Proverbs 23
Practice Self-Control!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Thursday, November 2.
Proverbs 23 provides warnings against overindulgence, which is when a person has too much of something enjoyable. When people think about overindulging, their minds usually go to one of two places: food or drink. Solomon covered both in today’s chapter, starting in Proverbs 23:1-3, “When you sit down to dine with a ruler, consider carefully what is before you, and put a knife to your throat if you are a man of great appetite. Do not desire his delicacies, for it is deceptive food.” [emphasis added] While there are two dangerous forces at play here, overindulgence and manipulation, there is one solution for both, practicing self-control. That is what the idiom, to “put a knife to your throat,” means; it is saying that if you are tempted to overindulge, you need to practice self-control, or else you will be easily deceived. Self-control is a sign of wisdom.
While overindulging in tasty food seems pleasurable in the moment, many of us can testify that it is not comfortable for long, often leaving us feeling physical discomfort and emotional regret. The same phenomenon happens when a person overindulges in fine wine, or any alcoholic beverage, especially when doing so in the company of friends, called social drinking. Everything is better with friends, right? Solomon, who has experimented with everything to experience happiness, teaches us the importance of self-control in Proverbs 23:20-21, “Do not be with heavy drinkers of wine, or with gluttonous eaters of meat; for the heavy drinker and the glutton will come to poverty, and drowsiness will clothe one with rags.” Regardless of whether you are talking about food or drink, the essential ingredient to the life of wisdom is self-control. For the Christian, self-control is a sign of the Holy Spirit at work in you (Galatians 5:22-23).
Seize the moment and apply the wisdom of Proverbs 23: practice self-control in all things, especially anything that threatens to master you (1 Corinthians 6:12-13). Don’t overindulge, “but be filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18).
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