Self-made Weaklings

“For she hath cast down many wounded: yea, many strong men have been slain by her.” (Pr 7:26 AV)

The ‘her’ here is the adulterous or strange woman.  The ‘she’ is the woman who is aggressively making collateral damage from her indiscretions.  This woman of the bible stands on the street corner, enticing young men to come in unto her.  Sometimes, she is married.  Other times, she is not.  This strange woman uses her words and wares to seduce the undisciplined and the impulsive.  She takes advantage of the weakness of men to her own profit of pleasure.  The results are many.  We want to focus on one, and only one, this morning.  Many strong men have been slain by her.  This does not necessarily mean directly slain by her.  In a moment of weakness, a strong man becoming weak, is often brought down to a permanent place of weakness.  As the Spirit directed my meditation this morning, I could not help by make a correlation between the sad state of leadership in our government, communities, homes, and churches because the men of these institutions have succumbed to the strange woman.

But how are we seduced by the strange woman?  We have never cheated on our spouses.  We have never ever been involved in premarital intimacy.  We have never, ever, bought or looked at pornographic magazines.  We don’t go to the movies.  How is it the strange woman has made me weak?  Our street corners have been replaced by our TVs and computers.  Our flirtatious conversation has been replaced by private chat rooms.  The enticing of the strange woman has been replaced by advertisements on the cover of magazines, billboards, and commercials.  I will give you one glaring example.  I have read the half-time show of the Super Bowl was highly sexualized.  With two female singers barely dressed, pole dancing as someone in the adult entertainment industry would do, and touching them selves in a way that should never be done in private or public.  The outrage is understandable.  The outrage is predictable.  But as one writer observed, the outrage is meaningless as long as 100 million viewers still tune in.  What has this done?  This has made mice out of men.  We melt at the sight of a strange woman whether in the flesh or on the screen.  We cannot say no.  No wonder there is a vacuum of effective leadership.  We cannot be disciplined enough to say no to the basest of all temptations, how can we lead our nation, community, home or church?

Like Sampson of old, we are enticed by a Delilah.  We get weak-kneed.  We cannot look a strange woman in the face and deal with her as a simple human soul.  She is a temptress who beguiles us into giving up the secret to our strength.  It is a shame too man of us men have shrunk to the temptation of the strange woman.  And, she knows it!  Have you ever noticed how many entertainment sources now feature strong willed woman who are the heroes while the defeated villain is a man?  It is even getting so bad that role models of young ladies today are older ladies who make a living flaunting their physic and making an open show of their wares.  It is blatant.  They call it empowering.  It is not.  It is debasing.  For both the women and the men.  Men, if we are to be the leaders of today, we need to learn how to say ‘no’ to the strange woman.  We need to not even go there!  We need to celebrate our ladies who have learned their role according to the word of God and hold them up as role models.  No one likes to be tickled.  We lose our strength.  This is far more serious and can lead to permanent loss of strength.  Let us say ‘no’ for the sake of our nation, communities, homes, and churches.  But most of all, for the glory of God and His pleasure.