THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION

Proverbs: Topical Applications of Proverbs

II. Motivational Commands, Proverbs 1:8-9:18

A. Things To Avoid

2. Avoiding Divisiveness

(Proverbs 6:12-19)

Introduction: (To show the need . . . )

Divisiveness has greatly affected our society, producing a lot of trouble for many people:

(1) The legacy media has been divisive: “The Washington Post . . . won Pulitzer Prizes for . . . the fictional claim that Trump had colluded with Putin to overturn democracy . . . (T)he Post has been one of the leading culprits in . . . giving legitimacy to the Brett Kavanaugh group rape accusations, delegitimizing the Hunter Biden laptop story, spreading the Gaza ‘genocide’ lie, covering up Joe Biden’s cognitive decline . . . and . . . others.’” (David Harsanyi, “Don’t cry for The Washington Post; it helped destroy media,” Republican-American, February 9, 2026, p. A6)

(2) Divisiveness taints our federal government: “‘(A)ll but one House Democrat voted against a bill that would require documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote and a photo ID . . . Why would the ‘Party of the People’ be” against “a proposal overwhelmingly supported by . . . black people, brown people, white people, male and female people, even people who identify as Democrats?’” (“Quotable,” Ibid., citing M. D. Kittle, “White Liberals Think Black Voters, Married Women Are Too Stupid To Get Voter ID,” The Federalist, Feb. 12)

(3) Divisiveness sullies our state government: Addressing “the General Assembly” recently, Gov. Ned Lamont “said: ‘ICE, everywhere you go uninvited, violence follows. Go home. We’re keeping Connecticut safe without you.’ Democratic legislators stood up, whooped, and cheered. But . . . as” he “spoke, . . . blocks away . . . at the federal courthouse . . . an illegal alien was sentenced to 22 months in federal prison” for “illegally re-entering the United States . . . (He) already had served four years . . . on state drug, weapons, and forgery charges . . . In 2023 a state warrant charged him with breach of peace and threatening but he remained at large until . . . federal” officials arrested “him. State government did not keep Connecticut safe against this guy and hasn’t kept” it “safe against many others.” (Chris Powell, “Lamont thrills Democrats with nullification rhetoric,” op. cit., February 11, 2026, p. A6)

(4) Marxists have tried to create division in society against Biblical Christians: “For example, people who hold to biblical truth about sexuality are called homophobic. They” are said to “have an unreasonable fear or phobia . . . If you understand . . . Islam . . . that it is an anti-Christ religion seeking to persecute Christians and Jews, and that it has a goal to create a global caliphate, and then you speak against Islam, you” are said by Marxists to be “Islamophobic. Again, you have an unreasonable fear . . . The ‘phobic’ terminologies are used . . . to shame, embarrass, and silence those who speak truth.” (Brannon S. Howse, Marxianity, 2018, p. 9-10) The goal of Marxists is to make “Christianity . . . effectively demonized as the source of all suffering and oppression” and to “hide Marxist ideologies under masking terms that are given credibility through the use of twisted scriptures as well as revisionist history and the elimination of truth, reason, logic, and context.” (Howse, op. cit., back cover)

Need: So we ask, “If divisiveness affects us and our society, how does God want us to respond to it, and why?”

I. Since Proverbs 1:8-9:18 provides motivational commands to get readers to align with God’s “wisdom,” His hokmah, or fixed eternal moral order for success and blessing, Proverbs 6:12-19 reveals what we need to know and to do about divisiveness that is contrary to God’s hokmah.

II. Proverbs 6:12-14 describes people who create divisions as follows (Bible Know. Com., O. T., p. 916):

A. Divisive people go about with literally “crookedness of mouth” (‘iqqshut peh, B. D. B., A Heb. and Eng. Lex. of the O. T., p. 786), with deceptive words from a perverted inner man, Proverbs 6:12; cf. Titus 3:10-11 NIV.

B. “By sinister body language the scoundrel’s actions contradict what he says. By winking . . . and gesturing . . . he signals certain messages to his fellow conspirators . . . from a deceitful heart so that” his victims “are not aware of his intentions until it is too late.” (Proverbs 6:13-14; Bible Know. Com., O. T., op. cit., p. 917)

III. Proverbs 6:16-19a then lists the activities of divisive people, activities that God abhors (Ibid.): Divisive people are arrogant, they lie with their words in order to mislead others, they harm innocent people as a way of life, they devise wicked schemes, they are quick to rush to do what is evil and they pour out lies to those they seek to influence.

