Beloved, I am glad to share with you today the above theme from Pr 5:1-2 and following. Indeed, ifthe lips are the exit door of the heart, the eyes are the main door of entry. So let’s make sure that our eyes look straight forward. Let them fixate on Jesus, the goal of the race of faith (Hb 12:1-3)! In this way no covetousness will be able to find complacent access to it. V. 8 et seq. describe the misery of the one who has allowed himself to be turned away by “the stranger”: he gives “his years to the cruel man” (v. 9). We gave too many of our years to Satan before our conversion. Would we like to return to his grip? This chapter continues the topic of “our ways” begun in the previous chapter. It is a question here, above all, of the purity of our ways which is a counterpart to the v. 20-25 of chapter 4. In both cases I would be tempted to assume that it is wisdom itself (and not the father as in chapter 4:1) who speaks to his son. In any case, in chapter 4:20-25 it is righteousness; here, purity in the walk. The lusts of the flesh defile and destroy the soul, the source of natural affections.
One must have a will subject to divine intelligence, ready to receive what Wisdom teaches; then one “keeps thoughts thoughtful,” that is, according to the words of a brother: the promptness of moral perception of the Lord’s thought. “And so that your lips retain knowledge.” The lips are the expression of the heart. If the latter is in order, and if the will is submitted, our word will express divine knowledge. The stranger is always, in the Word, the woman who is outside a divinely established relationship. There can only be corruption there. What is foreign to our relationship with God attracts us naturally, because of the flesh that is within us, and that is “honey.” The appearance can be beautiful; nature lends a grace, even a spiritual exterior (oil) to what is basically only the lure of the flesh, but, when the soul has let itself be caught up in it, the end is only bitterness and destruction. His feet descend to death, his ways are wandering, have no center of direction, move further and further away from God. It goes without saying that these truths also apply to relations with women, apart from the bonds of marriage, but it must not be forgotten that, in general, “the foreign woman” is the emblem of carnal corruption, where there are bonds according to nature, and as such it reappears many times in Proverbs.
If we accept that Wisdom itself has spoken since chapter 4:10 in chapter 5:6, it seems that here the father begins again to speak to his sons as in chapter 4:1 and this communion of the father according to the flesh, with the thoughts and exhortations of Wisdom itself – which from the beginning is Christ – this communion, I said, is of great beauty. The only safeguard for the sons is to keep their way resolutely away from the stranger, to flee even the place where she lives. Approaching his house would already be the fruit of an unhealthy curiosity. The reckless, even before he knew it, would have lost his honor and left it in those corrupt hands. His years would be delivered to the Evil One, without mercy for the misery he has created.
Here we started and sent jumping over the plain, another of Solomon’s favorites. What elegant creatures are these gazelles, and with what grace they leap. We will meet them everywhere in Syria and Palestine, and the more you see them, the greater your admiration will be. Solomon is not alone in his partiality. Persian and Arab poets abound in reference to them. The beautiful of these fervent singing threads are often compared to the shy gazelle that comes at night and grazes in their hearts. They are kind, affectionate, and loving, according to universal testimony, and therefore no sweeter comparison can be found than that of Pr 5:19.
Proverbs 5. 6: This verse is rendered in two ways. The forms of the two verbs can be in the male second person, and thus apply to the attempted youth, or to the female third person, and thus be understood as referring to the prostitute. Most modern commentators adopt this last reading: “She is far from entering the way of life: her footsteps wander without her observing it.
For the relationship forbidden here is false:
1. Because it is a sin against the tempter. The tempter in Eden had increased his burden of iniquity by the surrender of the tempted to his persuasion. He increased his crime by involving another in his disobedience. Satan, no doubt, gets worse every time he persuades another to sin. The player’s guilt and misery increases in proportion to his success in ruining others. For theyoung man in the text increases the guilt of the “strange woman” by giving in to her seductions. He overwhelms her with new guilt and intensifies her iniquity, and thus helps her accumulate greater remorse for her when her consciousness awakens and comes out of the grave of sensuality.
2. Because it is a sin against the body of a man. What is ours is generally appreciated by us, and there is nothing material that is ours in a more exclusive sense than our body. It is closer to us than any other material possession, and to sin against it is to sin against what is closest to our personal moral individuality. There are sins committed in the body by the spirit that are purely mental, from which the body does not suffer; but adultery forces the body into a relationship that brings it misery and disease, and in its time consumes and destroys it like a devouring flame. “Every sin that a man commits is without a body; but he who commits fornication sins against his own body” (1 Cor 6:18).
3. Because it is a sin against human nature in general, and national life in particular. Human nature is like the human body, each man is bound to his fellow human beings because the different members of the body are part of a whole. This solidarity – this union of interests – is most evident when it is considered in relation to a particular community or nation; and, just as no member of the human body can be disfigured without bringing the whole body into a state of imperfection and loss of dignity, so no man can degrade himself without causing the degradation of the whole race. The fornicator is a wound on the body of humanity; and although other sinners disfigure the universal body, there is no one who defiles it like him. God wrote His mark on the crust of the earth against this enormous sin (Genesis 19:24).
4. Because it makes God, in a sense, carry iniquity with the transgressor. The young person who spends the money his father gives him to pursue his own evil designs makes his father a reluctant participant in his crimes, because the money was provided by him. God made this complaint against sinners in ancient times. The good gifts of the earth that God bestowed on the Hebrew people were used by them in their demeaning idol worship. God gave them the means to honor Him, and they used His gifts to dishonor His name. Thus God gives every man the power to glorify him and to bless himself and the world through the formation of right relationships. When the power thus given is used illegally, God’s own gift is used against itself. The sinner turns the divine gift against the divine giver; and while in God he lives, and moves, and has his being, he lives and moves but to sin against his Creator. Thus, in the language of Scripture, God “is made to serve” with the sinner, while He is “weary of his iniquities” (Isaiah 43:22).
