#proverbs7

Proverbs 7:1-27 (King James Version)

24 Now then, my sons, listen to me; pay attention to what I say. 25 Do not let your heart turn to her ways or stray into her paths. 26 Many are the victims she has brought down; her slain are a mighty throng. 27 Her house is a highway to the grave, leading down to the chambers of death.

As the father is winding down his warnings about the wayward woman, his tone strikes a familiar chord. Jesus said words that were quite similar in tone: “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it” (Matthew 7:13-14). Unfortunately, so many people find themselves victims in the ugly game of sin. Even Jesus said that few find the road that leads to life. I happen to have four children, and Jesus’ words get me thinking this: “What is the gate, or the road, for my children to get to my heart?” If it is in what they do, then there would be a lot of days that I would be quite against them. They whine quite a bit. Sorry, that’s just the truth. If the way to my heart was in grades or athletic achievement, I would be the pushiest dad ever. And my love for them would really be love for myself—getting them to do what I want. If I couldn’t love my kids unless they were the smartest or the fastest, that says something pretty bad about me. So, can God only love those who ACT in a certain way, who take the narrow road of right behaviors rather than the broad road of sin? No. That’s not what Jesus is saying. The narrow road IS Jesus! He is the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through him (John 14:6)! Belief that Jesus is the way is in fact the “narrow way.” All my kids need to do is acknowledge me as “Daddy” and my heart melts. I’m done for. I’d give them the world if I could. So there’s Good News for you today. Maybe you’ve lived as a victim to the sin around you. Maybe you’ve been “slain” with the rest of the “mighty throng” (v26) that has been taken down by the wayward woman. Jesus doesn’t say that your actions disqualify you from finding the narrow way! He is that narrow way to the Father! In Jesus, your destination isn’t the “grave” or the “chamber of death” (v27). In him you have life. Though your actions may not be anything to write home about, in whose hands are you resting your eternal fate. In yourself? Then keep fretting over all you’ve done wrong. You can’t make your way on your own into eternity with God. Or are you resting your eternal fate in Jesus? Are you acknowledging him as your narrow gate—your only gate—into a relationship with God? He is the only way to freedom from all that this life of sin leads us to.

22 All at once he followed her like an ox going to the slaughter, like a deer stepping into a noose 23 till an arrow pierces his liver, like a bird darting into a snare, little knowing it will cost him his life.

What Solomon expresses here is the definition of why you and I need wisdom. Without wisdom, we’re going to walk ourselves down a road that leads to death without even knowing that we are doing so. Just as the ox going to his slaughter believes he’s just going for a normal, everyday walk, or the deer stepping into a noose believes that step is no different from the previous, or the bird darting into a snare—or better yet flying into a clear window—which looks no different from any place else it had recently flown. You and I can tell the difference between a window and an open air doorway, but a bird struggles to notice. Well, I suppose most of us have probably walked into a closed patio door at least once, right? But a bird goes full force into windows—with regularity. The Washington Post ran an article stating that between 365,000,000 and 988,000,000 birds die every year in America alone by crashing into windows! That’s up to 10% of the total bird population. At some point, if you’re a bird, and you have two uncles and a sister who all died by crashing into an object that they couldn’t see and which took them down out of seemingly nowhere, don’t you start flying with a little more caution? Well, maybe you get the point. We’re not much different than birds! We do things that are obviously going to hurt us and get us into trouble. We do things that bring on spiritual death. And, frankly, we have no ability to see our way around it sometimes. We’re going to keep on doing some things without ever realizing the pain it’s going to cause until the pain has already occurred. We are not much different than the birds who are running into your patio windows every other day. Yes, we can grow in wisdom and learn to look for hidden traps, but we’re going to inadvertently find some along the way. The Good News is that Jesus expects that. He expects that you’re going to need his rescuing. He died on a cross with that knowledge forever in his mind. And, like most of us when we find an injured bird on our patio, he will do what he can to nurse us back to health. If you and I have enough compassion for an injured little bird, think of how much compassion Christ has on you when you run yourself into a deadly problem (Matthew 7:9-11)! The next time you see (or hear) a bird fly into a window, let it remind you that you’ve done the same thing before on a spiritual level, and give thanks to God that in Christ you have healing and restoration in store for you—not to mention a God who doesn’t laugh at your embarrassment for running into “windows”!

21 With persuasive words she led him astray; she seduced him with her smooth talk.

This sentence holds so much relevance to the world we live in today. Solomon is talking about something more than just a seductive woman luring his son; this is God speaking to us through Scripture about everyday experiences for people in our world. We get “seduced” into wrong thinking and even worse behavior by the “smooth talk” of those who have no truth in their ideas, but who sure make convincing arguments. We live in an information age like no other. If you want to believe something badly enough, you can find someone on the internet who makes the argument for what you want to believe, and they can make it sound convincing enough to make it sound like the right and moral thing—no matter what the topic. It reminds me of what Paul writes in 2 Timothy 4:3: “For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.” The phrase “persuasive words” in Proverbs 7:21 literally reads “much teaching” from the Hebrew text. There is just so much teaching out there about each and every thing under the sun that if you’re not careful, you’ll keep searching until you’ve found what it is that you wanted to hear all along. The problem is, you aren’t going to the source of all truth. Paul told Timothy just how important and useful Scripture is to understanding truth:

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work (2 Timothy 3:14-17).