IV. Solomon thus urged his son to avoid being divisive due to the tragic end of all who foment divisiveness in Proverbs 6:15, and he urged his son to avoid God’s hatred of such activity in Proverbs 6:19 (Ibid.):

A. Divisive people will eventually be overwhelmed by sudden disaster, Proverbs 6:15.

B. Divisiveness also incurs God’s greatest wrath, a major reason to avoid practicing it, Proverbs 6:19b:

1. The numerical proverb format in Proverbs 6:16-19 involves a statement on item x followed by a statement on item x+1 that stresses the x+1 item “as the culmination or product of its preceding item,” Ibid.

2. There are seven stated items in Proverbs 6:16-19 that appear in the numerical formula format, the seventh item being what God hates the most, which item is about one who stirs up division among brothers.

3. Thus, divisiveness among brothers in the list of the seven evils named in Proverbs 6:16-19 incurs God’s greatest wrath, so Solomon’s son is warned by the literary formula used most to avoid practicing it!

Lesson: People who cause division among others are perverted in their speech because they are perverted in heart. They are arrogant, they intentionally lie to mislead others, they harm the innocent, they devise evil schemes, they are quick to do evil and they pour out lies on those they try to mislead. Their divisive efforts are greatly despised by God, so such people will come to a sudden, disastrous end. Thus, we must avoid practicing wicked divisiveness.

Application: (1) May we trust in Christ Who died as our Atoning Sacrifice for sin that we might receive God's gift of eternal life, John 3:16; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11. (2) May we avoid becoming perverted in the inner man lest we become divisive toward others, knowing that God despises such evil, and that those who practice it will come to a sudden, disastrous end.

Conclusion: (To illustrate the message and/or provide additional guidance . . .)

(1) One of the best tests to discern if a party is trying to influence us into a divisive stance is to examine whether the party’s claim is consistently true. For example, when Jesus was charged with casting demons out by Satan’s power in Matthew 12:24, He refuted the charge by noting that were He to cast Satan’s demons out by Satan’s power, then Satan’s kingdom would not be able to stand opposite what everyone could discern was reality, Matthew 12:25-26. We thus apply this test to the issues of concern in our introduction to expose the error in each case:

(a) The Washington Post’s initial efforts to claim that President Trump was joining Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin to overthrow democracy, that Brett Kavanaugh was guilty of rape, that the story about Hunter Biden’s laptop was erroneous, that Israel was committing genocide in the Gaza War and that President Biden was not suffering cognitive decline have all been shown in time to be erroneous. The Post has thereby discredited itself!

(b) The vote by Democrats in the House to go against the wishes of the vast majority of all classes of Americans as to voter identification requirements reveals the error of their ways. When “black people, brown people, white people, male and female people, even people who identify as Democrats” (op. cit., Kittle) “overwhelmingly” support voter identification at the polls, those members of Congress who voted against voter ID have shown themselves not truly to represent their constituents, but to favor pushing an agenda that opposes the peoples’ wishes!

(c) The claim by the Connecticut governor to the loud support of the Connecticut General Assembly that the state did not need ICE officers while at the same time a seriously criminal illegal alien was being booked in the federal courthouse a few blocks away, what kind of case has occurred many times in the state, such elected officials undermine their claim that they don’t need ICE agents regardless how loudly they claim to the contrary!

(d) The Romans 1:24-27 stand against sexual perversion shows Marxism’s claim that Christians are homophobic for holding to it errs. Also, Marxist claims that Christians are Islamophobic for saying Muslims aim to kill them is refuted by Ibn Ishaq (Traditions of Muhammad) in The Life of Muhammad: A Trans. of Ibn Ishaq’s Sirat Rasul Allah, A. Guillaume, trans., 1955, p. 552-553 as cited by Robert Spencer, The Truth About Muhammad, 2006, p. 158). Ibn Ishaq wrote that Muhammad said, “‘I have been commanded to fight against people, till they testify to the fact that there is no god but Allah, and believe in me (that) I am the messenger . . . and in all that I have brought.’”

(2) Since the characteristic that so notably marks a divisive person is “crookedness” of mouth that arises out of a morally perverted heart, and since divisiveness pervades our culture, the best response we can have to divisiveness is to focus on the truth! To that end, in 1 John 2:14b ESV, John wrote, “I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one.” Though Satan is more intelligent and powerful than we are, and though he is the god of this world (2 Corinthians 4:4) who controls the whole lost world system (1 John 5:19 ESV), we believers can overcome even Satan and all the deception he foments in the world through our constant exposure to God’s inspired written Word. (2 Timothy 3:15-17) We need to stay in Scripture!

May we trust in Christ Who died as our Atoning Sacrifice for sin that we might receive God’s gift of eternal life. May we avoid becoming perverted in the inner man lest we become divisive of others, knowing that God despises that evil, and that those who practice it will come to a sudden, disastrous end.