The following verses have been compiled for your edification and grouped together for your better understanding.
Warning against seductresses:
- Value of wisdom, the great value of
Jb 28:16 It does not weigh against the gold of Ophir, Neither against the precious onyx, nor against sapphire; Pr 8:11 For wisdom is better than pearls, It is more valuable than all prized objects Ec 2:13 And I have seen that wisdom has an advantage over foolishness, just as light has an advantage over darkness; Ec 7:19 Wisdom makes the wise man stronger than ten leaders who are in a city.
- Words of wise men
-Persuasive Jb 6:25 That true words are persuasive! But what do your remonstrances prove?
-Appropriate Pr 16:24 Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet for the soul and beneficial for the body.
-Full of grace Ec 10:12 The words of the mouth of the wise are full of grace; but the lips of the fool cause his loss.
-Inspired and unforgettable Ec 12:11 In addition to the fact that Ecclesiastes was a sage, he again taught science to the people, and he examined, probed, put in order a great number of sentences.
-Comforting Isa 50:4 The Lord, the Lord, has given me an exercised tongue, that I may know how to sustain by the word the one who is dejected; He awakens, every morning, he awakens my ear, so that I may listen as disciples listen.
- Human flattery, warning against
Jb 32:21 I will have no regard for appearance, and I will not flatter anyone; Ps 12:4 Let the Lord exterminate all flattering lips, The tongue that arrogantly dissaves, Pr 28:23 He who takes away others then finds more favor than the one whose tongue is flattering. 1 Thess 2:5 Never, in fact, have we used flattering words, as you know; never have we had greed as our motive, God is a witness to it.
- Spiritual slavery, general references to the slavery of sin
Pr 5:22 The wicked is caught in his own iniquities, He is seized by the bonds of his sin. Jn 8:34 Truly, truly, I tell you, Jesus replied to them, whoever engages in sin is a slave to sin. Acts 8:23 Truly, truly, I tell you, Jesus replied to them, whoever engages in sin is a slave to sin. Rom 6:16 Do you not know that by surrendering to someone as slaves to obey him, you are slaves to the one to whom you obey, either to the sin that leads to death or to the obedience that leads to righteousness?
From all the above, we note that the work of the days, spent in holiness, would be lost forever, “given to others”. Then will come the end, the stinging regrets, the flesh and body consumed. How, will say the one who has fallen prey to the stranger, could I hate education, despise reprehension? How was I deaf to the voice of the father who taught me, and to the experience of Wisdom? But, thank God, with the bitterness of repentance and the complete judgment of oneself, there is a possible recovery. “It didn’t matter that I hadn’t been in all kinds of evil, in the midst of the congregation and the congregation!” (v. 14). The communion of the Assembly can be regained; the soul is stopped in time and restored so as not to “fall into any kind of evil”, and suffer a definitive fall from which it could no longer recover. On the other hand, the son of Wisdom must carefully preserve God’s established and sanctioned natural relationships. He must remain attached to the woman of his youth who is part of the people of Jehovah, for the quality of “stranger” would have absolutely disqualified her from belonging to it. How important this is also for Christian marriage! It is impossible to accept, as for this relationship, any alliance with the world. There must be complete separation. We have to stick to the source of refreshment that God has given us, within His family, of which we are a part. If this is so, we will be blessed outside in what will come out of this union, and the blessing will be tried even “in the places,” in the places where the world gathers (v. 16), a blessing somewhat reminiscent of the one spoken of in John 7:38. Man does not multiply by illegitimate unions; true love, united with the graces of youth, is found in God’s sanctioned and approved relationships. It is not only the consequences of our ways that we have to be careful about; we need to think much more about how God views and judges them. “The ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord, and he weighs all his ways.” One fact is established, and that is that He will make the wicked bear their faults, while he remains a discipline for the righteous, so that he can be delivered from the consequences of his bewilderment. Chapter 5 returns in detail to the corruption of the heart which leads one man to abandon for another the woman of his youth; which demoralizes the whole man. Now, the eyes of the Lord are on the ways of man. Our prayers are with you all.
PRAYER OF ACCEPTANCE OF JESUS CHRIST AS LORD AND PERSONAL SAVIOR
I now invite every person who wants to become a new creation by walking in the truth, to pray with me the following prayer:
Lord Jesus, I have long walked in the lusts of the world ignoring your love for humans. I admit to having sinned against you and ask your forgiveness for all my sins, because today I have decided to give you my life by taking you as Lord and personal Savior. I recognize that you died on the cross of Calvary and rose from the dead for me.
I am now saved and born again by the power of the Holy Spirit. Lead me every day to the eternal life that you give to all who obey your Word. Reveal yourself to me and strengthen my heart and faith, so that your light may shine in my life right now.
Thank you, Lord Jesus, for accepting me into your divine family, so that I may also contemplate the wonders of your kingdom.
I will now choose a nearby waterpoint to baptize myself by immersion, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
All adoration, power and glory are yours, now and forever and ever. Amen!
I would be happy to react to any questions and comments you may have, before sharing with you tomorrow ” Warning against vouching for yourself (Pr 6).
May the Lord Jesus Christ bless you abundantly.
David Feze, Servant of the Almighty God.