Foolishness' Call and How to Discern it - Part 2 - Proverbs 9:14

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!