“So now, sons, listen to me, and don’t turn away from the words from my mouth. Keep your way far from her. Don’t go near the door of her house. Otherwise, you will give up your vitality to others and your years to someone cruel; strangers will drain your resources, and your hard-earned pay will end up in a foreigner’s house. At the end of your life, you will lament when your physical body has been consumed, and you will say, ‘How I hated discipline, and how my heart despised correction. I didn’t obey my teachers or listen closely to my instructors. I am on the verge of complete ruin before the entire community.’” (Proverbs‬ ‭5‬:‭7‬-‭14‬ ‭CSB‬‬ – Read the chapter)

When I was in college I read a book that profoundly shaped my understanding of sin. It’s called The Smell of Sin and the Fresh Air of Grace, by Don Everts. In the book he talked about several of the false ways that sin presents itself in order to capture our attention and devotion. One of those is that sin is enjoyable. Sin is often seductive. It is alluring. It draws us in with promises to satisfy all of our wants and desires. And as much as that is a lie of the highest order, we fall for it over and over and over again. If we buy those lines we will soon discover the trap we have fallen into. Let’s reflect on this with Solomon as he continues his warning against buying into sin’s seductions here.

One of the more infamous observations the great Reformer, Martin Luther, made about sin is that if we are going to sin, we should sin boldly. One of my seminary professors told us that if we are sinning and it doesn’t feel good, then we aren’t doing it right. Those perhaps sound like odd statements, especially given their sources, but that doesn’t make them any less true.

The whole deal with sin is that it takes us from the path of life and goodness and freedom and sets us on a path that leads to nowhere but death and destruction. Who in their right mind would leave a path that is taking them to a good place, and willingly start walking a path that leads to their harm? The answer is no one. No one, that is, unless this other path was designed to look like it was taking you to a better end than the original path. It could also be disguised to look like it was taking you to that same end as the good path but by an easier route.

In order to achieve this deceptive goal, sin can’t look like what it really is. It has to dress itself up to look entirely more alluring than that Unfortunately, our enemy is really good at taking what is beautiful and layering it over what is ugly and dead to create a trap for us, a trap we have shown ourselves to be remarkably obtuse about recognizing and stumbling into, often willingly. When it comes to sin, we get stuck on stupid a lot.

Take the path into sexual sin that Solomon is talking about here, has already talked about before, and will yet talk about again. Like before, he’s practically begging us not to traipse down that path. “So now, sons [and daughters], listen to me, and don’t turn away from the words from my mouth. Keep your way far from her. Don’t go near the door of her house.” Don’t even flirt with that path. Don’t give it a second glance when you come upon it. Just keep walking on the path of righteousness.

It doesn’t matter how hard the path of righteousness seems at the moment – and there are times it seems very hard – this other path is not going to bring any kind of lasting relief. It will seem like it is going to grant you a temporary reprieve. It may even serve to distract you for a moment from the challenges of righteousness. But the distraction won’t last. The reprieve won’t take away the challenge of righteousness that will still be there waiting for you. Now you’ll just have another, harder challenge to deal with in addition to that one.

Actually, it’s worse than that. If you start tiptoeing down this path of sexual sin, it will eventually lead to your complete and total ruin. That’s what Solomon goes on to point out here. Don’t walk that path. “Otherwise, you will give up your vitality to others and your years to someone cruel.” The person who is willing to take part in drawing you in to sexual sin doesn’t love you. They don’t want the best for you. They are at best selfishly using you for their own perceived gain (it won’t be gain to them, of course, but they think it will and that’s why they’re doing it just like you are). And, when that perceived gain isn’t perceived anymore, they’ll leave you high and dry. They’ll drop you in the middle of the ocean and keep on sailing. And you’ll be the worse for it.

“Strangers will drain your resources, and your hard-earned pay will end up in a foreigner’s house.” Sin will eventually bankrupt you. Yes, it can make you rich in the short-term, but that wealth won’t last. There are some who seem to manage to hold onto it as long as they live in this life, but not most. And you’re probably not going to be the exception to that. Or how about the temptation to gambling that is increasingly becoming a major issue across our culture right now after years of lying pretty much dormant thanks to a culture-wide recognition that it is a sinful habit. Strangers will indeed drain your resources in that case.

And, by the end of your life, walking a path of sin – any kind of sin – will leave your life in shambles. You’ll be full of regret and have nothing to show for all your forays down this deadly path. “At the end of your life, you will lament when your physical body has been consumed, and you will say, ‘How I hated discipline, and how my heart despised correction. I didn’t obey my teachers or listen closely to my instructors. I am on the verse of complete ruin before the entire community.'”

There’s just nothing good to be found by walking this path. It may look good. It may look enticing. In fact, it will look like both of those things. But there is no life to be found down that way no matter how hard it works to convince you otherwise. Don’t believe things that aren’t true. And that there is life to be found in sin isn’t true. Ever. At all. Stick with the path of life. It won’t always be the easiest path, but it will always, eventually, lead you to where you most want to be.