Proverbs 5:23 he dies for lack of discipline, and because of his great folly he is led astray
How often a thoughtless word changes everything? In James 3:8 we are told that “no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.” [ESV].
I can think of so many times in my life when I have said something in haste, in anger, in defensiveness, and regretted it, sometimes immediately as I saw the look on the other persons face, sometimes later as I sat in my shame and regret, the damage done, friendship folded up and put away.
How do we get to that point?
Well before I was a Christian, in some ways there is an excuse as there is no one to guide my thoughts and words other than myself. Now though, what is my excuse? The bible tells me in the New Testament [Jesus speaking] Luke 6: the good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.
So, it’s a heart issue. A heart issue. An issue of my heart. My tongue is connected to my heart.
The challenge of the gospel is laid down here. What comes out of my mouth is a movie of what is going on in my heart. There is no slippage built into this overview.
The area for me to dwell in now is the condition of my heart, not the control of my mouth. If my heart is right, if each day I am passionately in love with Jesus, sold out to serve and love his Church I won’t really have to spend much time worrying about what may or may not come out of my mouth, as it will be a river of living water.
I remember a story I was told about a mother who never had a bad word to say about anyone. Ever. Her family were trying to get her to say something bad about just one person. They came up with a plan that they were sure would work. That night at dinner they asked their mum, “so, mum, what about the devil?”. The mum thought for a second and responded “well, he is a hard worker”.
I want to live where life, hope, peace, strength, insights, and comfort flow from my lips. So with that in mind, I will try each day to live with my heart open to whatever God wants to say to me through the Holy Spirit, along with the pre-considered position of obedience.
KNOWLEDGE
One theme that we pick up on in the first 5 chapters of Proverbs, is this idea that “not listening” – choosing not to hear and deliberately deciding not to obey before the words are even spoken, is at the root of the foolishness that leads to disastrous results.
In business or sport, when there are problems that keep re-occurring, or when significant and unforeseen issues come into being, one way of addressing this is by doing a “root cause analysis”. Basically, this means to ask “why” four or five times.
We may ask an American footballer why he has a headache, and he could answer because his vision is blurred, in asking why his vision is blurred he answers that he hit his head on the ground, in asking why he says he was tackled hard in training, in asking why he did not have a helmet on, he says that there are never enough helmets available for training days as there are way more people there than on game days.
If we stopped at the first why and issued some aspirin, or sent it to the opticians or doctors [and we should do this as well] we may have helped solve the one health issue, but there would have been re-occurring issues because we have not dealt with the root cause – the lack of correct equipment.
The bible here is going straight to the root cause issue – wisdom, or the lack of wisdom [wisdom is that we listen to God’s advice and live on his terms with our heart changed and pursuing morally purity]. The lack of wisdom is the root cause. If that issue is dealt with then every other issue in life will start to come into line and make more sense.
For us, as we have the New Testament, wisdom has come in the form of a man and God, called Jesus. And we recognise that we are not able to keep or fulfil the law of God on our own strength, and so we ask Jesus to help us, recognising that he has paid for all our sins and that he has been raised from the dead and so has defeated the issue that the writer is identifying in his first words of Proverbs 5:23. Jesus has completed his Root Cause Analysis and recognised that we all need his help to live his ways.
UNDERSTANDING
Let’s pick one word from this verse to look closer at and see if that can help us gain a deeper insight into how God would love us to live?
The word for “folly” in Hebrew is pronounced as ” ‘iwwelet” and appears 25 times in the Old Testament. In the ESV it is translated into the English words, foolishness; foolishly; and, folly. For our reading of this final verse in chapter five, we can see the idea of foolishness, perhaps in thoughtless words.
WISDOM
Q – what question could I ask myself today that will change my destiny?
STRENGTHS THOUGHT: Input, is a beautiful Strategic Thinking Strength, you ask the right questions so you can solve the right problems. Your curiosity thrives on thoroughness and you will ask the right questions at the right moment. Be careful not to get caught up in the details and so miss the development. Once you have the information, be sure to act on it.
Allan’s Unauthorised Version – [he dies before he dies because he refuses to learn or be corrected, and so in his stubborn willfulness to do things his own way, without regards for one word God has uttered, he is far from the path to life and still going in the wrong direction, until he literally dies]
PRAYER: Father, thank you for today. Help me to hold discipline close to my heart and to act on the promptings of the Holy Spirit.
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