Proverbs 13:7, Be What You Seem!

June 30, Proverbs 13:7

Luke 18:10-14; 1 Cor. 4:7-10; Rev. 3:17 “What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ” (Phil. 3:7).

Be What You Seem!

There are two valid ways of understanding this proverb. It may be interpreted either literally or as having a spiritual application. What is true poverty or riches is not always evident to the eye. Augustine said, “Earthly riches are full of poverty.” Old William Secker put it thus, “While riches are they are not!”

1. The Pretense of Folly: Those who take this proverb literally say it refers to a pretense. One is pretending to be rich when he is poor, and the other is pretending to be poor when he is rich. The first may do so out of vanity or to promote some fraud or swindle. He is a pauper dressed as a prince. He pretends to have capital in order to borrow real capital at the expense of innocent investors. The second is the one who pretends to be poor when he is actually rich. This one wants to deceive because he is a wretched miser. In how many miserable hovels, after the death of the destitute occupants, have there been found large sums of money in paper bags in the amidst of the squalor. Both men are, of course, dishonest, and both contemptible. They are not what they seem, and both of these pretenders abound in our world today. Riches are to be estimated by their use more than by their possession. Both types have forgotten or disregarded two things.

2. The Providence of God: When man ignores God, he thinks he is answerable to no one. He forgets his absolute dependence on God. God’s gift of life is divorced from the Giver. Thus man forgets that life can only be sustained by God’s Providence (Acts 17:28; Col. 1:16-17). He forgets that every good and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights….Of his own will begat he us…, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures (Jas. 1:17-18). Man’s very life depends on his union with his Creator. In a world without God, morals and accountability go out the window. We’ve seen the tragic evidence of this in our schools, homes, and law-courts. How foolish for the earthen vessel to boast of the treasure deposited within it! “Let not the rich man glory in his riches” (Jer. 9:23), for all that man possesses he has as a gift from God.

3. The Power of Sin: Sin is the one thing that is our own, and how it has marred the whole human family! It separates from God (Isa. 59:2), and shall separate at last from Heaven (Matt. 25:32). We are all debtors to God. “What we ought is what we owe. We all owe an obedience which none of us has rendered” (Maclaren). Environment or race cannot explain away social corruptions. Each one must take responsibility for his or her sin. We are all bankrupts living on borrowed capital. We must come to the place where we honestly say: “I did it. I am guilty.” We desperately need a deepened consciousness of the reality of sin, and of its damnableness in the sight of a Holy God. “We cannot too often or too earnestly ask God to make us honest with ourselves” (Wm. S. Plumer).

Thought: “The real value of a thing is the price it will bring in eternity” (Wesley).

Prayer: Lord, make me an agent of Thy giving and loving.