Proverbs 25:28 Like a city whose walls are broken through is a person who lacks self-control.
A man with boundaries, restrictions and lucidity is like a walled city, well protected. In the historical times when human occupation was restricted to pockets of well irrigated fertile land, it was pertinent to have walls around their thinly populated cities and villages to live in safety. Cities without walls or with broken walls were exposed to the insidious attacks of enemies, wild beasts and bandits. The city gate would be closed at dusk and guards would be stationed to watch over the night until dawn.
‘Self-control’ is like a fortified city wall around a well-disciplined life. The bricks of the wall are ‘self-discipline’; the mortar is ‘self-restrictions’, and the ‘fear of the Lord’ is the concrete that builds spiritual walls of towering shelter around our life. Lack of self-discipline leaves cracks through the walls. Unleashed, wild and uncontrolled thoughts, habits, words and the slack of purity would break the concrete, splinter crevices and crumble the brick walls, exposing us to the lethal enemy! Whoever breaks a hedge, a serpent shall bite him (Ecclesiastes 10:8b). The serpentine spirit, the seditious and the scoffer will enter through the fractured wall.
It is what we do in secret that builds or breaks the spiritual walls of protection from the envious, enraged demonic diviner and the vicious mugger. Walls of character are built with what we do when no one is watching us.
Build your wall of security:
- Clouded: The wall of self-control is broken when our mind is clouded, confused or contorted. Compromise or compelling distractions are like contaminated, polluted and poisoned spring water. Proverbs 25:24 Like a muddied spring or a polluted well are the righteous who give way to the wicked. When we lose our peace over a decision or there is no clarity about the authenticity in an issue, withdraw. Learn to say ‘no’. Peer pressure can make us culpable leaving holes on the walls of self-control. Clouded decisions ruptures the spiritual boundaries.
- Clubbed: The wall of self-discipline is wrecked by false witnesses. Proverbs 25:18 Like a club or a sword or a sharp arrow is one who gives false testimony against a neighbor. Even remaining silent to a false accusation on the vulnerable and watching the defenseless being brutally clubbed with slander, smirch and slur will cause damages to our spiritual wall of defense. Mockery clubs and fractures our spiritual defense.
- Chaff: The wall of self-restraint is ruined by encouraging or covering up wrongness, giving a listening ear to malign and entertaining conversations with the scorner. Constraints, controls and checks on our relationships are reinforcements and retaining walls of defense. Psalm 1:4 Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away. Indulging with the disdainer, abuser and the unlawful will flatten our defensive walls exposing us to the virulent demons who steal, kill and destroy our lives. A man with no walls will be blown away like the chaff and the husk! Iniquity demolishes the walls of spiritual security.
The spiritual health of a man is broken, fractured or ruptured by lack of self-control.
Isaiah 60:18 You will call your walls Salvation and your gates Praise.
Prayer: Divine Father, as you are Holy, help me to be pure in my thoughts, words and deeds. Let the defensive walls of self-control be strengthened and reinforced and may my mouth gate always be filled with praise. Amen.
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