Proverbs 6:20-24
My son, keep your father's command and do not forsake your mother's teaching. 21 Bind them always on your heart; fasten them around your neck. 22 When you walk, they will guide you; when you sleep, they will watch over you; when you awake, they will speak to you. 23 For this command is a lamp, this teaching is a light, and correction and instruction are the way to life, 24 keeping you from your neighbor's wife, from the smooth talk of a wayward woman.
This past Friday was the beginning of the third season for bear hunting here in Michigan. It is the hardest season to take a bear as they have been hunted for two weeks by others and they are generally already attracted to food sources such as corn fields and apple trees in the woods. If you don't have property to hunt with some of these food sources, your chances of success are pretty low.
In order to overcome these low odds it is necessary to find a way to attract the bears to your area. Generally most hunters use the sweetest smelling baits they can find with the strongest, sweetest smelling aromas possible. Most bears cant resist something that has a strong sweet smell.
My grandfather, 70 years ago, used to put a little honey in an old coffee can and light a fire under it. As the honey warmed the smell would waft out of the can and then when the honey would begin to burn it would send a huge white cloud through the woods of very sweet pungent smoke.
Smells like, honey, maple syrup, vanilla, bacon and others are hard for bears to stay away from and often when they get a whiff of these scents they lose all common sense and come headlong into a dangerous situation for them.
This same thing often happens to people... We desire something so much it doesn't mater what the danger is, we are going to do whatever it takes to get it. We ignore the warnings and make decisions based on our desires instead of our sense of right and wrong.
King David is a prime example of this very thing. He saw a beautiful woman bathing and allowed his desire for her to override his morality. To David, his actions on that fateful night seemed trivial, just a momentary pause in an otherwise steadfast life. The consequences, however, were devastating, not just for David, or for Uriah, but also for David's family and the entire nation. The whole nation paid a high price for David's moral failure .
In 2 Samuel 12:14, the prophet Nathan passes the bad news on to David of what will happen because he has given in to the "call of sin".
Verse 14 "But because by doing this you have shown utter contempt for the Lord, the son born to you will die."
Like the bear that sometimes loses all his inhibitions when he smells something sweet , we will all pay a high price if and when we give in to temptation. When the sweet temptations come we should instead focus on our relationship with God and run from the call of temptation. Like Joseph ran from Potiphar's wife when tempted in Genesis 39, we must flee the temptation of sin.
Proverbs 14:12, There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death.
FLEE THE SWEET SMELL OF TEMPTATION
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