Good Morning Everyone,
Our theme for this month: “Wisdom from Proverbs”
Our Bible verse for today: “My son, if sinners entice you, don’t be persuaded.” Proverbs 1:10 (HCSB)
Our thought for today: “Don’t be fooled.”
Sin is often enticing. That’s why people fall into it. The forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden looked pretty tasty to Eve. The cute and flirty young secretary is alluring to the middle-aged executive with a wife and three kids. The numbing effect of the alcohol is inviting and soothing to the lonely woman seeking to fill the emptiness in her life.
Our culture is a powerful magnet of sinful enticement too. Whether we’re talking about sexual promiscuity, conspicuous consumption, or politically correct ideology, people of all ages can feel great cultural pressure to just go along so they can get along.
One of the greatest challenges to the people of God in our day is that the understanding of good and evil, righteousness and unrighteousness has been stood on its head. What used to be universally accepted as wrong and sinful is now promoted as normal, natural, and good. And standards of morality and integrity that used to be widely acknowledged as righteous and good are now portrayed as narrow-minded and intolerant.
This is evidence of Satan doing his best to confuse and deceive people. He takes what is evil and dresses it up to appear good, and he takes what is good and tries to make it look bad. 2 Corinthians 11:14-15 says, “For Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no great thing if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness.”
As the people of God who are wise in the ways of God, we must be able to recognize Satan’s deceitful lies and then stand against them. The way we do that is we compare everything to what the Bible says. God’s standards of right and wrong, righteousness and evil are clearly outlined for us in Scripture. The Bible is the plumb-line against which everything else is compared and measured.
Federal agents who specialize in spotting counterfeit money never study counterfeit money. They only study the real thing. But they know the real money so well that they can immediately spot the counterfeit bills when they are placed before them. That needs to be true of us with respect to Biblical standards. We must know them so well that Satan’s lies, even when dressed up in seemingly righteous clothes, are immediately exposed for the sinful and evil things they are.
In Proverbs 1:10 Solomon warns us to be wise to the point that we cannot be fooled or led astray. We must make up our minds that we will not allow ourselves to be enticed or persuaded by evil people or evil ideas. Our study of the wisdom from Proverbs will help us to be wise in the ways of God so that we cannot be fooled by Satan.
God Bless,
Pastor Jim
Oak Hill Baptist Church 