Under Gods Command
Proverbs 9:06 Leave your simple ways and you will live; walk in the way of understanding.
Precious advice! Reject foolish friends and influences! Life, a blessed and peaceful life pleasing God and men, depends on it. Get away from all fools. Go in the way – choose the lifestyle – of understanding. Pursue a holy and righteous life, and let no one hinder or tempt you in any other direction. Your survival, and your family’s, is at stake. Foolish friends will take you down.
The single best thing you can do for yourself is to cut off fools and their evil influence. Bad company will drag you down and destroy your life, no matter how strong you think you are. If you want to live, really live, get away from fools, and choose a godly life of wisdom and understanding.
It is a simple concept – foolish influences corrupt good manners (I Cor 15:33). Yet Paul had to warn, “Be not deceived.” Your heart, agreeing with Satan to destroy you, will justify foolish influences. He whispers, “They will not affect you,” or, “You should not be unfriendly,” or, “Everyone is doing it, and they’re okay,” or worst of all, “You might influence them for good.” You may be trying to justify foolish influences at this moment!
Have you rejected all fools in your neighborhood, in the schools for your children, in your profession or employment, in your church, and in your and your wife’s social contacts? Any friend or influence not equal to or greater in holiness and wisdom than yourself will eventually drag you down to their level. Guaranteed! Do not lie to yourself!
How do you choose friends? David chose them this way: “I am a companion of all them that fear thee, and of them that keep thy precepts” (Ps 119:63). I will not know a wicked person” (Ps 101:4). He was very selective in his friends. Are you? Of course, you will have fewer friends this way, but that saves time and bother! Who needs extra friends, especially when they are destroying you!
The influence of the foolish can be subtle. Foolish friends apparently getting away with sin dull your hatred for it; their lack of spiritual conversation represses yours; and their cheerful encouragement for you to join them creates a strong temptation. Television presentations of a godless and carnal lifestyle numb your sensitivity to spiritual thinking and holy living. The powerful audio-video glorification of sin excites your lusts horribly.
What about your church? Most churches today use folly to keep the children, soothe the unregenerate, and increase attendance and cash flow. Is every word from the pulpit, and every activity of the church, defendable by Scripture alone? If it is not, then you are choosing folly even in your religion. Evil communications corrupt good manners there as well as anywhere (I Cor 15:33). Measured by an effeminate manual from denominational headquarters, your church may pass as wise. But if by the Word of God, it well may not!
Parent, would you let your child spend the night with a serial child molester and murderer? You resent even the question! But Lady Wisdom right here warns you that foolish influences will destroy their lives. Do you see the danger? Their souls are far more important than their bodies! How can you let them choose their own friends, listen to their own music, select their own spouse, or have a television in their room?
The danger is clear! The fork in the road is right before you! To the left is the wide-open gate that leads to hell. Everyone else is entering that gate with laughter and a great community spirit – and they call for you to travel with them. To the right is a very restrictive and confining gate that leads to life. Hardly anyone at all is entering that gate, and they seem unusually sober and grave about it. Run for it, reader! And run through it!
Your heart is desperately wicked and lies to you more than you know (Jer 17:9). Without God’s grace and diligent care, you will default to folly and sin. But exposing yourself to folly in any form is certain disaster. It will take you down! Instead, “Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof” (Rom 13:14). Pure religion before God is to keep yourself unspotted from the world (Jas 1:27).
Under Gods command 