PROFITING FROM PROVERBS

“Discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee” (Proverbs 2:11 KJV).

When godly knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul, as we see in verse 10 . . .

“Discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee” (Proverbs 2:11 KJV).

“Discretion shall preserve thee,” what does it mean to have discretion? That is the power of discernment. It’s to separate things that are different. The red light means stop, the green light means go. That is discernment, that is discretion. There used to be bumper stickers that said, “I will not support any store that sells liquor.” Good luck finding any grocery store . . . or gas station . . . that doesn’t sell liquor or support the gambling industry. It’s getting harder and harder to find good, wholesome family businesses anymore, “I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators: Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world. But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat” (I Corinthians 5:9-11 KJV).

Any time we can, we don’t want to support sin. That is discretion. We don’t have to eat in restaurants that have a bar selling liquor. In many of them, if you want to order takeout you have to go back and sit at the bar to transact business. We don’t have to sit in restaurants that blast their customers with rock and roll and jazz. That’s just designed to make you eat faster anyway to get the next customers a place to eat.

Some people say, “Well, I just don’t see . . .” That is the problem, you don’t see. You don’t have discretion, you haven’t any discernment to see the right and wrong of it. The problem is that the effects of sin can take place in a person’s life so slowly that they often don’t see what is happening until it is too late. We should separate ourselves from as much that is ungodly as possible, and support that which is right. You don’t want to support that which is wrong.

So, it is easy to see the truth in this: “When wisdom entereth into thine heart, and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul; Discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee” (Proverbs 2:10-11).

“Discretion shall preserve thee,” from trouble, and “understanding shall keep thee,” from a mess.

The mention of drinking alcohol hits home with me. I have been a teetotaler since I was young. Not recovering, just not drinking at all.

My mother was an alcoholic, abusive to my younger sister and me. Coming home one night she was on the living room floor,the front door open, keys had fallen out of her hand and she was drooling but passed out drunk. She somehow had aimed the car home.

Another time she could have killed a woman in an accident,drunk. The judge said “Oh I’ve had drinks at that bar. They always water them down so you couldn’t have been that drunk. Case dismissed.” Enabler for sure.

So I’ve always been the guy with the seltzer or soft drink watching everyone else slobber after a few drinks. But mostly I stay out of the places where they drink, as you said.

With so many drunk driving accidents and deaths of other people, declines in school achievement, need for interventions and recovery programs,destruction of heart and liver,neglect of families and even the house fires started by passed out drunks, I don’t see how America values the “good times” of alcohol.

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