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Thoughts of a saint and slave

    by Sam Isaacson

Wisen up: Proverbs 5:7-14
Date Posted: January 11, 2014

'And now, O sons, listen to me,
and do not depart from the words of my mouth.
Keep your way far from her,
and do not go near the door of her house,
lest you give your honor to others
and your years to the merciless,
lest strangers take their fill of your strength,
and your labors go to the house of a foreigner,
and at the end of your life you groan,
when your flesh and body are consumed,
and you say, “How I hated discipline,
and my heart despised reproof!
I did not listen to the voice of my teachers
or incline my ear to my instructors.
I am at the brink of utter ruin
in the assembled congregation.”'

Don't stop at listening

There's a big difference between 'head knowledge' and 'heart knowledge'. Pretty much the entire world knows what's right and wrong, but people still do wrong - all the time! We get angry and sarcastic, we break the speed limit, we commit fraud, we judge those who are different from us, we refuse to help the poor...why? Our rebellion against God put a barrier between us and him, but also put a barrier between our heads and our hearts; we believe something, but don't live it. In this passage we're instructed to not only 'listen' but to 'not depart from the words'. Too often we show up on Sundays and listen to sermons, we might even read the Bible every single day, yet we don't follow that instruction. The challenge is an important one: Do what God tells us to!

One thing leads to another

But we're not simply told to obey without being given any reason why, and the reason we're given is actually quite surprising. We're essentially told that we ought not to give into temptation because...we will end up in situations we would have never chosen to enter in the first place. A common Sunday school saying is 'Little sins lead to big sins, and big sins kill.' And we all know it's true, don't we? A man walks into a newsagent to buy a paper and happens to glance at a pretty lady wearing very little on a magazine. That gets him thinking, so when he arrives at home he pulls his phone out and discovers something a bit more hardcore. Over time that leads to addiction, and ultimately his wife seems to not live up to the standard set by pornography and by this time he's pushing into the most extreme stuff he can find - maybe he commits adultery, maybe he abducts a child...No-one on their wedding day is thinking, 'I can't wait to rape someone,' but we know that it happens. This is a stark warning: we must avoid giving into temptation because we will hate the things we do and the people we will become if we do.

Don't waste your life

This passage ends with the thought of that man on his death bed, looking back over his life and simply feeling regret. You could use the words above, or you could simply imagine him saying, 'I wasted my life.' I always find it challenging to think about what I'd like to think about my life when I'm on my death bed; I'd like to think I've been a happy, faithful husband and good father. I'd like to be respected by my friends and colleagues. I'd like to be able to point to a difference I've personally made in people's lives. So, looking at where I am now and where my life is pointing, where will that trajectory ultimately take me? To a joy-filled, exciting life, or into sin and disappointment?

In case you've not read it already I'd like to thoroughly recommend John Piper's excellent book Don't Waste Your Life.

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Biography Information:
Sam is married with two very young children. He manages somehow to balance family life with working full-time as a technology risk consultant for an international professional services firm, being actively involved in a church plant in London, UK, and keeping up-to-date with the NFL.
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