Watch Your Step!

Chapter One
Running with the Wrong Crowd

Aside from rejecting God’s offer of salvation, running with the wrong crowd is the most dangerous of all the pitfalls of life, because it is often the gateway that leads to all the other pitfalls.
The context for the opening chapter of Proverbs is that of a father warning his children about the dangers lurking in the Palestinian countryside. In that day, people doing evil things were everywhere, trying to take advantage of unsuspecting travelers. This is probably one of the harshest realities that parents and grandparents desperately desire for their children and grandchildren to understand; evil exists in our world, and simply ignoring this reality is extremely naive.
As a father, I think about the potential evil my children will encounter in their lives. Danger is everywhere and anywhere. The evil in the human heart causes our fellow humans to seek out their next victim to exploit in some way. In worst-case scenarios, that evil could lead them to violently rob and kill, or maybe seek to fulfill an evil desire to use an innocent victim for sadistic sexual pleasures.
Fuel evil desires for greedy gain with an insatiable addiction to drugs, alcohol, and sex, and it is easy to see why knowing who you are running with and obeying these biblical warnings are so critically important.
Just glance at the news and you instantly realize this threat is in places you would not think, such as public schools, parks, playgrounds, neighborhoods, businesses, and sadly, sometimes even churches.
The sooner you learn to recognize evil, the better chance you have of not becoming a victim of it. In 2010, my oldest son was an infantryman deployed to Afghanistan in the US Army. He told me that before deployment, they were trained to look for things that give evidence of the presence of a road side bomb or IED (improvised explosive device). After his deployment, he revealed to me one day in not so many words that when the first IED went off, hurtling a fellow soldier in the air, his platoon’s attitude about those threats immediately became much more serious. I am convinced that it was the combat experience of the non-commissioned officers who had multiple deployments in Iraq that brought my son safely home from a very dangerous place. Just like the lessons my son’s squad leaders gained from their experiences in Iraq on previous deployments, parents and grandparents have experiential knowledge to share from their conflicts of life.
This is the lesson that applies here: the sooner you learn to heed the danger signs around you and the warnings of those with experience in life, the better chance you will have to avoid tragedy, and better yet, prosper wherever you go. Never forget that sin always cost you. You will pay up, one way or another.
There are many hidden dangers around us in this life trying to entice us into sin. We are going to spend some time now looking at each area, beginning with our own sin nature.

The Enticement of Promised Pleasure
The very first time someone was enticed to sin was in the Garden of Eden. Eve did not heed the warning that God gave her; the enticement the serpent used convinced her she would know what God knew, and that God was withholding a great pleasure from her. However, once she gave in to the serpent’s enticement, it had a different outcome then what she had hoped for. The consequence of her giving in to the Serpent’s enticement was shame and fear. The cost of her sin was passed on to her first born child, Cain, who was also later enticed by sin.

If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it. (Genesis 4:7)

Eve’s first born son Cain was warned about the danger of not keeping his sinful nature under control. Enticed by sin, Cain didn’t obey God’s warning, and instead lost his temper and murdered his little brother Abel. Cain’s sin enticed him to rebel against God’s Word. Somewhere in his inner dialogue Cain justified acting out his anger towards God by killing his little brother.

My son, if sinners entice you, do not consent.
(Proverbs 1:10)

The Hebrew word for entice is the word pathah. The definition is: to be open, and be wide, to be simple, deceived, persuaded, gullible, or seduced.
Consider the definition of the Hebrew word for entice above. Throughout our culture the idea of being open minded is viewed as a positive character quality, and if a person is narrow-minded they are considered to have a negative character trait. However, this is precisely where gaining the wisdom skill of ormah is necessary to avoid the pitfalls of life. Always being open minded can lead us astray. We must learn to discern between when it is applicable - such as being open to receiving a Godly correction and when to hold our ground when we are being enticed to sin or approve of sin.
In the Joshua 1 passage, God encourages him to be strong and courageous. However, God also gave a direct commandment for him to obey, and that was for him not to turn to the left or right. In essence, God commanded him to stay narrow-minded on absolute truth and, in this case, the Law of Moses.

Only be strong and very courageous, that you may observe to do according to all the law which Moses My servant commanded you; do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may prosper wherever you go. (Joshua 1:7)

Being open, gullible, and easily seduced (enticed) is the gateway Satan uses to make us susceptible to all the pitfalls of life.