Proverbs 1 -- How We Set Ourselves Up To Fail

The Bible plainly tells us in 1:7 that respect for the Lord is the start of a wise life.  If we don’t understand and respect that, it will lead us down the wrong path for everything else.

 

Three main points of wisdom follow:

 

1)      Be careful who you run with.  This is the most important way to avoid temptation to sin.

2)      Don’t play with temptation.  We think we’re able to dabble with it and not get snared, but Satan knows our buttons and the best time to push each one.  He ends up getting us to buy into something we never really planned to be a part of every time.

3)      Harming others, even for fun, is disobeying God and ultimately harming ourselves.  We set ourselves up to fail by doing so.

 

There are also three attributes about our behavior that easily prove to the world that we lack wisdom:  Closed ears, closed eyes, and a closed mind.  Verses 24-25 talk about how the unwise refuse to listen, paid no attention, and didn’t follow advice.  Amazing how we let Satan stop up our ears, distract our eyes, and give us amnesia about what we know to be right!

 

Aside from these, there is one other major obstacle to a wise life – apathy.  Verse 32 says “They will be destroyed because they do not CARE.”  There’s nothing that breaks my heart more than hearing someone respond to me after hearing God’s truth by saying the words, “I don’t care!”

 

Father, I especially ask for Your guidance for myself and for my sons this morning.  I know I was the same way when I was younger – headstrong and thinking that I was being wise by taking my own counsel instead of Your Word.  Instead, I was only being a wise guy.  I was not even as wise as the birds You mention here, who know to not fly into a net right before them.  Help my sons to be wiser and let them see the value of learning from my mistakes and not their own.

 

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford