“Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life… Let your eyes look directly ahead, and let your gaze be fixed straight in front of you. Watch the path of your feet, and all your ways will be established… For the lips of an adulteress drip honey, and smoother than oil is her speech.”
Proverbs 4:23,25-26; 5:3
Key Words:
Watch over (natsar): guard from danger, guard with fidelity, watch, keep, preserve, blockade
Heart (leb): inner man, mind, will, heart, conscience, seat of appetites/emotions/passions
Diligence (mishmar): place of confinement, prison, jail, guard post, observation
Directly ahead (nokach): against, before, in front of, directly
Be fixed straight (yashar): to be right, straight, level, smooth, upright, straightforward
Watch (palac): to weigh, make level, smooth, ponder
Path (magal): entrenchment, track, trench, ways, path
Lips (saphah): lips, bank, brim, edge, language
Adulteress (zuwr): stranger, foreigner, enemy, loathsome breath, prostitute, harlot, alienated
Solomon was a man greatly blessed by God with wisdom and understanding. But this wisdom apparently was not applied very well to one area in his life: desire for women. And this ultimately led to his downfall (cf 1Kings 11; Ecclesiastes 2:8-11). It appears that, after having learned some bitter lessons, Solomon the father really wanted to warn his sons about this danger and spare them the deadly consequences of sin. His Proverbs contain several passages, including the one above, that address this.
Heart, eyes, feet, words – these are a few of the ways that men can be vulnerable to temptation, and particularly to sexual impurity. None of these venues can be isolated from the others. They all contribute to and influence the other – the inner man to the behavior, the external observations to the heart. The Lord wants control of the whole man, both inner and outer.
Put a military prison guard upon our heart (mind, will, seat of passion) to keep it from spiritual danger. Ask the Spirit of God to examine it regularly. “Examine me, O Lord, and try me; test my mind and my heart.” (Psalm 26:2) If He presses anything upon my conscience, root it out by confession, repentance, and asking Him to renew my heart. If I play with sinful thoughts instead of guarding against them, then eventually they will bear fruit externally.
The eye gate: an especially troublesome thing for a man. Men seem to be easily captivated by pleasurable sights. Job had to specially purpose to not let his eyes gaze upon a lovely maiden and thus feed fuel to the fire in his heart. Nowadays, a man has to be on constant alert and to exercise self-control on his eye-gate just driving down the road or reading a newspaper or magazine.
The word “path” indicates a well-worn track or trench, a habitual way of behavior from which you almost have to try to break out. I remember an account a friend of mine told about overcoming a temptation. He had to walk every day to work in a city. The shortest route took him right past a store which sold pornography and displayed some of the wares prominently in a window. He struggled with trying to keep his eyes off of that display but couldn’t seem to resist. Finally, he decided to take a significantly longer route that avoided walking past that store. It meant spending more time, but it was a way of watching the path of his feet that helped him avoid a situation that made him stumble. “…make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts.” Romans 13:14
Flattering words can subtly and gradually lure a man’s heart into sensual thoughts and acts. The process can start with just a sweet friendliness that gets his attention. Then it can graduate to mild flirtation, followed by physical invasions of personal space, and it’s all downhill from there. You can see it happening all around us in the world. Once captivated by flirtatious words, a man’s mind performs the most ridiculous gymnastics to justify his thoughts and behavior and to shout down the yells from his Spirit-led conscience. Proverbs 7:21-23 “With her many persuasions she entices him; with her flattering lips she seduces him. Suddenly he follows her as an ox goes to the slaughter, or as one in fetters to the discipline of a fool, until an arrow pierces through his liver; as a bird hastens to the snare, so he does not know that it will cost him his life.”
So men, learn from this old father Solomon. Put a guard on our hearts. Or, as Paul exhorts in 1Corinthians 16:13, “Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.”
~ Tom
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