MAIN HOMILETICS OF Proverbs 13:22
AS INHERITANCE INCORRUPTIBLE
I. A good man has always spiritual inheritance to leave his children. He has always his own holy character and example. And this is often of great service to them in a material point of view. Men who have obtained fame in the world leave their children the inheritance of a famous name, which is often a fortune in itself. The son or daughter of a famous man can command positions of worldly advantage which are closed against the children of obscure parents. But while a famous father can leave his fame as an inheritance to his children he cannot ensure to them the possession of the genius by which he gained it. Talent is not hereditary, and it often happens that a very gifted father has very common-place children. But moral worth—a godly character—is an inheritance that not only makes a son respected in the world for his father’s sake, but is very likely to make him also a partaker of the same godliness. A good man’s character is not hereditary, but it is very apt to propagate other characters of the same kind. This inheritance of a good man is an incorruptible inheritance. No inheritance of lands or money are entirely out of reach of the changes and chances of human life, but the example, and the memory, and the blessings which have come from a godly parentage, make an inheritance which, like the heavenly one, “fadeth not away.” It is the best possible safeguard that a father can leave his children against the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil. The remembrance of what belief in the Gospel did for a holy father has saved many a son from drifting on the quicksands of infidelity. There have been times in the history of many a child of godly parents, when such an anchor has been the only one which has held them from “making shipwreck of faith” (1 Timothy 1:19). The character of a good man is such an indisputable fact, and is so entirely unexplainable on any other ground than that of the existence of a supernatural and Divine power, that it constitutes an unanswerable argument for the truth of revelation. And so with every other form of evil that assails men. The inheritance which Christ has left to his disciples—to His spiritual children—is His character. This has produced and reproduced its own kind through all the ages since His sojourn upon earth. This has held them to the faith in the dark days of persecution. And when the infidel himself has come face to face with it, even he has been compelled to acknowledge the intrinsic worth of the children’s portion. This holy life, lived among sinful men, has been the “unsearchable riches” (Ephesians 3:8) of one Christian generation after another, for more than eighteen centuries, and it is by virtue of this inheritance that good men have been enabled to transmit to their posterity their own godly lives and examples.
II. A good man may have a material as well as a moral inheritance to bequeath. He may possess both character and substance. But the fact that a man is good is no guarantee that he will have any worldly wealth to leave behind him. If Lord Bacon’s assertion be correct, that “Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament, and adversity the blessing of the New,” he is quite as likely to die poor as rich. Still there is often a blessing of some amount of material riches given to honest labour, and probably there are far more godly men in proportion to their number, who acquire some inheritance to leave behind them, than there are godless men (See on Proverbs 13:11, etc.)
III. Good men sometimes inherit wealth which has been gathered by bad men. It is not a universal rule, but it may be oftener fulfilled than we are aware of. It may be inherited by generations of wicked men and at last come into the hands of a just one. That it should be so is seen to be a wise and good law of providence.
1. Because a good man will make a far better use of “the mammon of unrighteousness.” He will use it to minister to both the bodily and spiritual needs of his fellow-creatures as well as his own.
2. Because the laid-up wealth of the wicked has often been obtained by defrauding the good. God does not always cause it to be repaid to the identical persons who were thus defrauded, but He may often cause it to be restored to identical characters. This proverb must be taken to assert the straightforward motion of the wheels of providence, although by reason of their “great height” (Ezekiel 1:18),—their vast circumference—they take a long time to go round.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
The usurer lightly begets blind children that cannot see to keep what their father left them. But when the father is gone to hell for gathering, the son often follows for scattering, But God is just.—T. Adams.
That the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just appears to have been a prominent feature of the Old Dispensation (chap. Proverbs 28:8; Job 27:16-17), and it will be openly renewed in the latter-day glory of the Church (Isaiah 61:6).—Bridges.
This is the direct promise of heaven (Psalms 103:17; Proverbs 22:6). That it ever fails, must be by palpable neglect. A man may be saved himself, and lose his children; but the Bible speaks of this as the parent’s fault (1 Samuel 3:13; Proverbs 13:24), and brands it as the great curse upon the earth (Malachi 4:6). While the sinner not only cannot send down his wealth, but cannot himself possess it. It is a curse to him. It will be used for the saints (Matthew 25:28).—Miller.
It is quite clear that in this and other passages an inheritance is regarded as a good, and that no blame is attached to “the good man” who leaves it to his children. The principle expressed in the latter clause is the same as that laid down by the apostle, “All things are yours,” and, among other things, “the world.” That may most truly be called mine, from which I derive the greatest possible benefit it can be made to yield. It would be strange, indeed, were I to wish anything else, or anything more.… The wicked man calls his wealth his own. But it is God’s. God is the friend of His children, and holds that property, like everything else, for their good; so that it is theirs by being His.—Wardlaw.
Personal goodness profiteth for posterity. God gives not to His servants some small annuity for life only, as great men used to do, but “keepeth mercy for thousands” of generations “of them that fear Him.” The opposite is not perpetually and universally true of every wicked person, … but, together with their lands, they bequeath their children their sins and punishments, which is far worse than that legacy of leprosy that Joab left his issue (2 Samuel 3:29).—Trapp.
An expression of trust like that in Ecclesiastes 2:26, that in the long run the anomalies of the world are rendered even.—Plumptre.