Proverbs 2 v 16 - 19 - Opposite of Wisdom II

In part 1, we went over the first example of the opposite of wisdom as it were, the first was evil people. In part 2, I will be going over the second example which is an immoral woman - and in this example, an adulteress. 


So this passage starts by talking about the deliverance from "strange" woman, who is immoral. She leads men into sex before marriage, but also adultery as she is married before, and there's a chance she may be a prostitute so there's three sins being committed at once. There's a huge danger for guys especially in modern day society about having sex before marriage, and it's really hard to stay pure, for girls as well, but even more so for guys. The woman used in this example seduces the man, with pleasing words that his body wants to hear. And this happens in every day life, so guys, if this happens or you think that it might, run far away. run to an older, wiser man who can help. Girls, make sure you are not this kind of woman in the story, and although I doubt you will be like the woman in this example, make sure that you're not causing guys to fall into sin. In Colossians it says about treating ALL guys, like a brother. Now, you wouldn't wear a low cut top, or flirt, or flatter with your brother, so don't do it with someone else. Even if you don't mean to give a wrong impression, you may do. Just be on your guard!  Wisdom will help to deal with this, if you have wisdom, it will save you, and tell you what the right thing to do in the situation is!


Back to the example, it says in v17 that this woman leaves the husband she married when she was young, and ignores the promise to God that she made in her wedding vows. 


"Today's delayed ages for marriage are a result of foolish thinking and poor child training, and the many years of sexual frustration and temptation are the painful result. Most youth today are not nearly mature enough for marriage." - http://www.letgodbetrue.com/proverbs/commentaries/02_17.php

I found this quite interesting, I hadn't ever really thought of it like this. Although legally people can't marry til 18 without parental consent, I had never thought of why not many people marry early. I would agree with this quote to some extent, as a lot of people are definitely not mature enough to marry that early for many number of different reasons. But then, people who do get married early, sometimes change and this can result in marriage breakdown which definitely isn't ideal. In modern day society, marrying early would be at 18 years of age, and from this quote that not marrying at 18 results in years of sexual frustration but in reality, sexual frustration is going to happen way before that, before they can actually get married anyway. But, something to think about!


And, although in a marriage is between two people, as Christians it's important to put God above the person, and having God within the relationship is the best way. You get married in  a church to be married before God, so when you break a marriage vow, you're breaking the promise made to your husband, and to God.


In v18, it basically says that the way she is going, with all her sexual sins, is leading towards Death. Sex can lead to death physically through STDs and abortions and etc, but also emotionally, spiritually and eternally. Although everyone will die, the verse suggests that she will be there before other people. But it's not just her, it's the people who she entices, all the men she gets into bed with her as well, they are on their way to death. Especially spiritually with their relationship with God, but they can lose their family, friends, money, health, their own peace. But we have a God whose merciful, and although falling into sexual sin is a really bad sin, God can forgive, and we need to remember that. 


The ultimately bad thing about sex, is that it's very permanent. You only have one virginity, and once you have sex, it's gone. Once you have sex with someone that's married, that's it, that's their spouse's life ruined. It breaks up relationships and ruins them. It's similar to murder, although there is a less temptation to murder someone, and there's a punishment for murder in jail. There's a much greater temptation to have sex and there's only a social punishment. I've seen case after case this week of adultery, and it breaks my heart. But, and here's the big but, Christians will fall, and maybe, some may cheat on their wives and girlfriends and husbands and boyfriends. And for the one whose been cheated on, yes it's horrible, yes you may lose all your trust of that person, but God's forgiven everything you've ever done. If the person you are with, is truly repentant and promises not to do it, you need to forgive them. 


But luckily: Luke 18:27b The things impossible for people are possible for God. YAY! Although you may find sexual sin is something that you can't control, that you can't help yourself, God can and will help you. He's the one that can make it possible! Keep trying to keep yourself pure, avoid dodgy conversations, avoid the internet late at night, put a safe search ban on your laptop, do the thing where your friends can check the websites you've been on, make sure you're staying modest and clean with the people around you. It's hard guys and girls, but it's definitely not impossible. And although I don't speak from experience, it's probably going to be dead worth it!

Proverbs 2 v 11 - 15 - Opposite of Wisdom

First of all, we found out before that wisdom gives us the knowledge of right and wrong, so this will extend to people. wisdom will help us tell the difference between an evil man, and a good man. There really is a divide from Christians and non Christians, it's all or nothing really. So, there is the divide between the evil man, and the good man. As Christians, i'm not saying we're good, we're no better than non Christians. But this passage is telling us that wisdom will help keep us away from evil people, and stop us from being lost ourselves.


The first verse explains how wisdom can keep us from the wicked people, who words are bad. Words that are bad does extend to a number of different things such as:

• gossiping
• lying
• swearing
• backstabbing
• hypocrisy
• criticizing
• belittling others
• and etcOkay so first off, there's the clear distinction that words that are bad, belong to evil people, and that Christians should not be saying words like this. 

The people who speak like this, who are evil, also don't do what is right, and the do what is evil. Okay so in NKJC it talks of people who leave the Christian faith, and then go onto being a non Christian. It is really sad when someone backslides. It poses many questions, like were they ever really Christians, and were they really the elect? Will they get into heaven for once believing in Jesus? I'm sorry but I can't answer these but God can. But even though you can have a strong faith, you are either moving forward in faith, or backsliding, there's never a happy medium where you can do nothing and stay in the same state of faith. So although it's easy to say that you personally will never backslide from not being a Christian (because I can never ever really see how my life can be without Christ) we can be lesser Christians and less strong in our faith. I think it's the saddest thing when people backslide, just because they knew Christianity, and they knew the amazing benefits and truths of it, but decided to go against. In comparison, an atheist may not know all the amazing things of our faith, and this is why they aren't Christians. Makes it 10x harder to help convert a backslider, because they have their arguments against Christianity all sorted out, while some atheists just aren't Christians because they haven't been brought up that way.

the next part, says that the evil people enjoy doing wrong, and they are happy to be sinning, what they do is wrong, and they are dishonest. These people have the ideologies of the world, of immediate gratification, to do things just to please themselves, and that life has to be "fun" all the time. To some extent they may not even see what they are doing as sinning, just because it is a natural thing to do in this very sinful world. we have to be so careful to not be influenced by these people, to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus and to have our hearts fixed on eternity, not in this world.

so wisdom helps us to recognize all of this, and help us stay away. and yeeees, we shouldn't be influenced by these people at all, because it will be compromising our beliefs, but we should still try help these people see how amazing Jesus is :)