Posted on 02/06/2022 10:24:52 PM PST by Pilgrim's Progress
“My son, keep my words, and lay up my commandments with thee. Keep my commandments, and live; and my law as the apple of thine eye. Bind them upon thy fingers, write them upon the table of thine heart. Say unto wisdom, Thou art my sister; and call understanding thy kinswoman: That they may keep thee from the strange woman, from the stranger which flattereth with her words” (Proverbs 7:1-5).
The woman in this passage could be applied to sin, in general. There are about four applications that you can make. The woman is a picture of sin (perhaps picturing Eve), “And, behold, there met him a woman with the attire of an harlot, and subtil of heart” (Proverbs 7:10 KJV). Before it is all over with, we see the results in verse 23. This man starts out in an innocent situation, but it doesn’t end well for him. “Till a dart strike through his liver; as a bird hasteth to the snare, and knoweth not that it is for his life” (Proverbs 7:23 KJV). By the time it is all over this young man is killed—perhaps by the husband—of this woman.
How did it start out?
1. It starts out with bad companions, “a companion of fools shall be destroyed” (13:20). Choose your friends wisely. Fellowship with Bible-believing Christians, with good Christians (not those in name only). That is not to say that you stay away from lost people completely, witness to them—try to win them to Christ, try to get them to go to church, try to have Bible study with them—but you are not to have fellowship with them. Bad companions will get you into trouble. We saw that in verse 7, “beheld among the simple ones, I discerned among the youths . . .”
2. Then we see an empty head, “a young man void of understanding.” A lot of kids today are ‘empty headed.” They don’t want to learn anything. They don’t want to do anything but hang around and lay around, just be lazy. Notice in verse 8, “idle time,” just going by the way, up and down. You can drive through some areas and see dozens of teenagers just doing nothing, and if you can’t find them during the winter months, just go into a shopping mall. Just doing nothing, going nowhere. Nothing but idle times—too much idle time on their hands. This is what gets them in trouble. They pick bad companions and they just loiter around doing nothing good with their time.
The sin of Israel is given to us in Ezekiel 16 . . . you might not think this, but this is what got Israel into trouble and led to it being taken into captivity. And this is the curse of America.
“As I live, saith the Lord GOD, Sodom thy sister hath not done, she nor her daughters, as thou hast done, thou and thy daughters. Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw good” (Eze 16:48-50 KJV).
“As I live, saith the Lord GOD,” He lives forever, so what He is about to say is important. He is talking to Judea, Jerusalem, the southern kingdom. 1. Pride, 2. Fulness of bread, 3. Abundance of idleness.
3. He’s out too late. “In the twilight, in the evening, in the black and dark night” (Proverbs 7:9 KJV). You can go out late at night and ride up and down the streets, and they’ll still be out there just gathering around, loitering (despite laws against it). Nobody knows where they are, they just out there looking for trouble—and they are going to find it. Hundreds of them are shot to death in Chicago every year, because they are empty-headed kids running with bad companions out to late at night. Our young man in Proverbs 7 has too much of this business, and he is going to end up in a graveyard. “It will never happen to me!” Never say never, especially if you are living the same lifestyle as this young man.
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I thank God everyday for the great amount of work he allows me to have. Even though I am a sinner he floods each day with tasks to make sure idleness is not within my day. Glory to God and his son Jesus ! Thanks as always Pilgrim.
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