Proverbs 5:9

The book of Proverbs gives us insights into so many different areas of life. The book gives us instruction on how to live our lives for God. Here is a proverb that gives us insight about the cost of sin:

Proverbs 5:9 (ESV)

lest you give your honor to others

and your years to the merciless,

The warning is here in Proverbs 5, to let us know when we give in to "folly.”  Folly is personified in this chapter as an adulterous woman and throughout Proverbs.  When you do give in to folly, you will give your best to become your worst.   Sin costs! It ALWAYS costs! And the cost is always paid to others. They win and you lose. We are warned about sin because it is so "cruel" to us. We need to remember that although sin looks so good (see Proverbs 7) it always cost us a wage. Romans 6:23 states that "the wages of sin is death." The ultimate wage is death. But, the payment is done over time and when we sin we give our good years to cruel gods. Be warned.  In the immediate context of Proverbs 5 we are being told that when we fall into the sin of adultery we might experience a euphoric sensation physically, but we begin to pay for it immediately in a spiritual, psychological, and, in this context, materially way.   Solomon is telling us that when we choose to sin, using adultery as an example, we will lose out in our material goods.   He uses one of the greatest and most personal aspects of our lives to illustrate the cost of sin.   We love our stuff.  To think we may lose it over a momentary tryst, seems cruel.  But it is the truth.   The truth is we don't know it but it will happen.  Sin takes away what you love and what you own.