. They just make a mess of things. It's like an earthquake. You put these things in society, and it just messes things up. The first one, it's unbearable when a servant reigns. Now this point is that if you take somebody who's unfit and unprepared to rule, and you place this person in a position of leadership, you will end up in total chaos in your society. George Lawson cites the example of Maximum, who lived in AD 286-305. He rose from peasant status to power because he had been a faithful military man, but that didn't mean that he was a person who should be controlling the political scene. He was a Roman emperor who was elevated from this lowly status to his position and ended up killing all those who knew him to be a servant. I mean he just, he couldn't handle the power. There are people like that. You give them promotion, they don't know what to do with it. Our son Adam right now is working as a kinda go-between between union and management and there's a manager that's at that plant that's just on some ego power craze trip. He doesn't know how to handle power. He shouldn't even have the position. He's become a real obnoxious thorn in the flesh to a whole bunch of people. And just a couple of weeks ago, there was a father who's a faithful worker, worked there for almost 30 years, never missed a day's work. He got his son a job, his son's faithful there. And this manager's power craze started cursing and saying some things to this son and yelling at him on the job. And the son said, well, I need to get this fixed before I can start this machine. We have to have an electrician look at it. This could be a dangerous situation. And the guy kept going on. And so finally, the father, who's seeing his son being belittled, walked over and said to the son, go get yourself a Coke in the break room. And he turned around, cold cocked the manager. Now this is a real problem now, and Adam's in the middle of it because this guy, you can be dismissed from your job, he's got all these years in there, so I don't know how it's even gonna end. But the fact is, you have somebody with power who shouldn't have power. And if you get somebody with power who shouldn't have power, they just cause problems. It's just a big chaotic mess. The second thing, it's unbearable when a fool is filled. You give a fool everything he wants, and he'll end up like one of the Hilton sisters. Have you heard today that there was this NBA basketball player who was played for 10, 15 years in the NBA, was esteemed, treated like a king. This guy had nothing going for him other than he can play basketball. He has been arrested because he's stolen and he has molested an 8-year-old girl. And they're wondering, how in the world can this happen? Well, it's because you take a fool and just give them everything they want. Give a fool anything that they want and let them have it and see what happens to them. They can't handle it. They don't know what to do with it. They don't even know how to use it. And they act just like what they are, a fool. A fool does not have the intellectual capacity to see beyond his own cravings. And it's not bearable. It causes problems. The third situation, it's unbearable for a hateful woman to be married. Now this word, unloved woman, speaks of a woman who has a bad temper. It's a woman who's not a loving woman. It's a woman who is the kind of woman who is a mean woman. This woman, you get her married and you got a mess of a home. There's no sweetness in the home. There's no kindness in the home. You don't have a home that is a fun place for people to live. You don't have a home that's a place of tranquility. You have no sweetness in the home with this kind of woman. Dr. George Lawson said this proverb should warn every young man to be sure that you know the real temper of the woman you're intending to marry. And don't be ignorant of this fact. because if you get in with somebody that is uh... a mad type of woman you'll you marry her just gonna make a mess is going to be a big mess for the rest of your life And the fourth situation, it's unbearable for a maid to reign. Again, verse 23, and a maid servant when she supplants a mistress. For a lowly maid who doesn't have the ability or the wherewithal to rule and reign is crazy because she doesn't know how to use the power. It's the same principle you saw earlier. Dr. Sid Bezell, in analyzing these four situations, said, harmony in society is encouraged when people maintain their proper roles and do not assume positions they're incapable of handling. Now the mark of wisdom is for a person to say, this is what I know and this is what I can do. The mark of wisdom is for a person to say, this is what God has given me. These are the talents and abilities and the skills that the Lord has given me and I want to use my talents and abilities and skills in the best way I can for Him. The mark of a fool is to get out of your element. to proudly and arrogantly put yourself in a position that you know you can't handle. I think this is exactly why Paul was very careful to point out that you do not take a novice and put this kind of person into a position of leadership in a church, because if you do, you're gonna end up wrecking havoc on that church, and I know of a case where that actually happened. Some guy came to faith in Christ, good guy, seemed to love the Lord, and they thrust him right into a position of leadership. Well, naturally, he's going to think, I must be something special, because I got to be a leader real quick, and I didn't have to prove myself. And so then he started coming up with ideas, and some of his ideas weren't biblical. And as a result of that, now you've got a kind of a war in your hands, because you've got a leader, and you've got unbiblical ideas, and this church became a nightmarish situation. And so what Agur is saying is the wise society recognizes people's capabilities, and they recognize what people are able to do, what they're able to handle, and they work accordingly so that people function in the proper roles that they've been given by God to function. Now there will always be things in the world that are harmful. There will always be things in the world that will never be. What we want to do is we want to be people who recognize these things and keep a tension in our own life to be people who are satisfied, people who are predictable and dependable, and people who are bearable. That's the mark of wisdom. It's the mark of a fool to be a leech, it's the mark of a fool to be non-dependable or unpredictable, and it's the mark of a fool to be unbearable in society. We want to be bearable, bearing with one another and caring for each other. That's what we see here in this text of Proverbs. Any questions or comments about it?