Admonition to the Young
Joseph Hay, M.A. Proverbs 1:10-19 My son, if sinners entice you, consent you not.… I. WHO THEY ARE AGAINST WHOSE ENTICEMENTS THE YOUNG ARE TO BE ON THEIR GUARD. 1. Such as have abandoned themselves to vice and crime. The gratification of devils is to have men as sinful and miserable as they are. 2. Those who, however moral in the eye of men, are yet destitute of godliness. It has always been the policy of the enemy of souls to lead men into the depths of iniquity by little and little. The drunkard, for example, is as sober, enlightened, industrious, respected in society, beloved in his own family as any other when Satan first approaches him. Now, were the destroyer of man at once to show to this individual the full picture of that beastliness and misery to which he intended soon to reduce him, there would still be a sufficiency of moral courage, of self-preservation, of human feeling in him to cause him to flee even with horror and with tears from the snare. But Satan is too cunning and too intent upon success. He has patience in mischief, and can exercise it long in order to gain a mighty end. 3. Those especially who are acquaintances or companions. The companionship of the young is usually formed by accidental circumstances, without thought or discrimination. Some become companions at school, some by neighbourhood, some by relationship, some by serving under the same master, or working in the same establishment. 4. Those also who are strangers. Alas! such is the moral condition of man that we must live in this world in a state of constant suspicion. It was by listening to a stranger that our first mother was deceived; and in the same way was the man of God, who had been sent from Judah to denounce the wrath of Jehovah against Jeroboam and his idolatrous altar at Bethel, betrayed into an act of fatal disobedience. II. THE NATURE OF THE ENTICEMENTS AGAINST WHICH THE YOUNG ARE HERE WARNED. 1. Sinners will entice them by their example. 2. Sinners will entice them by holding out false hopes and representations of enjoyment in the courses to which they allure them. 3. By misrepresenting or denying the truth of God. 4. By ridiculing their moral fears. 5. By appealing to the multitudes. We naturally hate singularity, and in nothing so much as in religion. 6. By flattering kindness and attention. 7. By pretensions to religion. III. ILLUSTRATE AND ENFORCE THE ADMONITION, "CONSENT THOU NOT." 1. It is only with their own consent that the young can be led astray. The guilt as well as the bitter consequences of their yielding to sin will rest with themselves. 2. To be ready to refuse their consent to the enticements of sinners, their hearts must be well established in regard to both the ways of sin and the ways of righteousness. 3. The young are to cherish in their minds a suspicion and terror of all who would entice them to sin. 4. Let them carry about with them habitually a fear of God and a sense of His presence. 5. Let them consider the extreme difficulty of entering into life. Instead of tampering with sin, and exposing ourselves to its snares, we would have enough ado to gain heaven though no such allurements lay in our path. 6. Let them ponder much and deeply the misery of those who are pursuing the pleasures of sin. 7. Let them keep steadily before their minds the terrors of the wrath that is to come. 8. Let them now give their consent to the invitations of Christ. (Joseph Hay, M.A.) Parallel Verses KJV: My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not. WEB: My son, if sinners entice you, don't consent.