She sits at the doorway of her house, On a seat by the high places of the city, Proverbs 9:14

Where do we find foolishness calling to us - offering us an invitation to partake of her harmful food?  We read here that she is sitting at the doorway of her house.  If we remember the counsel of Psalm 1, this is not a good thing.  Psalm 1 counsels us, "Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the path of the sinners, not set in the seat of scoffers."  This woman, folly, is among the scorners - those who scoff at the things of God and prefer a self-directed life rather than a life directed by the Spirit and the Word. 

We get an idea that Folly is a lazy woman from this as well.  The wise woman of Proverbs 31 is not often sitting at the doorway of her own home calling out to others - but rather is working hard for her family.  Those who call to us from sedentary lifestyles are probably calling us to a life that lacks diligence and hard work.  This will not end well for us if we listen.  Since this passage is directed to sons by their father, we would do well to consider our own society in this.  One thing that I believe is robbing us of hours of our lives is our penchant for entertainment and games.  Consider the hours daily devoted to television, movies, online gaming, and gaming on consoles like Xbox and other video outlets.  I've seen young men waste not just hours, but days wanting to master games.  I've known of young men who have wasted the better part of their teenage and young adult years laboring to be the best and have the highest score on these games.  And since they produce new ones as well as update old ones - a young man can waste 10-15 years of his life doing little more than exercising his thumbs as his mind is numbed to the real world around him.  Indeed foolishness calls to us from the lazy position of staying in the doorway of her home. 

The second place we see Folly is on a seat by the high places of the city.  This is an interesting location because it corresponds to places of false worship.  God warned about worshipping in the "high places" because they thought due to the height of the place they were closer to God.  The problem with the "high place" worship, is that it was usually not guided by the Old Testament Law.  They would worship various deities there - and often would mix the worship of Jehovah with these false deities.  Often the high place would involve a grove of trees for privacy - but these would also be used for the purpose of hiding the immorality and ungodly sexual practices that would happen there.  Therefore God commanded the people to stay away from such places - and worship Him at the temple He established or the Tabernacle when the temple was not yet built.  This would ensure that God's priests would be there to guide their worship so that it would be scriptural.

The "high places" of this present evil age are where Folly calls to us.  These places do not honor God's Word or a proper worship of Him.  They are filled with false teaching and errant theology.  Folly sits there and calls to us to turn from the Word and from a lifestyle of worshipping God aright.  Instead we are called to embrace a far more supposedly tolerant religious and moral life.  God is presented as mean and oppressive in such places.  We will find later in this passage that the counsel Folly gives is dangerous because it calls us to abandon God's ways and embrace worldly ones. 

When we look at Folly's call we see that where this call is issued should give us pause to listen.  Bad company will corrupt good morals - and often the place where such counsel is given should serve as a severe warning to us to turn away from it before it is uttered.  A wise man notices where ungodly counsel congregates and tends to avoid such places - unless he or she is going to witness to them there.  As the fools sit in places of laziness and ungodly doctrine offering their advice there - we should prefer to be in places where we know godly men and women meet - and where the Word of God is honored and God is worshipped in Spirit and truth!

To deliver you from the way of evil, From the man who speaks perverse things; From those who leave the paths of uprightness To walk in the ways of darkness; Who delight in doing evil And rejoice in the perversity of evil; Whose paths are crooked, And who are devious in their ways; Proverbs 2:12-15 

Why is wisdom needed?  Well for many in the modern mindset, maybe it isn't.  They contend that the basic nature of man is good.  Yet the very reason for wisdom is the fact that evil exists.  But we are not being told about evil in theory - we are being told here that evil men exist.  The battle with evil in theory is one only in our minds - but a battle with evil that actually involves evil men - that is another story altogether.  

The first thing we learn is that there is a "way of evil" that exists in our world.  We are facing those who have developed lifestyles that embrace evil.  The facts are in - and those facts clearly deliniate for us that man is fallen.  The facts also indicate that being fallen, man has developed a whole way of life that is contrary to the will of God.  If we are not careful and wise - we will find ourselves following that path - that way of evil.  According to Solomon, we need to be delivered from the way of evil.  Maybe this is why we hear John telling us, "Do not love the world or the things of the world, if anyone loves the world the love of the Father is not in him."  

