Proverbs 9:14

For she sitteth at the door of her house.

The ministry of temptation

I. As conducted by depraved woman. A foolish woman is here the emblem of wickedness in the world.

1. She is ignorant. Blind to spiritual realities and claims. She is in the kingdom of darkness.

2. She is clamorous. Full of noise and excitement; bearing down all objections to her entreaties.

3. She is audacious. Modesty, which is the glory of a woman’s nature, has left her.

4. She is persuasive. She admits that her pleasures are wrong, and on that account more delectable.

II. As directed to the inexperienced in life. To whom does she especially direct her entreaties? Not to the mature saint stalwart in virtue. She calls “passengers,” the “simple ones.”

III. As tending to a most miserable destination. The ministry of temptation is very successful as conducted by depraved woman.

1. This woman obtained guests.

2. Her guests were ruined.

3. Her guests were ruined contrary to their intention. (Homilist.)

The pleasures of sin

One of the foul spirits that assail and possess men is singled out and delineated, and this one represents a legion in the background. This is no fancy picture. It is drawn from life. The plague is as rampant in our streets as it is represented to be in the Proverbs. Mankind have sat for the picture: there is no mistake in the outline, there is no exaggeration in the colouring. Let no youth ever once, or for a moment, go where he would be ashamed to be found by his father and his mother. This woman is the figure of all evil--the devil, the world, the flesh, whatever form they may assume and whatever weapons they may employ. The one evil spirit, dragged forth from the legion and exposed, is intended not to conceal, but to open up the generic character of the company. In this life every human being is placed between two rival invitations, and every human being in this life yields to the one or to the other. The power of sin lies in its pleasure. If stolen waters were not sweet, none would steal the waters. This is part of the mystery in which our being is involved by the fall. Our appetite is diseased. In man fallen there is a diseased relish for that which destroys. There is an appetite in our nature which finds sweetness in sin. And the appetite grows by what it feeds on. It is only in the mouth that the stolen water is sweet; afterwards it is bitter. One part of the youth’s danger lies in his ignorance: “He knoweth not that the dead are there.” (W. Arnot, D. D.)