Mar 9 - Today from Proverbs 9 we look at verse 17
"Stolen water is sweet; food eaten in secret is delicious."
These are the alluring words of the woman Folly. Folly is the antithesis of Wisdom. Wisdom seeks to see life undistorted by the effects of sin. Folly seeks to live life as seen through the distortion of sin. The tragedy of the simple, those who court folly, is that they cannot (or will not) foresee the results of sin. Thus, they ever move forward towards the inevitable conclusion of such a life - death.
"But don't we all die? Don't we all end up in the grave sooner or later?"
Only the body goes to the grave. Wisdom is the ability to see that this organic lump of various earthly minerals combined with a huge amount of water, which we call our body, could not possibly reason, show emotions or enter into relationships with other similar bodies apart from something quite supernatural. The body is the organic home of something far more complex, something that does not stay confined to the earthly grave in which the worn out or defunct body is buried. Folly would have us believe that the best pleasures to be had in life are found in gratifying the cravings of this body in which we live. Wisdom tells us that the greatest pleasures to be had in life are discovering the One who gives us life. You've got to admit, wisdom makes much more sense.
Why is stolen water so sweet? And what makes food more delicious when eaten in secret? I believe that these are allegorical, just like the food and wine offered by Wisdom in verse five. In John chapter five Jesus told the woman at the well that whoever drinks of the water He offers will never thirst again. Rather, it will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life. Eternal life isn't something to be anticipated after our body rests in a cold grave. Eternal life is contained in Christ, and we can experience it now. We have eternal life in Christ Jesus. There is nothing further to thirst after. Stolen water, on the other hand, is the temporary gratification of sin, and promises to be its own reward. But the foolish victim will thirst again. The promise of food eaten in secret is a hollow promise. Even the darkness is light to God, and one day every unrighteous act will be exposed unless confessed and covered by the blood of Jesus.
Folly makes a lot of flashy noise, offering pleasures that never live up to her hype. Yet the simple continue to listen to her, believing that somehow they will one day be fulfilled. The truth is, they will never be fulfilled, and the simple will discover what true death is - even beyond the grave. To exist apart from Christ is to exist apart from Life itself. In the fifth chapter of 2 Corinthians Paul tells us as believers that one day we will move out of this temporary dwelling which we intimately know as our body, and we will move into a new residence. A residence that will not age or become corrupted. We will have a new body, but we will not have a new life. We have Him now. We have eternal life in Christ. There is no other way.
"I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
-Jesus, John 14:6
Since Nov 08
About Me
- Ken
- While mentor-ing a couple of young men late in the year 2001 , I told them that if they agreed to read a chapter of Proverbs each week-day as a part of their devotions, I would choose one verse from the chapter and share a meditation by email. They agreed. I continued to write the meditations at my desk in my home for the next two and a half years. They began to forward them to their friends and I received requests from those friends to be placed on the email list. My personal email bundle was to about eighty people. Many of those people forwarded them to friends all over the country – and some over the world. Only the Lord knows how extensive the writings traveled. I am not a professional writer, and each meditation was spun off in a relatively short period of time during my own personal devotions in the morning. In April of 2004 I assembled 366 of the meditations into a calendar year. As I now bring up the Proverb of the Day to send on to my friends, I am surprised at how fresh each of them is to my own heart – and often how they speak to me in a completely different way than when I first wrote them. . . . . Ken Sweers
2 comments:
how interesting, I am preaching on the dry bones of ezekial and the resurrection of Lazarus. thank you.
about stolen water, it always seems to me the best of sleep is during the day when it is stolen, or maybe that shoplifting after the alarm goes off and I take the next ten or so. Never thought about stolen sleep being like stolen water till today.
Pastor WaynO
Wow. What a unique insight!
I agree that stolen sleep is sweet - particulary at my age =)
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