The way we are drawn into this way of evil is by men who speak perverse things.  This perverse speech involves saying things that distort and deviate from what God has said and what God wants.  It is deceptive, corrupt speaking that either denies the Word or twists it until it suits our fallen appetites.  That's why we need wisdom and discretion - the ability to distinguish between things godly and ungodly.  We need to know when an "evil man" is trying to decieve us and lead us astray.

The evil man leave the paths of uprightness to walk in their darkness.  Here it is again - the fact that there is an entire walk and path that is ungodly.  But we also learn that there is a corresponding walk that is upright and godly.  The evil man leaves God's ways and chooses those that are dark instead.  We learn again from John that the ungodly hate the light and does not come to the light.  That is the way of the evil man.  That is also why we need wisdom and understanding - to remind us that fellowship with the evil man means fellowship with darkness.  It seems that God is trying to get us to see that there is a light/darkness - good/evil - godly/ungodly situation in life.  

The evil man leave the paths of uprightness to walk in their darkness.  Here it is again - the fact that there is an entire walk and path that is ungodly.  But we also learn that there is a corresponding walk that is upright and godly.  The evil man leaves God's ways and chooses those that are dark instead.  We learn again from John that the ungodly hate the light and does not come to the light.  That is the way of the evil man.  That is also why we need wisdom and understanding - to remind us that fellowship with the evil man means fellowship with darkness.  It seems that God is trying to get us to see that there is a light/darkness - good/evil - godly/ungodly situation in life. 

Worldly wisdom equates the best of thinking and acting to mankind.  That is why they are shocked with evil rears its head.  They want to think the best of man - when the truth is man IS capable of the worst attrocities.  Proverbs tells us that there are those men who "delight in doing evil and rejoice in perversity."  We almost shrink from these statements - yet that is what is said here.

If there has been a "fall" of mankind into sin that has corrupted them utterly - then it really isn't that much of a stretch that man rejoices in evil and perversity.  To fallen man - evil is good and good is evil.  Isn't that what we see today?  In our world evil is called good and good evil.  They consider the things of God strange and His commandments as burdensome.  They see freedom as bondage and their current state of bondage as freedom.  Delight in doing evil then becomes the norm - and it should not be all that strange to see them devoting entire programs on television and articles in writing to rejoice in how they pervert the straight paths of God.  

Look at the sexual revolution of the 60's as an example.  The morals of the past were thrown off (possibly the biggest lie of that period was to deny that such things had always been happening - just that they were done far more secretly).  But I think that the shock was not that morals were cast aside, but that now those actin immorally were rejoicing openly in their perversity.  The movement was not just a desire to set aside what is right - it was a rejoicing in what heretofore was considered evil.  What is even more amazing to me is that several generations of this behavior has led to soceity adopting such actions as normal - and now even certain segments of soceity say we should rejoice in evil.  NOW we get why we need to cry out to God for wisdom, discretion, and knowledge to escape such a fate.

The final statement about the way of evil is that their direction in life becomes like their heart.  Their paths (again the word for lifestyle) are crooked.  Crooked is the Hebrew word 'iqqesh'.  It means something that is morally, religiously, and socially perverted.  This perversity comes from the source of an evil, deceitful, perverse heart.  No longer are certain actions perverted - but the whole direction and path of their life runs counter to the truth of God.

Their lifestyle is finally described as being devious.  This is the last straw.  It describes a person who has followed their perverse and wicked ways to the point where they now despise and reject God's ways.  They find them abhorant.  What is worse is that they are utterly blind to their condition.

What we have described for us is the natural degradation of fallen men.  They may begin with the remnants of God's image within them - but as they continue in their perversity they soon scald their conscience and harden it to the point where they no longer feel any shame in their sin.  By the way, this is exactly what is taught to us in Romans chapter one.  We learn that man begins with denying God and being ungrateful, but ends with those who cheer on the wickedness of man - preferring their own perversity to anything God has to offer.  In light of such an ignoble end - we see why Solomon impresses on his son the importance of crying out to God for wisdom and understanding.  There is too much at stake here to live and let live.  The fall of man guarantees that what starts as a mere snowflake will become a massive ball of snow that destroys all in its path.  May such a vision of the destrutive power of our core perverseness motivate us to a passionate cry for God's wisdom and a desperate search for His ways and paths.