outlines and suggestive comments.
One particular in which children show themselves wise or else foolish and so can gladden or else sadden their parents is by giving or withholding due honour. “A foolish man.” No age or state exempts children from honouring their parents. Grown young men are sometimes apt to look with some contempt on their mothers, because of the weakness of the feminine mind.—Fausset.
As for him that despiseth his mother—and who doth not so that despiseth her careful admonition?—he is not a son, the spirit of God doth not here style him to be so: he is a foolish man. For how can he be otherwise, who knoweth his own mother so little as that he doth despise her?—Jermin.
main homiletics of verse 21.
Opposite Tastes.
I. Joy is a revealer of human character. A stone cast into a lake will reveal the nature of its bed. If there is mud at the bottom this simple test will reveal its existence by bringing it to the surface. So objects presented to the mind show what is hidden in the heart. The emotions produced by certain scenes or events are tests of character. What a man rejoices in reveals what he is. Some objects brought before the human mind excite the most opposite feelings in different men. That which gives pleasure to the one gives pain to the other, and when a man rejoices in that which is the outcome of human depravity it is a certain sign that he is himself deeply depraved. Like a stone cast into the water, it brings the hidden mud to the surface. The same evil thought lodged in the minds of two men, one of whom is a moral fool, and the other a “man of understanding,” will bring joy to the countenance of the first, and indignation to that of the latter, and thus it becomes a revealer of the state of each man’s heart, and he to whom “folly is joy” is thus declared to be “destitute of wisdom” in the real and highest signification of the word.
II. The joy of the moral fool turns him out of the way, and keeps him out of the way. This is implied in the antithesis, which should be “a man of understanding goes straight forward.” He has found a source of joy in “whatsoever things are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, and of good report” (Phil. iv. 8), and this joy holds him in the path which leads to them. We are largely governed by that which holds our affections, and love to that which is morally right, draws us into the path of righteousness—leads us to pursue a steady and undeviating line of conduct in obedience to the law of holiness, as revealed by God. But the joy which the ungodly man feels in sinful pursuits and habits draws him out of this good and true way, and allures him into a path where he meets with objects that call forth this unholy pleasure. Being governed by passion instead of by principle, his walk in life is unsteady and uncertain—destitute of fixed purpose. (On this subject see Homiletics on chap. [xiii. 14], page 313.) A vessel is held on her course by reason at the wheel, and wind in the sails. The wind impels her to go forward, but if the understanding at the compass did not hold the wind in subjection, there would be no safety for the vessel; nobody could say where she might be carried. Yet without the wind she could not be carried forward at all—the compass and the helm would be useless. So, although the “man of understanding” is a man of emotion—a man whose life is under the influence of that which gives him joy, he brings his emotions into subjection to the dictates of moral wisdom, and before he follows their leadings he makes sure that they are in harmony with that which is pure and holy. Then he may safely yield himself to their guidance, and be sure that they will impel him straightforward. Such a man is constrained by the delights which godliness yields to him to press on to higher attainments (2 Cor. v. 14; Phil. iii. 12, 13), while the man to whom “folly is joy” allows the pleasures of the world and the flesh to hold him from the right path, even against his conscience and his better judgment. Such a man can give no more convincing proof that he is destitute of wisdom.
outlines and suggestive comments.
This book of instruction proves our profession. What think we of folly? Not only does the ungodly practise it, but it is joy to him. . . . That which has turned this fair world into a sepulchre; nay, that which hath kindled “everlasting burnings,” is his joy.—Bridges.
Tastes differ wildly, and so, therefore, do enjoyments. Water is the element of one creature, and air the element of another. The same material is to this poison and to that food. Each species differs in nature from all others, and nature will have her own way. Among men, viewed in their spiritual relations, there is a similar variety of tastes and pleasures. There is first the grand generic difference between the old man and the new. . . . Besides the first and chief distinction between the dead and the living, many subordinate varieties appear, shading imperceptibly away into each other, according as good or evil preponderates in the character. Two persons of opposite spiritual tastes may be detected for once in the same act of evil; but they do not walk abreast in the same life-course. . . . Two young men, of nearly equal age, are both the sons of God-fearing parents, were seen to enter a theatre at a late hour in a large city. They sat together, and looked and listened with equal attention. The one was enjoying the spectacle and the mirth; the other was silently enduring an unspeakable wretchedness. The name of God and the hopes of the godly were employed there to season the otherwise vapid mirth of the hollow-hearted crowd. One youth, through the Saviour’s sovereign grace, had, in a distant solitude, acquired other tastes. The profanity of the play rasped rudely against them. He felt as if the words of the actor and the answering laugh of the spectators were tearing his flesh. He breathed freely when, with the retiring crowd, he reached the street again. It was his first experience of a theatre, and his last. It is a precious thing to get from the Lord, as Paul got a new relish and a new estimate of things. This appetite for other joy, if exercised and kept keen, goes far to save you from defilement, even when suddenly and occasionally brought into contact with evil; as certain kinds of leaves refuse to be wet, and though plunged into water come out of it dry.—Arnot.