Proverbs 3:28 Commentary and Bible Study

What an extraordinary attitude these words reveal! The neighbour has now come to you, and said could you help me with such and such a thing, and you have plenty of it right there in the cupboard, but there is something so much the matter with you, it is so hard for you to give, you are so resentful and so defiant and so surly that you say, ‘Come back tomorrow.’ You have it there, but you have got to make it difficult for him, you have got to make it hard for him. You are not going to give up anything easily. There are some people like that. It is in their nature. There is something the matter with them; they cannot come up with anything easily. And it is a picture of an attitude to God.You could quite well pray to him today, you could hear his word, you could obey him, you could yield your life to him; you have felt his touch perhaps, you have felt his drawing, you have felt that challenge upon your life, but you are going to put it off, and put it off, and put it off. It is like the surliness of the rotten neighbour, who cannot part with anything easily, and the unreasonableness is pictured here, absolute unreasonableness of the human attitude to God, when he is the ultimate good neighbour, he will give you everything, simply for your need, your crying out in prayer, and so there is the unreasonableness of human beings in the illustration.