1 ¶ My son, attend unto my wisdom, and bow thine ear to my understanding: 2 That thou mayest regard discretion, and that thy lips may keep knowledge. 3 For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil: 4 But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a twoedged sword. 5 Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell. 6 Lest thou shouldest ponder the path of life, her ways are moveable, that thou canst not know them. 7 Hear me now therefore, O ye children, and depart not from the words of my mouth. 8 Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house: 9 Lest thou give thine honour unto others, and thy years unto the cruel: 10 Lest strangers be filled with thy wealth; and thy labours be in the house of a stranger; 11 And thou mourn at the last, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed, 12 And say, How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof; 13 And have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me! 14 I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly.
The strange woman, the foreign woman, can not only be said to be a reference to the alien women who lived among the Hebrews corrupted by their pagan gods and corrupting the Hebrews with sensuality and satanic religion, but also, on a practical note to the modern young Christian man or woman who the person who with flattery and the right words bring the Christian to die as a useful member of Christ’s body.
Christian young person, listen carefully, a boy or girl whose heart is not right with the Lord or who isn’t even saved will seem pretty or handsome on the outside and just pour out flattering words, the right words to get your attention, but the end of following what they make you feel is poverty, shame, and even sickness and death.
On a spiritual note when we as Christians are led astray by practices not based in the Bible’s clear teachings, even though we do those things for God and Christ, then our faith becomes weak and powerless. American evangelicals looked to the government to enforce the Bible’s admonitions with anti-slavery crusades, prohibition, anti-abortion, and anti-homosexuality crusades and what was the result? Nominal or no faith, the loss of generations of potential believers, vain, political religions, the income tax, feminism, wars, and the violation of our constitution. We were seduced by a strange religion and a foreign woman. We adopted the Roman Catholic and high church Protestant view of the state as enforcer of God’s laws and we made our influence on a growingly, secular society to be nothing.
There is an old American saying, “when you sup with the devil you better use a long spoon.”
15 ¶ Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well. 16 Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets. 17 Let them be only thine own, and not strangers’ with thee. 18 Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. 19 Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love. 20 And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger? 21 For the ways of man are before the eyes of the LORD, and he pondereth all his goings. 22 His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins. 23 He shall die without instruction; and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.
Here is a practical admonition for the Hebrew or any man in any age to remain faithful to his marriage. This also applies to women. This is God’s way, not man’s. Look around you in our culture. Advertising, movies, television, and music all glorify pagan sensuality. There is a huge gap between a man and a woman married before God loving each other and gratifying each other’s sexual needs and desires without restriction (Hebrews 13:4) and the world’s attitude in handling such matters where nothing is sacred and no one has any particular value and the only important thing is what do I want right now.
An important point is made in verse 22. Let’s read it again. Jonathan Edwards makes a point of this also in his sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God”. Your sin, even without God’s judgment, will destroy you. Eventually, if you choose the world’s ways you will be consumed by them.
Back to verse 21. God sees everything you do. You have this little dot of time and He has all eternity. There is no hurry for Him and His Book judges you.
Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
Now, take this for a deeper meaning. Why does the Christian church, the Bible believers, why do they follow practices devised by a harlot church and continue in heresy based on thousand years old error from Rome. We would do well to study the New Testament church in the Bible and compare the practices to our own, not suggesting that we adopt things inconsistent with the post-Apostolic age but suggesting that we eliminate practices that were never part of God’s church. Many churches have been deceived by a type of carnality that counterfeits spiritual behavior. Is what the Christian church does of God or is it mere humanism that glorifies our own assumed self importance?
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