The Sweet Poison of Flattery and the Bitter Medicine of Truth Text: Proverbs 28:23
Introduction: An Age Addicted to Sugar
We live in an age that is diabetic. I am not speaking of a physical ailment, though that is prevalent enough, but of a spiritual condition. Our culture, and tragically, much of the church, is addicted to sugar. We crave the sweet, the affirming, the validating, the encouraging, and we have come to believe that anything that tastes bitter must therefore be poison. We have convinced ourselves that love is a soft pillow, and not, as it often must be, a sharp scalpel. We want a God who is a celestial therapist, nodding along with our chosen narrative, and not the Holy One of Israel who loves His children enough to correct them.
This addiction to sweet words has created an entire economy of flattery. It is the currency of social media, the language of political maneuvering, and the lubricant of corporate advancement. In the church, it manifests as a crippling fear of man, a desperate desire to be seen as nice above all else. We have traded the biblical virtue of kindness for the worldly counterfeit of niceness. A nice man will never tell you that your fly is down, because it might create an awkward moment. A kind man will, because he does not want you to walk around all day in embarrassment. Niceness is about protecting feelings, especially one's own. Kindness is about pursuing the good of the other, even at the cost of temporary discomfort.
Into this saccharine swamp, the book of Proverbs drops a dose of hard, bracing, medicinal truth. It tells us that the very thing we crave, flattery, is a trap, and the very thing we avoid, rebuke, is the path to genuine favor. This is utterly counter-intuitive to the modern mind, which is precisely why we need to hear it. The world tells you to surround yourself with people who will affirm your choices, no matter how foolish. The Word of God tells you to find friends who love you enough to tell you when you are being a fool. One path leads to temporary comfort and ultimate ruin. The other leads to temporary pain and ultimate health, wisdom, and favor.
The Text
He who reproves a man will afterward find more favor
Than he who flatters with the tongue.
(Proverbs 28:23 LSB)
The Anatomy of Two Tongues
This proverb sets up a stark contrast between two kinds of speech, two kinds of friends, and two ultimate outcomes. It is a spiritual diagnostic tool. If you want to know the health of your soul, examine which of these two voices you prefer to have in your life. And if you want to know the quality of your love for others, examine which of these two tongues you more frequently employ.
"He who reproves a man..." (Proverbs 28:23a)
Let us begin with the reprover. The word for "reprove" or "rebuke" here carries the idea of bringing something to the light, of exposing, of convicting. It is not the speech of a cantankerous man who simply enjoys being critical. That is just a different kind of carnality. This is the speech of a true friend, a faithful brother. As another proverb puts it, "Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful" (Proverbs 27:6). A true friend is willing to wound you in the short term in order to bring about your long-term healing.
This kind of speech is fundamentally an act of faith. It requires faith that God's standards are real and that violating them is genuinely harmful. It requires faith that the person you are speaking to is capable of repentance and change. And it requires faith that your relationship can withstand the temporary strain of the truth. It is an act of love because it treats the other person as an image-bearer of God, someone whose holiness matters. To watch a brother walk toward a cliff and say nothing, for fear of offending him, is not love. It is a damnable cowardice masquerading as love.
The apostle Paul commands Titus to do this very thing: "Rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith" (Titus 1:13). The goal of rebuke is not to win an argument or to establish dominance; the goal is soundness. It is spiritual health. It is like a surgeon cutting out a tumor. The process is painful, but the alternative is death.
The Sweet Poison
Now consider the alternative.
"...Than he who flatters with the tongue." (Proverbs 28:23b)
The flatterer is one of the most dangerous characters in all of Scripture. He is a man who uses words not to communicate truth, but to manipulate. His tongue is not a tool for edification, but a net. "A man who flatters his neighbor spreads a net for his feet" (Proverbs 29:5). Flattery is the art of telling a man what he wants to hear about himself in order to get something from him. It is weaponized praise.
At its root, flattery is a form of lying. It is dishonest. It paints a false picture of reality. It tells the proud man that his arrogance is confidence. It tells the lazy man that his sloth is a well-deserved rest. It tells the adulterous woman that her desires are authentic and she is brave for following her heart. Flattery is the native language of the serpent in the garden. "Did God really say...? You will not surely die. You will be like God." That was the first and most destructive act of flattery in human history, and we have been falling for it ever since.
The flatterer is a profound atheist in practice. He does not fear God; he fears man. He values the temporary approval of the person in front of him more than the eternal approval of the God above him. He is a pragmatist in the worst sense, willing to sacrifice truth on the altar of social expediency. And in doing so, he not only harms the one he flatters by confirming him in his sin, but he also corrupts his own soul. He becomes a man whose words have no weight, whose praise means nothing, because it is not tethered to reality.
The Surprising Reversal
The central lesson of the proverb is found in the outcome. Our intuition, corrupted by the fall and reinforced by our culture, gets it exactly backwards. We think the flatterer will be popular and the rebuker will be ostracized.
"...will afterward find more favor..." (Proverbs 28:23)
Notice the crucial word: "afterward." In the moment, rebuke stings. No one enjoys being corrected. "For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it" (Hebrews 12:11). The initial reaction might be defensiveness, anger, or hurt. But afterward, when the truth has had time to settle, when the sin has been dealt with, when the disaster has been averted, the wise man will be grateful. He will realize that the one who told him the hard truth was his truest friend.
David, a man who knew both the sting of rebuke and the grace of repentance, understood this principle well. He prayed, "Let a righteous man strike me; it is a kindness; let him rebuke me; it is oil for my head; let my head not refuse it" (Psalm 141:5). He saw rebuke not as an attack, but as a kindness, an anointing.
Conversely, the favor won by the flatterer is fleeting. It is a house built on the sand of insincerity. Eventually, the truth comes out. The foolish decision bears its bitter fruit. The secret sin is exposed. And in that moment, the man who was flattered will look back and realize that the one who praised his folly was no friend at all. The sweet words will turn to ash in his mouth. The temporary favor evaporates, often replaced by contempt.
The Gospel Rebuke and the Ultimate Favor
Like everything in Proverbs, this principle finds its ultimate fulfillment in the gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel is, in the first instance, a profound and universal rebuke. It is the voice of God looking upon all of humanity and saying, "You are a sinner. You have fallen short of My glory. Your righteousness is as filthy rags. The wages of your sin is death."
This is not a flattering message. It is the most offensive truth in the world. It wounds our pride. It exposes our self-righteousness. It convicts us to the core. The world wants a flattering gospel, a message of affirmation that says, "You are good enough. Just do your best." But that is a lie from the pit of Hell, and it saves no one.
The true gospel comes with the sharp rebuke of the law, showing us our desperate need for a savior. It is only after this rebuke has done its work, only after we have been humbled and brought to the end of ourselves, that we can hear the sweet words of grace. It is only after the wound that we can appreciate the healing.
And what is the result? "Afterward." After the conviction comes the repentance. After the repentance comes the faith. And after the faith comes the favor. Not the fleeting favor of men, but the everlasting favor of Almighty God. "Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (Romans 5:1). We find more favor than we could ever have imagined, adopted as sons, declared righteous, and seated with Christ in the heavenly places.
This is the pattern for our lives as Christians. We are to be a people of truth. We must learn to receive rebuke with humility, seeing it as God's kindness to us. And we must learn to give rebuke in love, seeing it as our covenant duty to our brothers and sisters. We must reject the sweet poison of flattery, both in what we listen to and in what we say. Let us be those who are willing to speak the truth, even when it hurts, trusting that afterward, it will yield the peaceful fruit of righteousness and the deep, abiding favor that comes from God alone.