CRITICAL NOTES.—
Proverbs 11:27. Procureth, rather “seeketh” Favour, i.e., God’s favour. So it is generally understood. But Delitzsch reads “He who striveth after good, seeketh that which is pleasing, i.e., that which pleaseth or doeth good to others.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF Proverbs 11:27
DILIGENT SEEKERS
I. An object worthy of search.—“Good.” There is.
1. Material, temporal good. The human race need no exhortation to stimulate them to go in quest of this good. The child begins his search after this good as soon as he is conscious of need and finds himself in possession of power to seek it. And until old age these good things are sought without any admonition from God to lead a man to seek them.
2. But there is a higher good—the good which ministers to the spiritual nature and forms a holy character—the good of which Christ speaks when He says, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.” (Matthew 6:23). Men need to be exhorted to seek this good, and the Bible puts before them every kind of motive to stimulate men to the search—motives drawn from the happiness of a future heaven and a future hell, and from the present heaven or hell which will result from the search or from the neglect of this true good. Men are, as a rule, too much occupied with seeking the lower and the transitory good to seek that which is spiritual and eternal—that Supreme Personal Good—God Himself. God is the Good that the soul needs because He unites in Himself all that can minister to our better nature. The soul needs truth—and God is truth. The soul needs something above itself to worship, to love, to obey. There is nothing can supply this need but the living God.
II. How this good is to be sought. “Diligently.” The diligence will be in proportion to the desire. The word here translated diligently is the same as that translated “early” in chap. Proverbs 8:16. (See Homiletics on that passage).
III. The reward of diligent seekers after real good. “Favour.”
1. Of God. He loves to see men value that upon which He sets value, viz., their own spiritual and eternal gain.
2. Of good men always. Of bad men often. For the diligent seeking of this highest good does not make a man selfish—on the contrary, the more earnest he is in the search, the more will he lay himself out to serve his fellow-men. In this the contrast is marked between the diligent search after material and spiritual good. The sentiment of the verse is the same as that in chap. Proverbs 3:4 (see Homiletics on that verse).
IV. A most unworthy object of search. “Mischief.” Understanding this of evil in general which is most mischievous in its working and in its results, we remark—
1. That it requires no great diligence to work moral mischief towards a man’s self. To abstain from seeking good is to seek and to find mischief. To “neglect salvation” (Hebrews 2:3) is enough to ruin.
2. That the man who plots to work mischief to another often sets the seekers after good an example of diligence. How much of planning—what an expenditure of thought and activity is often put forth to ruin another!
3. That the man who seeks mischief is certain to find it. It will not wait even to be found—it will “come” to meet him. But there may and will be some amount of disappointment. If he seeks his own ruin he will certainly succeed, but if he seeks to do another a mischief, he may miscarry, but the intention will be fulfilled in himself. Whether he succeeds in harming another man or not, it is a law of moral gravitation that “His mischief shall return upon his own head and his violent dealing shall come down upon his own pate” (Psalms 7:16).
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
There is no negative existence. Man is born for action. All of us are living with a stupendous measure of vital activity for good or for mischief. Man was never intended—least of all the Christian—to be idle. Our Divine Master “went about doing good.” He is a counterfeit who does not live after this pattern. Usefulness is everything. We must not rest in life received, nor must we wait to have it brought to us. We must seek it.—Bridges.
From the last proverbs it has appeared that going after our own selfish gain, is really going after evil. Joy is innocent in itself; and yet, gone after absorbingly, it is an evil end. “Whosoever shall seek to save his life, shall lose it” (Luke 17:33) Solomon, therefore utters a most philosophic truth when he says “He that diligently seeketh good,” etc., that is, who forgets himself, and is early (for that is the original sense) after what is intrinsically right and holy, that man is really the person who is seeking or hunting up favour; that is, if he could really gain it by hunting it up directly, and for his selfish good, he could not gain it more directly than by forgetting it, and striving for what is pure. (See Matthew 6:33). Then follows the antithesis. He that seeks mischief, etc., as one is conscious that he does when he turns his heart selfishly even after innocent joys. He goes after that which may in itself be innocent, like money, or like the support of life; in a way that to his own conscience makes it confessedly evil, shall have it “come to him” at the end of his course, infallibly as evil.—Miller.