Feet running to mischief

1) With the recent ice, doctors have seen an some additional patients.

2) People have lost their footing and ended up with sprained or broken body parts.

3) About a week ago I joined that club.

4) That experience serves as our introduction to a sermon that deals with the subject of feet.

5) In the book of Proverbs the words “feet” and “foot” occur 16 times.

6) If we look at the entire Bible, feet and foot occur more than 320 times.

7) God knows that our feet are an important part of our body.

8) With them feet we can run, walk, work, play games, and flee for safety.

9) God also says that our feet come with some responsibility.

10) In fact, God has given us a warning about our feet.

11) Just as some products have a warning label on them, so there is a warning related to our feet.

12) God He says He “hates” those who use their feet for evil.

13) The writer in Prov. 6 noted how some have feet that “run” to commit evil.

a) As we look at the list of things God hates, we can usually apply this information in several ways.

b) I hope to look at feet running to mischief from three different perspectives.

14) The first perspective will be today and it is related to one of the Old Testament prophets—Jonah.

15) Jonah was a man that God commissioned to preach to some Gentiles.

16) God said this prophet was to preach to the people of Nineveh.

17) Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian Empire; the Assyrians, of course, were Israel’s enemies.

a) Jonah understood God’s will, but he did not want to fulfill it.

b) He went to Tarshish, a place in southwest Spain (Jon. 1:3).

c) Jonah may not have literally run to the ship that took him away from Nineveh.

d) His actions are in essence what the writer of Prov. 6 described (feet that took him to mischief).

e) This prophet used some energy to avoid God’s will and Prov. 6 says that God “hates that.”

18) Jonah is someone who shows us how displeased God is with those whose feet run to evil.

19) According to Jon. 1:15, God’s prophet was put into the sea.

a) Let’s try to imagine what Jonah experienced.

b) Suppose someone took us up to one of the Great Lakes.

c) They transport us to a location that was literally miles away from land—too far to swim to shore.

d) They then turn to us, pick us up, and toss us into the water.

e) No life preserver is offered; there is no rope, no ladder—we are on our own.

20) This was be a frightening experience and we would begin to think of how we are going to die.

21) Would we eventually drown or would we fall prey to some creature in the water?

22) Jonah may have wished that he had drowned.

23) At the end of the first chapter we read of how he was swallowed by a “great fish.”

24) This experience did not last for a few minutes or a couple of hours.

25) It is described as “three days and three nights.”

a) Does God hate feet that are quick to engage in mischief?

b) The life of Jonah says He does.

c) God allowed one of His own people—one of His spokesmen—to be swallowed by a giant fish.

d) This experience would have been awful for a number of reasons, one of which was the smell.

e) 10 minutes inside a great fish would be more than enough for most of us.

f) Jonah is said to have been inside this creature for three days and three nights.

g) He surely did not have any food with him.

h) His movements while inside this fish must have been somewhat restricted.

i) There was no way to control the movement of the fish; getting to sleep would have been difficult.

j) This man was in an environment that can be summed up with the word “yucky.”

26) Over the years I have been with some people who fished.

27) I have observed how many people respond to that green, slimy alga that comes from ponds and rivers.

28) Some do not want to touch that slimy green stuff. They smack their hook on the water to get rid of it.

29) If this slime has to be touched, many wipe or quickly wash off their hands.

a) Jon. 2:5 says “the weeds wrapped around my head.”

b) This sounds like some type of seaweed came into contact with Jonah’s head or face.

c) Imagine having our body exposed to what takes place inside a fish’s mouth and digestive system.

d) Think of seaweed that has passed through a fish’s system wrapped being around our head.

e) It is a gross picture to consider, but this is what Jonah experienced.

f) He did something that God hates and God punished him.

WHEN WE LOOK AT WHAT JONAH DID WE FIND THAT WE CAN DO SOMETHING SIMILAR AND WE CAN DO THIS FAIRLY EASILY.

a) It is not hard for us to also have feet that are quick to engage in mischief.

b) It has always been this way for mankind.

c) Gen. 4:7 says “sin couches at the door.”

d) This statement is true for every single one of us.

e) Satan goes about as a “roaring lion” and he sets traps for us, hoping that we will accept his bait.

f) These traps are for the young and old, the saved and the unsaved.

g) If someone thinks this is not true for them, take a couple of minutes to look at Jas. 3.

h) James says we all have a “tongue” and “no man can tame it” (Jas. 3:8).

i) The tongue is a “restless evil” and “full of deadly poison.”

j) Sometimes our feet run to a place where the poison of the tongue can be unleashed.

k) The feet like to go to where the tongue can be used. Our feet run to other things as well.

2) People often use their feet to run to the latest trends and fads in society, many of which are not good.

3) One current trend is deciding things on a very arbitrary basis.

4) In our world people often base things on what they “feel right about” or “a decision they are comfortable with.”

5) In some national Barna research 4 out of 10 teens said these are the very standards they used.

6) 38% of the young people said they base their morality on what feels right to them.

