HOW TO BE ON GUARD

 How can we guard ourselves? Consider what we can learn from the young man discussed in Proverbs chapter 7. He committed sexual immorality with an immoral woman. Verse 22 tells us that the young man went after her "suddenly." But as the preceding verses show, he had taken several steps before that gradually led him to sin.

What led him to his sin? First, in the evening, he "passed along the street near [the immoral woman's] corner." Then, he marched toward her house. (Read Proverbs 7:8, 9.) Next, when he saw the woman, he did not turn away. Instead, he accepted her kiss and listened as she spoke of the communion sacrifices she had offered, perhaps in an attempt to make him thing that she was not a bad person. (Read Proverbs 7:13, 14, 21.) Had the young man avoided the dangers that led up to sin, he would have guarded himself from the temptations and from sin.

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