God’s Wisdom Protects from Immoral People
November 11, 2020
Commentary
We can see in this portion of Scripture two enemies that lie in the path of this young man. One is the evil man (v. 12) and the other a strange woman (v. 16).
The ways of the evil man are tempting to the natural mind. However, to follow this evil man is to leave the “paths of righteousness” and “walk in the ways of darkness” (v. 13). It is only the Word of God as it is applied in the life that will keep this young man from the self-willed ways of the evil one.
We also find the tempting allurement of immoral women as an obstacle in his path. Again and again, we will catch glimpses of this strange woman flitting in and out the pages of Proverbs. She is there to rob young men of their purity today just as she was in Solomon’s day. Those who go into her house and get involved in the ways of uncleanness go through life under guilt from which they never recover (v. 19). The memory of unholy acts will linger and prove to be a source of shame and grief to the end. We will find many warnings throughout this book concerning the strange woman.
Those who through wisdom escape these traps of the evil one, by neither being involved with evil men or strange women, will enjoy a peace and security that the wicked will never possess.
Application
It is my desire to pursue wisdom, avoid the wrong kind of people and to have the right kind of companions. Pride appeals to the empty head and sexual enticement to the empty heart. Lord, give me the wisdom that only you can give.
Proverbs 2:10– 22 (NET)
10 For wisdom will enter your heart, and moral knowledge will be attractive to you.
11 Discretion will protect you, understanding will guard you,
12 to deliver you from the way of the wicked, from those speaking perversity,
13 who leave the upright paths to walk on the dark ways,
14 who delight in doing evil, they rejoice in perverse evil;
15 whose paths are morally crooked, and who are devious in their ways;
16 to deliver you from the adulterous woman, from the loose woman who has flattered you with her words;
17 who leaves the husband from her younger days, and has ignored her marriage covenant made before God.
18 For she has set her house by death, and her paths by the place of the departed spirits.
19 None who go in to her will return, nor will they reach the paths of life.
20 So you will walk in the way of good people, and will keep on the paths of the righteous.
21 For the upright will reside in the land, and those with integrity will remain in it,
22 but the wicked will be removed from the land, and the treacherous will be torn away from it.