The real truth for our world is found in Scripture. The life of Jesus provides us the very teaching that we need to know what is right and to live in right ways. His life is the very representation of God (Hebrews 1:3). Amid all of the “persuasive words” being spoken around you, be sure to place them all under the submission of the Word of Life, Jesus. He’s willing to tell you what you may not want to hear, and that’s a good thing. That’s a healthy thing for all of us!

19 “My husband is not at home; he has gone on a long journey. 20 He took his purse filled with money and will not be home till full moon.”

Today we read of the third enticement from the young man’s temptress. This one is a seriously dangerous temptation for mankind. It is a temptation that by itself can draw people away from God altogether. It is the temptation of false security. This woman gave the young man a promise—that her husband was gone (v19) and that whatever they do would be done in total secret. When you take a quick look at human nature, it’s plain to see that we have a security complex that either drives us to God or that drives us away from God. In the immediate aftermath of the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, churches around America were filled significantly more on Sunday mornings—some studies even saying that the uptick was as much as a 25% increase. In that moment, the fabric of American society had become unstable. We didn’t know if another attack was coming. I would get up every morning for years, turn on the news, and wait to see if another similar attack had happened or was in progress. When people lose their sense of security, they often go to a higher spiritual power. When they no longer feel in control of their own destiny, they go to church hoping that there is something outside of themselves that will give them that security. And therein lies our problem; when times are good, we run the risk of living with the mistaken mindset that we are in control of our lives. We run the risk of thinking that we determine our own security. When finances are tight, we are forced to trust in something outside of ourselves that things will work out or get better. When finances are easy, when there are no stresses, we feel secure, and we feel that no one outside of ourselves is the cause for that security. As a human being, it is inevitable that you will rest your hope—that you will attach your security—to something every single day. It may be money, it may be your family, it may be popularity, it may be a job or a car that looks good—there are countless things that you may find your security in. But if the thing that you attach your security to is not God, what happens when that thing is taken away? What do you have then? You will find, in that moment, that trusting in yourself or in a thing in this world will ultimately leave you lonely. But if you attach your security to God, who says that he will be with you wherever you go (Joshua 1:9), then should the day come that this world turns on you, despair will not find you. Should you endure the loss of everything in your life as Job did, you will find that all is really not lost. You can either find a false sense of security in things that you only partly control, or you can find true security in Christ, who created the world and holds it in the palm of his hand (Isaiah 40:12, John 1:1). You control so little; Jesus controls everything. It just makes sense to put your trust and security in the One who knows more and controls more—and who ultimately died to secure your eternal destination.

16 “I have covered my bed with colored linens from Egypt. 17 I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes and cinnamon.” 18 “Come, let’s drink deeply of love till morning; let’s enjoy ourselves with love!

This is the second of this tempting woman’s enticements. The first was food. This time it’s the pleasures to be had in her bed. Sin is often disguised in ways that makes it look good and smell good and feel good. But good looking doesn’t mean good for you. Example: the manchineel tree. It’s a tree whose leaves and fruit resemble that of an apple tree, but it happens to be one of the most poisonous trees in the world. Simply standing underneath the tree when it’s raining can cause a person’s skin to blister if the tree’s milky substance contacts the skin! When eaten, it tastes great, until you no longer can even swallow due to the incredible pain and tightness in your throat. Good smelling also doesn’t mean good for you. Example: markers. You know you smelled a few markers when you were a kid. Because they smell delightful. And some adult had to tell you to stop. Why? Because sniffing markers is really bad for you! People have died from doing it excessively. Even good feeling doesn’t mean good for you. Example: scratching an itch. Scratching an itch actually feels good because it is interpreted by the brain as a minor pain, which feels good because it gives relief to the itch. But, as the body responds to the pain sensation, it then heightens the feeling of the itch. That’s why you usually end up itching worse after scratching. Let’s face it, our senses trick us. Things that our senses enjoy aren’t always the best things for us. The drug addict gets hooked on the high that the drug induces, but the rest of her world simply caves in around her because of that one substance. The adrenaline junky keeps doing riskier and riskier things until he eventually breaks a law or, worse, breaks his body apart. This world is fallen; that means that what seems good sometimes isn’t. But there is one Good in this world that you can always trust! Psalm 34:8 says, “Taste and see that the LORD is good. Oh, the joys of those who take refuge in him!” (NLT). Jesus says in Luke 18:19, “Why do you call me good? No one is good—except God alone.” Jesus wasn’t saying that he is not good and that he is not God. He’s simply saying that God is good, in all ways and at all times. Thereby, if he, Jesus, is truly good, it’s only because he is in fact God. No matter how much you rub shoulders with the person of Jesus, you’re never going to get to a point where he does you wrong. You’re never going to experience him as lacking grace and love and compassion. The good that comes from Jesus is not quick and passing like the good the young man would get from entering the wayward woman’s bed. In fact, the more you “taste and see” of Jesus, the more you come to know he is not only good, he is better than the best good you’ve ever experienced. Be mindful of the things today that you enjoy. They may look good or smell good or feel good, and it may all be a ruse. Except for Jesus, nothing is eternally good. Except for Jesus, nothing is good in-and-of itself. He is the only real deal there is.