Proverbs 1:8-19 Shun Evil Counsel:
8My son, hear the instruction of your father,
And do not forsake the law of your mother;
9 For they will be a graceful ornament on your head,
And chains about your neck.
10 My son, if sinners entice you,
Do not consent.
11 If they say, “Come with us,
Let us lie in wait to shed blood;
Let us lurk secretly for the innocent without cause;
12 Let us swallow them alive like [a]Sheol,
And whole, like those who go down to the Pit;
13 We shall find all kinds of precious [b]possessions,
We shall fill our houses with [c]spoil;
14 Cast in your lot among us,
Let us all have one purse”—
15 My son, do not walk in the way with them,
Keep your foot from their path;
16 For their feet run to evil,
And they make haste to shed blood.
17 Surely, in [d]vain the net is spread
In the sight of any [e]bird;
18 But they lie in wait for their own blood,
They lurk secretly for their own lives.
19 So are the ways of everyone who is greedy for gain;
It takes away the life of its owners.
Let’s dive into what God opened my eyes to in these verses. It is important to understand that what I am going to be talking about is what God showed me, which may be different from what He opens your eyes to. Dive into the verses yourself as well and allow God to speak to you individually.
First, I want to point out verses 8 and 9. If you look at the starting verses of every new title in Proverbs, you can make connections between them. They all speak of listening, obeying, and meditating on God’s words. In verses 8 and 9 we see that it speaks of obeying and listening to your mother and father. It is interesting to find and make these connections, so I encourage you to look at it as well. This teaches me the importance of truly soaking in what I am reading and listening to. It is also a reminder of how important it is to respect and obey our earthly parents. It is easy to think that I am too old to hear out what they are saying, but we are called to listen and obey them. Anytime I do not listen to them, I quickly find out they knew exactly what they were talking about and that I should’ve listened.
Moving into verses 10-19, there is a lot I learned from these. These verses teach us a lot about evil doers. Sin in and of itself is extremely tempting. Satan knows what sin gets us to give in individually and that is so frustrating to me. He knows what will most likely cause me to fall into sin. For some of us, like me, if there are other people involved in the sin, I am more likely to fall into the crowd and participate. This brings up something I want to tell you has helped me with sin. Once I figured out what specifically gets me to fall into sin, I am able to pray on it and fight harder against it. It is hard to fight battles that you do not understand how you fell into them. Pray for God to open your eyes to the sins in your life so that you can start fighting them. For me, it was important to have my eyes opened to all my sins, because some are hidden from my eyes, so I can fight. Something else that has really helped me is just being open with God about my sin. Anytime I find myself struggling with a sin I immediately start speaking to God. I ask Him to direct my attention elsewhere. Just speaking to God and telling Him what sins I struggle with reminds me of His love for me and how I do not want to break His heart. Be open with God about your sin. He knows what we are struggling with, but it is important to bring it to His feet and speak to Him about it.
Satan makes evil beautiful. He captures us in the evil he knows we find fun and interesting. One way I have learned he does this is with the earthly possessions we can receive from such evil. As much as I hate to admit it to myself, I love earthly possessions. It is a big struggle of mine and guess what. Satan knows that. You may get wrapped up in evil that brings the outcome of money and all the things money can buy. Do not fall into this evil. It may be easy for people to persuade you into evil, but all they want to do is bring you down with them. The “friendships” and possessions you may get from falling into evil with them will not fulfill you. Satan will tell you it is all you need for happiness, but once you have done it you will learn a tough lesson. That happiness will never come fully , if even at all, and you will most likely go downhill. When this happens to me I go downhill in my happiness, and my physical, mental, and spiritual health. Satan loves to watch this happen. He loves to use others to entice us into evil. Fight him and fight the evil doers. Fight for God and fight for yourself. Remember, no matter how good it looks, what God offers is so much more beautiful.
Find time this week to dig into these verses yourself and seek God. Ask Him to open your heart to what you need to learn and what He is trying to tell you. Dive deeper into what you get from these versus by using google, books, etc.