7) With adults the percentage was 31%.

8) Just 13% of people said they made their moral decisions based on the Bible.

9) People run to the moral standard that pleases them and this wrong.

10) When this choice is made, people will have feet that lead them away from God time and time again.

a) This is precisely what we find taking place in the world.

b) Living together used to be understood as a sin (something that is wrong).

c) Now people eagerly embrace this type of “trial arrangement” before marriage.

d) Many “run” into these relationships. Meet a new guy this week and move in with him the next.

11) Do we know that dozens of our college campuses in the U.S. offer coed dorms?

12) A male and a female, sharing the same room in college…this is a growing practice.

13) Schools have literally “run” to this type of arrangement because people want it.

14) When some of the kinds are surveyed, they often say, “It is not about sex.”

15) This is one of the first things that people often say about these arrangements and this stmt. says a lot.

16) This t response implies that people know (deep down) that this type of thing is not morally right.

17) People have feet that eagerly embrace what is wrong and then quickly defend their choice to sin.

18) Society also stands ready to embrace other things such as homosexuality, abortion and divorce.

19) These things are all bad and terribly wrong in and of themselves.

20) When people (and especially a nation) readily accept and endorse them, it is in a downward spiral.

21) A lot of feet want to run to a lot of mischief (that is, this type of sin occurs in many forms).

a) The point in Prov. 6 may be specifically applied to young people.

b) Youth eventually get to the point when they start to see many of the things offered in the world.

c) They can dance, drink, smoke, and go to some very worldly parties.

d) They are exposed to sexual activity outside of marriage and illicit drugs.

e) Those who go to college can find these types of things in even greater abundance.

f) A lot of young people who see these temptations and are enticed by them.

g) As Eve chose to partake of the forbidden fruit, so some youth have let their feet run to mischief.

22) Young people need to remember the lesson from Prov. 6.

23) Feet can run to mischief (it is all around us), but this is a very bad choice.

24) Remember that our feet are body parts that essentially come with a warning label.

25) Gravitating towards sin, flirting with it, and doing it will hurt instead of benefit us.

26) Not long ago I read a statistic that said 25 teens every hour in the US start to become drug users.

27) Every hour 50 feet running towards an evil that may put them in jail or make them a lifelong addict.

28) God hates that because He knows this is the worst type of choice we can make.

A SECOND POINT THAT WE FIND IN PROV. 6 AND ILLUSTRATED BY JONAH’S LIFE IS THAT SIN (FEET RUNNING TO MISCHIEF) IS A DOWNHILL TRIP.

a) God’s prophet went down to Joppa and down into the ship (Jon. 1:3).

b) Then he went down into the sea, down into the fish’s mouth, and down to the sea bottom.

c) If we choose to let our feet seek what is evil, we should expect a similar downward course.

d) Instead of going up and feeling better or good, it will be “down, down, down.”

2) Many adults have seen recent declines in their financial statements for their retirement accounts.

3) It is hard to find someone who says they are pleased by this downward movement.

4) If we can understand what “down” means in the secular realm, why can’t we understand it in the spiritual?

5) Feet (lives) that move towards evil will take us down; feet that take us towards God will move us up.

a) In life we often find examples of how sin can create a “chain reaction.”

b) One man says something hateful to another and that leads to anger.

c) That anger leads to a fight. That fight leads to bitterness and that bitterness leads to rage.

d) Rage may finally come to a head when it turns to murder.

e) Mischief (sin) is an easy path to take, but it leads people to some very hard consequences.

6) This is why the Bible says evil companionships and choices are to be avoided.

7) Sinners will “entice” (Prov. 1), but God says do not listen to them.

8) Prov. 1:15 says “refrain thy foot from thy path.”

9) Verse 16 says their “feet run to evil” so avoid them

1) Preachers get to see some sad things in their lifetimes.

2) One of the saddest things may be a Christian (someone who obeyed the gospel) whose feet were interested in evil.

3) I have spoken with Christians who used to be faithful members of the church.

4) Some used to be about as dedicated as a Christian could be.

5) The person I was speaking with may have taught a Bible class or was part of a deacon’s family.

6) Some evil interested them and they fell away. Their feet took them down the wrong path.

7) Sin took them so far that they didn’t feel like they could climb out of the pit they had created.

a) Sin may be fun for a while, but it can exhaust people.

b) In some respects sin is like a disease that takes over the body.

c) Sin can get such a hold on man that he feels like it is an iron chain that cannot be broken.

d) Rather than turn to Christ and break the shackles, some say that would be too hard so they will not change.

e) Some feel they have sunk so far they slump their shoulders and think, “the battle is lost.”

8) Feet that run to mischief have taken people so far that they have never returned.

9) This is not God’s fault because a person can always return—the door of redemption is always open.

10) Anyone who has never become a Christian can also always come to God during their earthly life.

11) If our feet are not running to God, they are like Jonah’s (they are running from God).

12) Today, which direction are our feet turned towards—the narrow road of life or the broad way?