Proverbs 31:30,31,  Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised. Give her of the fruit of her hands; and let her own works praise her in the gates.

The mother of King Lemuel has carefully instructed her son in the ways of a virtuous woman.

She has described her outward acts in behalf or her children, her husband and those in the community.

She has shown that the virtuous woman is an extending woman, a reaching woman, a stretching woman.

But in her description of this woman she has not touched on the physical appearance of a virtuous woman.

From this she wants her son to conclude that the virtue of the woman is to be primary and not her outward beauty.

Beauty is not to be compared to the qualities that she has mentioned.

She wants him to know that if he chooses a wife on the basis of beauty or outward appearance he shall love her no longer than while that beauty lasts.

But if he chooses her for her virtue his love can only grow as her beauty fades as it will!

Look for her faithfulness, her personal habits, her good management skills, her consideration of others, her conduct, her tenderness for the needs of those who are less fortunate.

Look at the fruit that proves the goodness of the tree.

Taste the waters of the fountain to judge the fountain.

Remember that the good woman out of the good treasure of the heart brings forth good things.

She tells her son that favor is deceitful, and beauty is vain.

What wisdom this is to those of the world who are motivated by the outward and refuse the wisdom of the word of God.

The world always concentrates on the outward but the word of God always concentrates on the inward.

The word of God concentrates on the heart.

That is the marketplace where God does business!

Proverbs 1:20,21,  Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets: She crieth in the chief place of concourse, (the marketplace) in the openings of the gates: in the city she uttereth her words,

Most of the people of the world refuse to go to God's market place but Lemuel’s mother takes her son there because only there he can find wisdom.

Lemuel, do not be enticed by the outward appearance and the outward charms of a woman.

Favor is deceitful.

Charm and grace and kindness and courtesy can be deceitful.

Charm and grace and kindness and courtesy can be manufactured or taught things and do not necessarily come from the heart.

Favor, that is, charm, grace, kindness and courtesy have been honed to a fine art in the lives of many women and men and are simply used to cover up a wicked and deceitful heart.

Lemuel dig deeper than charm.

Be careful not to be beguiled by grace and kindness and courtesy.

And be careful of placing beauty on a pedestal.

Beauty is only a surface endowment.

Beauty is outward and not to be given much importance.

Beauty is skin deep which on the eyelids is only .02 of an inch thick and on the palms and soles it thickens to .17 inches.

Be careful son and do not make these things that which is important to you in choosing a wife and mother for your children.

Do not praise outward beauty.

Do not praise charm and grace and kindness and courtesy unless they come from the woman that fears the LORD.

The woman that fears the LORD, she shall be praised, Lemuel!

That is the heart of her message to her son.

Praise virtues that are displayed by a woman whose foundation is built upon fear of Almighty God.

Praise a woman who lives her life knowing that she is accountable to the God who created her and gave her life to bear fruit for him.

Praise the woman who knows that God sees her and that He is the one in her life she must please.

Praise the woman who knows that when she pleases God she will be pleasing those whom God is pleased with.

Praise the woman who knows that fear of man is a snare but fear of God brings great benefit and great peace.

And if she receives not praise the fruit of her hands will cry out praise, for she is careful that all that she does with her hands are done to please God.

As this proverbs says:  Give her of the fruit of her hands; and let her own works praise her in the gates.

She does not covet praise from man because she does her best.

Her very works will satisfy her.

Her very works, done to the best of her ability, will praise her.

People who do excellently do not covet praise.

Praise is inherent in excellent work.

Want praise? do your best and your best will return sufficient praise in itself.

Let your works praise you!

Lemuel, this is the instruction of your mother, a mother who fears God and desires that you are burdened with that wisdom to know God's choice of a life partner for you.

That wisdom that will bring into your life a woman who fears the LORD!

Proverbs 31:31,  Give her of the fruit of her hands; and let her own works praise her in the gates.

When God created the heavens and the earth he took time to evaluate his creation.

When God saw the light that he had created he said that it was good.

When He saw the dry land Earth; and the waters called the Seas: He said that it was good.

He brought forth grass and the herb yielding seed and the tree yielding fruit and God again came to the conclusion that what he had done was good.

And when He placed the sun and the moon in the heavens he also looked at what he had done and pronounced them good.

And the great whales, and every living creature that moved, and every winged fowl after his kind: God saw that it was good.

And when he was done with the creation he turned to look at it all as a whole and he added the adjective very to good and pronounced it very good.

God was pleased by what he had done. God was praised by what he had done.

He received praise from his creation.

He did not just leave his creation but it took time to look at it closely and thoroughly and he came to the conclusion that all that he had done was very good.

I like this self-evaluation that God carried out on what he had accomplished for I believe it sets for us a pattern.

We are made in God’s image and what we do as God’s creation is to mirror our creator.

We are not creators but we are workers and God allows us to do work as we please.

In the last chapter of Proverbs which concerns itself with the virtuous woman there is a verse which I think follows the principle of praise that I want to talk about this morning for this verse says about this woman:

There was no one to praise God for the creation but we are told in Genesis that God himself received from the creation that it was good.

So God received from his works praise.

That is what is happening here with this Proverbs woman.

The wise woman does not do her best to receive the praise of men or women for she knows that doing her best will be praise enough.

Her very works will satisfy her.

Her very works, done to the best of her ability, will praise her.

People who do excellently do not covet praise for praise

is inherent in excellent work.

Want praise? do your best and your best will return sufficient praise in itself.

Let your works praise you as the virtuous woman’s works praise her in the gates!

Don’t you evaluate what you do in the classroom as you ready it for your students?

Don’t you, when finished, sit back and take it all in and receive praise if you’ve done your best.

Every occupation that you engage yourself in includes self evaluation and when the work is done excellently praise returns and says it is good.

There are not many praises of men in this life but the virtuous will always receive praise by the very works they do if it is their best.