Avoid It At All Costs

“Enter not into the path of the wicked, and go not in the way of evil men. Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away.” (Pr 4:14-15 AV)

These two verses and the verses following are great passages for young men to memorize.  Solomon gives a wonderous road path for practical righteous living.  The first step is above.  Simple.  Just stay out of the areas of life where sin is easy.  The vast majority of our problems could be avoided if we would simply avoid being at the wrong place or wrong time.  Sin is all around us.  Sometimes, we invite it in.  The biggest threat we have is the TV.  Now that it is pride month; or should we say Sodom and Gomorrah month; the TV should probably stay off.  The commercials are replete with all sorts of wickedness.  We get ourselves into trouble by having things on the tube that would offend God.  Don’t go by their way.  The advice that follows these two verses are a continuing thought.  A focused and purposeful life will also keep the saint out of a lot of trouble.  What we do want to meditate on this morning are those areas of life where we could avoid temptation that would eventually lead to sin.

The LORD blessed us with plane tickets to see my family in Tennessee.  With Lisa’s cancer, driving anywhere more than just a few hours makes it a journey.  What could normally be done in one day would have taken two and a half.  I have not been to an airport in a very long time.  It is a fishbowl of human behavior both good and bad.  It astounds me how immodest most people dress today.  From the guy who wore an untucked t-shirt three sizes too small and had his belly sticking out, the to parade of yoga pants and tight shirts, it is enough to pray the LORD might temporarily blind me.  I couldn’t help being where I was.  There was only one way to get on my plane and that was around thousands of people who did not know the LORD nor lived as though they did.  One woman knew what she had and was not afraid of showing it off.   The other day we went to the zoo.  There was a GenReb (gender rebellious.  I refuse to call them trannies because it is physically impossible to transition from one gender to the next) who thought he had to display to the entire world his rebellion.  Dressed in a slitted dress that exposed his undergarments, it was clear we had to get the grandkids out of there.  It is all around us.  The question is, knowing this, how much effort do we take to avoid it?

My fear is sin will become so commonplace that the saints do not take the effort to avoid it.  We can act fatalistic as though we cannot get away from it so we don’t even try.  But that is not the case.  There are many things we can do.  With the woman at the airport, the key was to look outside at the plane traffic as opposed to the parade of vain sex appeal constantly passing before me.  The zoo was a matter of knowing the general whereabouts of the pervert and being at a different part of the zoo.  The most effective of all measures is prayer.  Being in constant prayer keeps the mind and eyes where they belong.  We need to have a spiritual escape hatch.  A place we can run to out of the temptation that surrounds us.  We need a resolve to take a long way around rather than pass right through the evil that is so pervasive.  So, let us make a covenant with our souls that no matter what, we will strive to remove as much temptation as possible.  Control the things we can leave to the LORD those things we cannot.  We owe it to the Savior.