October 26

Oct 26 - Today from Proverbs 26 we look at verse 11
"As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly."

Why does a dog return to its vomit? Because it tasted so good the first time! Because the dog lacks the ability to reason why it vomited, it doesn’t realize that whatever caused him to be sick in the first place is likely to be in the contents of that very vomit. I know it’s a repulsive picture – but I think that is exactly what the Teacher is trying to accomplish here. I think he would have his students vividly remember how dangerous foolish behavior can be - and how utterly repulsive it is when the same behavior is repeated.
Because dogs are prone to eat spoiled things (I never understood a dog’s tastes), God designed the dog’s body with a protective reflex that expels that which would do it great harm and possibly kill the animal. (It’s better to be a little sick than dead.) Hopefully the experience is so traumatic that the dog will have lost his appetite for awhile and walk away. But sometimes the temptation is just too great, and the ignorant beast returns to that which is able to kill him and once again he ingests it. What a pitiful thing!
People have been endowed with a much greater ability to reason than have dogs. How much more pitiful when a person escapes from severe harm or death when they have acted foolishly, only to return once more and enter the same folly. Why not just be grateful and walk away? Because it tasted so good the first time! The fool never takes the time to reason that the consequences were a direct result of their self-serving, self-gratifying actions. It seems that often they never take the time to reason at all. They are driven by their senses, and when properly stimulated their first course of action is to satisfy whatever senses are in play.
Sometimes English can be a strange language. Take the word sense. It can mean having to do with the five senses of the flesh (hearing, sight, smell, touch, and taste). From this definition we get the word sensual. Or, sense can pertain to acquired perception (having good sense). From this definition we get the word sensible. Although God created us with both, the one that is to dominate is the second. The sensual fool is like the dog that returns to its vomit. The sensible man is the one who understands the poison in the vomit and is repulsed by it. Let us live as sensible men.