Day Five

Proverbs 5:14 (Dissected and Defined):
I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly.

Daily Devo Paraphrase:This verse is the mourning lamentations of one who has yielded to temptation and whose life has been destroyed because of it.

May we first review the two previous verses.  “I hated instruction, and my heart (meditator) despised reproof; And have not obeyed the voice of my teachers…” Verse 12 identifies how he ended up in mourning.  His meditator did not yield to the internal persuasion of reproof nor listen to his God-ordained leaders.

God directs through the outside pressure of God-ordained authority, and His direction will always be matched through the internal persuasion of the Spirit.  Solomon teaches us that the end of rebelling to these promptings is the remorse painted for us in 5:14.

You can almost see the tears streaming down this man’s cheek as he realizes where his destination has taken him.  He is almost in all evil.  That means he is not all evil yet, but he is almost there.  He has become someone he never thought he would be and done things he never thought he’d do.
As he lifts his eyes, he can look back and see the fork in the road where he once stood, oh, so many years ago.  He can remember the warnings of his ordained authority.  He can remember the sharp promptings of the Spirit.

Now, it is as if he sees us standing there right now, contemplating our road of choice.  If we are perceptive, we will be able to hear his remorseful cry?  “Turn away from here!  Yield to the Spirit!  Follow authority!”If you do not yield to God-ordained, outside pressure to turn toward the way of right, you will find yourself weeping with the wrong crowd.

We tend to believe that we can travel where we want and still find our way on the path to progress.  But, it is not true.  If we do not change the way we think, we will never change the way we’re going.
Forward progress is based on following a Formal Process!