When Sinners Entice Thee Prov. 1:10-19 CLICK TITLE FOR AUDIO
The instruction is “Consent thou not.” Truthfully, the word “if” is “when” these days. Everyone gets enticed, young and old. And you have to keep from giving in no matter how much you fear rejection or no matter how much you want the acceptance or the attention. For the young people this is called “peer pressure.” But you can be way out of your teen years and still feel this pressure. Now how are you going to consent not?
Stay on the right path – the first thing is found in verse 15 – for us Christians this is defined as separation – 2 Cor 6:14-18. This is hard because of school or sports or work or family. But you have to protect yourself – you have to stay off of their path – their path is broad and convenient – your path is narrow Matt 7:13-14 like swimming upstream – the right path is right and everything else is wrong like following the headings of a compass – if you find yourself on their path you have to high tail it out of there 2 Tim 2:22 – because the path they are on is certainly going to lead to the wrong place [destruction] Prov 16:25 – and they are too stupid to see the destruction in front of them Prov 1:17 – but you can see it and you need to heed it
Stay away from evil communications – 1 Cor 15:33 – oh man this is a big one – evil communications are everywhere – internet, it’s like they purposely talk raunchier to be cool – IM – Text messages – radio – TV – movies – printed material – lunch room – bar room – on the school bus – those kinds of conversations will put all kinds of thoughts in your head and get your feet going in wrong directions – Amnon had a friend 2 Sam 13:1-3, who got him in trouble see 31-33 – wow Jonadab set up the trouble and then when he knew that Amnon would be killed he didn’t even bother to warn him – that’s what you get when you listen to sinners that are your friends
Stay away from envy – Prov 12:26; Ps 73:2-3 – it’s easy to get seduced into something when you see your neighbor getting away with it and when it is something that you want to do deep down [you are God’s child so live like God’s child not like the devil’s children] – BUT you won’t want to live with the regrets when you do!! Leave it alone
Stay close to the Lord – 1 Pet 5:8 – just remember that you have a spiritual enemy that wants to take you down – the closer you stay to the Lord the less likely that he will be able to use someone else to drag you down – stay involved in a good church, on your knees and in the book – you will be able to see an attack that others might otherwise miss