Proverbial Wisdom: Guarding Our Steps

 Read Proverbs 7

For the third time, Solomon calls us back to the Word of God, because keeping God’s commandments is a matter of life and death.  The adulteress lives on a dead-end street:  “Her house is the way to hell, descending to the chambers of death.” (vs 27)

We must bury it in our hearts that the penalty of sin is death.  As Christian’s, we know Christ took away that penalty by His death on the cross.  However, again, as stated, there are still consequences to sin.  When we willfully sin we are still rebelling from God and while we have the forgiveness of our sin as to not enter eternal separation from our God we can still suffer the consequences of our decisions and the chastisement of our loving Father.  A lot of times, these consequences lead to heartbreak and the destruction of relationships.  We do not take the obeying of God’s Word as serious as we should in our lives.  My dear friends, it truly is a life or death situation.  If we as Christians took that seriously, just imagine the change we could see in our world!  We should not live it in a legalistic way like the Pharisees but we should live it in the way of love like Christ said.  We understand we are not perfect, that we are going to fail and fall, but we are going to try our best at all times to follow His commandments because we love Him.  Remember Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” (John 14:15)

Look at verse 2.  We protect our eyes because they’re valuable to us, and so should honor and protect God’s Word by obeying it.  It becomes that precious apple in our sight.  Sexual sin often beings with undisciplined eyes and hands (look at the ease of access to pornography and look at the oversexualization we see in media), but the heart of the problem when it comes to sexual is is that it is a heart problem.  We think that ultimately it will fulfill something that we have in our heart.  Feelings of acceptance, feelings of love, or just feelings of affirmation.  However, if we love God’s wisdom and we love those in our family, we don’t ever want to open up our hearts to the harlot.

In verses 6-9, we get the impression that this young man was either terribly stupid or very proud, convinced that he could play with sin and get away with it.  But he was ultimately just tempting himself and heading into trouble.  Don’t we convince ourselves of the same.  No matter what the sin is, we try to convince ourselves that it is not a major deal and not everyone will find out.  We try to even convince ourselves at times that the sin is a good thing and will not ultimately hurt anyone, but again, all sin hurts God and it will definitely hurt others, including yourself.

Look at what the young man was doing and let’s relate it to how we handle sin in our lives as well.  He was out at night walking in “the black and dark night”  and he was deliberately walking near the place of temptation and danger!  He wasn’t heeding the wise counsel as was given us in chapter 5 that we should “Remove your way from her, and do not go near the door of her house.”  Again, this young man, as with many of us, was not allowing God’s Word to guide our steps so therefore, our feet bring us right to the doorstep of temptation.  How many times do we know we shouldn’t be around certain people or certain situations because we know we will probably sin if we go near them.  If you struggle with the sin of alcoholism, should you really be spending time in bars even if you tell yourself, “Oh, I won’t drink, I’m just there to talk with my friends?”  Again, that’s leading yourself to a trap!  If you struggle with the sin of gossip, don’t surround yourself around others who gossip.  I can go on and on about the many ways we can enter ourselves into places where we can intentionally fail.  If you struggle with sexual sin, don’t hang around those persons that can tempt you into it and pray to God that He helps you in those relationships.  If you struggle with pornography, set up parental controls on your internet browser, on your tv, etc.  Do what you need to do to protect your heart!  If we obey God, we have amazing promises from Him.  I promise you, if you walk in obedience to God, amazing things will happen in your life and the burden of your hearts will roll away.

As we read further on in verses 10-20 we see the woman is likened unto a deadly spider in a web just ready to pounce on her prey.  This is sin in our lives.  Later on, God’s Word will tell us that Satan is like a roaring lion seeking to see who he may devour.  Again, sin is all about destruction and only wants to see the Christian destroyed.  While Satan has no claim to us because of the blood of the Lamb, Satan can aid in the destruction of other things in our life like our testimony and our relationships.  We must consistently be on guard and heed God’s Word to not let ourselves enter into temptation.

She appealed to the young man’s ego, much like sin will appeal to us.  She flattered him, making him think that he was special to her.  She appealed to his imagination as she described her beautiful bed and the expensive spices that perfumed it.  Sin will entice us. Sin will entice our imaginations and make us feel like we can live out our own fantasies, but that in and of itself is a fantasy.  The temptation of sin is so dangerous and will attack us on every level just to get us to sin.

In verses 21-27, I see a reminder that when we pray, “do not lead us into temptation” as instructed to in the Lord’s prayer, we know that God doesn’t tempt us (James 1:13-16), yet we may tempt ourselves, tempt others, and even tempt God!  We tempt God when we deliberately disobey Him and put ourselves into situations so difficult that only God can deliver us.  It’s as though we are daring Him to do something.

Let’s look at 22-27 closer.  By going to her house, her table, and her bed, the young man willfully disobeyed God’s law, but the Lord didn’t intervene.  He allowed the youth to indulge his sexual appetites and suffer the consequences.  God could have stopped him, but He didn’t, because the Word says, “You shall not tempt the Lord your God.”  Also, God did not stop him because the only way that this young man would realize the sin in his life and to turn back to God was to face the consequences of such sin.  Sometimes, we are so stubborn hearted that the only way for us to realize our sinfulness if for God to allow that destruction to come into our life so we will learn our lesson.  

Today, society not only smiles at sexual sin, it actually approves and encourages it.  Perversions, the very mention of which would have shocked people fifty years ago, are openly discussed these days and are even made the subject of novels, movies, and TV dramas.  What Paul saw in his day and described in Romans 1 is now apparent in our own day but people it if we call these practices, “sin.”  After all, “everybody’s doing it.”  Unfortunately people calling themselves believers haven’t contradicted that statement with their lives often enough.  Ashamedly, I have not spoken out against it as much as I should.  Now, I want to bring up something here on why I think a lot of times that this subject is not brought up.  The world would like for us to think that if we speak out against sexually immoral acts that we are full of hate against those that partake of it.  Absolutely not!  I’m a sinner just like that person and I know what sin has done in my life.  If I speak out about it, it’s the opposite.  It’s not hate, but it’s out of love.  I care for that person and do not want to see them get entangled in the trap of sexual sin because again as we have just read and studied, it will destroy.

We are not innocent.  We must remember that all sin is equal in the eyes of God and is just as horrible as the next.  We must remember though that the consequences to certain sins can be more devastating than others.  Sexual sin is one of those sins.  It attacks us on all levels.  Physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.  We can’t just forget those times in our lives because we pour more of ourselves out onto it.  If we speak out against any sexually immoral acts, it’s not because we have a pompous, self righteous attitude.  If we speak out, it should be because we care for one another and don’t want to see the destructive results that can happen to our brothers and sisters.  

Sexual sin is such a danger.  One in which we must run away from, and one from which we need to be in constant prayer for the Lord to help us.