 | EncouragmentWho Influences You?Posted Tuesday, May 4th, 2010 and visited 237 times, 3 so far today by MInTheGap |
The people that you listen to, that you admire, hold sway over your opinions and worldview. They effect your judgment process and can influence the decisions that you make.
Proverbs 1:10-19 offers us a warning about people around us that may encourage us to sin:
My son, if sinners entice you, do not consent. If they say, “Come with us, let us lie in wait for blood; let us ambush the innocent without reason; like Sheol let us swallow them alive, and whole, like those who go down to the pit; we shall find all precious goods, we shall fill our houses with plunder; throw in your lot among us; we will all have one purse”— my son, do not walk in the way with them; hold back your foot from their paths, for their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed blood.
For in vain is a net spread in the sight of any bird, but these men lie in wait for their own blood; they set an ambush for their own lives. Such are the ways of everyone who is greedy for unjust gain; it takes away the life of its possessors.
((The Holy Bible : English standard version. 2001 (Pr 1:10–19). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.))
The Sinners
The first part of this passage assumes that we will know “the sinners” when we see them—and this is truth. Most often we know the groups of people that tend to be trouble. Often people are attracted to them because they’re “dangerous.” But most of the time we know those are bad news.
If there were any doubt, what the sinners ask us to be a part of should be a dead giveaway.
In the case of this passage, the plan is to find an innocent person and to kill them for their money and goods. The admonition of this passage is that there are consequences for this sin—you will not get away blameless. The comment at the end (“it takes away the life of its possessors”) could be interpreted two different ways.
If no one finds out that you were involved, you may get away with the crime, but you’ll always wonder if they’ll find out. You see, in ancient Israel, if a person was killed (murder or accidental) the next of kin had the right to hunt down the killer and put them to death. There was grace if you could get to the City of Refuge and convince them that it was accidental, but otherwise you were dead.
So you would either lose your life at the hand of the avenger, lose it because you’d be living in the City of Refuge until the death of the High Priest (or your own death), or you’d be on the run, always wondering if you’d get caught.
Applicable to Us
But how many times does someone proposition you and I to go commit murder? I would venture to say that it’s not very often. And yet I’m sure there are many times that we’ve been offered a chance to sin.
Whether it’s looking at something we shouldn’t, partaking of something we shouldn’t, stealing, cheating or something else, we have been tempted to be “part of the crowd” or to sin. I mean, at some level, accepting people jesting about the things of God could be called sin!
The writer of Proverb’s wisdom to us is not to let sinners entice us. We must stand apart and stand up for what’s right. Only then can we be safe.
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