MAIN HOMILETICS OF Proverbs 22:15
A FACT STATED AND A DUTY INFERRED
I. Human nature in its most attractive form contains latent depravity. The flower of the thistle is beautiful to look upon, and its downy seed is an apparently harmless object, and one worthy of admiration, as it rears its head among the corn. But how much power of mischief is wrapped up in that ball of soft down, if it is allowed to scatter its seed unchecked. A young lion is as pretty and harmless a creature as a kitten, but what ferocious instincts lie dormant there. A child is the most attractive and innocent of human creatures. As we look upon its guileless face we can hardly connect the idea of sin with its nature, and hardly believe it possible that the most depraved man or woman in the world was once as pure and stainless. But the Book of God tells us that even that young soul is tainted with the disease that infects all our race, and what the Book says is confirmed by the experience of all who have had anything to do with training children. The foolishness of self-will very soon shows itself, and the little one early gives proof that he or she is a true child of Adam by rebelling against the restraints with which it is lovingly surrounded, and desiring at all risks to eat forbidden fruit. In the fairest child-form now living upon the globe there may be hidden seeds which, when fully developed, will fill the world with terror and misery.
II. That this depraved tendency is deeply rooted in the child’s nature. It is “bound” in it or “fettered” to it by a cable of many strands, or a chain of heavy links—it is not a slight preference for the wrong which can easily be overruled—not a garment put on which the wearer can easily be persuaded to put off again, but a part of the very nature—a bent of all the faculties of the soul.
III. The disease is one which will yield to proper treatment. We do not suppose that Solomon’s words teach that any corrective rod will be potent enough to drive out all tendency to go wrong, inasmuch as experience and observation contradict it, but the same experience and observation confirm the truth that wise correction in youth is mighty in its moral power, and may so bring the child round to the love of the true and the good, that its own efforts will second the efforts of the parent, and it will itself turn upon the enemies within, being fully convinced that the self-will that is bound up in its own heart is the greatest folly to which it is liable. There are many who, looking back upon the wise and loving chastisement of a tender parent, can bear testimony to the truth of this proverb. On this subject see also on chap. Proverbs 13:24, page 334.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
The rod of correction is proper to drive away no other foolishness than that which is of a moral nature. But how comes wickedness to be so firmly bound, and strongly fixed, in the hearts of children, if it be not there naturally.—Jonathan Edwards.
Bound, or fettered.… Firmly knit, closely settled; well tied in; that is, fixed in the childish spirit; this is the sense of nearly all the commentators. Of course, there are great difficulties at once. The fact theologically is just the opposite. “Folly” is not fixed in the childish heart; but stronger and stronger in periods afterwards. Why not, pro vero, “bound?” In much the majority of texts it means simply “tied down,” or “fettered.” “Folly is fettered in the heart of a child”; that is, tied down, and, in many ways, repressed. This is literally the case. It is weak, and hemmed in, and easier to grapple with and drag out of the soul in youth than at any other period.—Miller.
Observe—it is foolishness, not childishness. That might belong to an unfallen child. No moral guilt attaches to the recollection—“When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child.” (1 Corinthians 13:11.) “A child is to be punished”—as Mr. Scott wisely observed—“not for being a a child, but for being a wicked child.” Comparative ignorance, the imperfect and gradual opening of the faculties, constitute the nature, not the sinfulness of the child. The holy “child increased in wisdom.” (Luke 2:52.) But foolishness is the mighty propensity to evil—imbibing wrong principles, forming bad habits, entering into an ungodly course. It means the very root and essence of sin in a fallen nature—the folly of being revolted from a God of love.—Bridges.