Proverbs 5:20-21, The Sinner’s Legacy!

March 1, Proverbs 5:20-21

Ps. 139; Heb. 4:13; 13:4 “Thou God seest me” (Gen. 16:13).

The Sinner’s Legacy!

The sins of the adulterer outlined in vs.9-11 were beautifully balanced by the blessings provided within the God-ordained marriage ordinance (vs.15-19). Yet, the sad reality is that the man continues to go against both his conscience and the divine provision.

1. The Sinner’s Witlessness! In v.20 the father puts two questions, “Why, oh my sons, should you be ravished, intoxicated, by an adulteress, and why should you embrace another man’s wife?” There is one obvious answer to these questions, namely, NO! Yet, in the heat of passion, it is disregarded. Surely only witless fools forsake the pure fountain for the poisoned pools of the strange woman. “If he were not stupefied, would he,” asks Bridges, “slight the ‘honourable’ state of marriage, to embrace the bosom of a stranger, ‘joyless, loveless, unendeared’?” Sin stupefies even the most intelligent! “Sin is basically an act of moral folly,” said Tozer, “and the greater the folly, the greater the fool.”
2. The Sinner’s Willfulness! Would not the thought that the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord (v.21) make the sinner re-evaluate what he does? Tragically, the answer once against is NO! The eye also of the adulterer waiteth for the twilight, saying, No eye shall see me; and disguiseth his face (Jb. 24:15). The eye of a friend or one’s own child may sometimes stop one from doing some foul deed. Yet the thought of doing this before the All-Seeing Eye of God seems to cause little fear or alarm. Man knows full well he cannot evade the eyes of God, but he wilfully, sinfully, keeps on trying to do this impossible thing! No wonder Luther wrote of The Bondage of the Will. “All the wickedness of the wicked world is owing to the wilfulness of the wicked will” (Henry).
3. The Sinner’s Wretchedness! God ponders all his goings (v.21). You recall that ponder means to weigh or level (Pr. 4:26; 5:6). Goings or paths are literally the wagon-tracks made by continual use. Today we might call them our habits. Earlier, man was challenged to ponder his steps. Now it is God’s turn. He ponders our ways. Taking ponder to mean weigh we have a picture of God, the Just Judge, weighing man’s goings in the Scales of Justice (Dan. 5:27). Solomon also said that God will bring every secret thing into judgment (Ecc. 12:14). If, on the other hand, we take ponder to mean level all his goings, then we see God making men’s path level, smoothing it out to lead surely and swiftly to its appointed end (vs.22-23). Sinful man cannot hide his evil deeds or escape the outcome. Does not the warning sound like thunder in every heart plotting wickedness? The ways of man are before the Lord (Jb. 31:4). “The sinner’s chief labour is to hide his sin (Arnot), but it is Sin’s Labour Lost! The darkness and the light are both alike to the One with Whom we have to do (Ps. 139:12). Surely men of low degrees are vanity, and men of high degree are a lie: to be laid in the balance, they are altogether lighter than vanity (Ps. 62:9).

Thought: “The Maker of the night is not blinded by its covering.”

Prayer: Thy grace alone, O Lord, can save me from the sinner’s legacy.