Proverbs – Lesson 17 – Proverbs 4 (August 26, 2026)

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Guard your heart, because your choices come from it and are shaping who you become and where you will spend eternity.

 

Review

 

For the sake of our series, Proverbs is nicknamed God’s Handbook for His Image Bearers.

Proverbs deals repeatedly with wisdom, and our working definition of wisdom is:

Wisdom is the skill to take what we know about God and build a life that images Him.

Solomon is the main author or editor of the book. He is instructing his son about wisdom. The son is instructed to receive wisdom, pursue wisdom, keep or guard it, and search for wisdom as for hidden treasure.

In this lesson we examine Solomon’s instruction about guarding our hearts and his warning that our choices determine who we become and where we spend eternity.

Consider these two sayings:

“There is a choice you have to make in everything you do. So keep in mind that in the end, the choice you make makes you.”

 

“Watch your thoughts, they become words; watch your words, they become actions; watch your actions, they become habits; watch your habits, they become character; watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.”

 

These are not Bible verses, but they help us get familiar with the truths Solomon teaches in Proverbs 4.

The Choices We Make

 

Consider some real-life examples of how one small choice can begin shaping the person we become and the life we live.

Chris Palmer’s story is told by Prison Fellowship. Chris was twelve years old when he smoked marijuana for the first time. At twelve, he could not see where that choice would eventually take him. By sixteen he had been expelled from school. Drug use led to stealing, and stealing led to a life of crime. Eventually Chris was sitting in jail facing sixty-nine felony charges while separated from his eight-year-old son.

Jenny Morgan tells a similar story about gambling. In 2006, she placed her first bet on a Wimbledon tennis match. Gambling became more frequent and eventually became an obsession. She accumulated about £60,000 in debt — roughly $110,000 in American money at the time — and at one point gambled away an entire month’s salary in twenty-four hours. Looking back, she could trace that path all the way back to that first bet.

Jimmy Needham, a Christian singer and songwriter, tells about a choice he made when he was only nine years old. Some friends told him about a pornographic magazine hidden under rocks at a playground and invited him to look at it. Jimmy went with them. That first exposure became the beginning of a struggle with pornography that continued for the next ten years.

The Bible gives us the same kind of example in David’s life. David was a man after God’s own heart, but his failure to turn away from Bathsheba started him down a destructive path he never expected. David saw Bathsheba bathing, and what he saw stirred lust. Instead of rejecting that desire, he continued thinking about having her. He asked who she was, sent for her, and committed adultery with her.

Then Bathsheba became pregnant. Instead of confessing his adultery, he tried to hide it. He brought Uriah home from battle hoping he would sleep with Bathsheba and believe the child was his. When that did not work, David got Uriah drunk and tried again. When David could not get Uriah to cooperate with his plan, he arranged for Uriah to be killed in battle.

Murder was not on David’s mind when he first saw Bathsheba. He was dealing with sexual desire for another man’s wife. But he did not stop there.

Lust led to adultery.

Adultery produced a pregnancy.

The pregnancy led David to lies and manipulation.

 

When those failed, David had gone far enough in covering up his sin that he was willing to have Uriah killed. Each sinful choice led David into another and took him farther from living as the image of God.

David’s story is one example of what sin does in human life. In the New Testament, James describes how sin works:

James 1:14–15 (KJV) 14 But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. 15 Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.

 

Sin begins in our desires,

works its way into our choices, and

ultimately leads to death.

 

This has been true since Adam and Eve first disobeyed God. God warned Adam that sin would bring death, and:

Romans 6:23 (KJV) 23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

 

David’s example proves that even seemingly small choices can lead to catastrophic consequences because they shape who we are becoming.

This brings us to Proverbs 4. Solomon is going to teach his son about the choices that shape his life, but first he reminds him where he learned these truths.

Proverbs 4:1–4 (KJV) 1 Hear, ye children, the instruction of a father, and attend to know understanding. 2 For I give you good doctrine, forsake ye not my law. 3 For I was my father’s son, tender and only beloved in the sight of my mother. 4 He taught me also, and said unto me, Let thine heart retain my words: keep my commandments, and live.

 

For three chapters Solomon has been the father teaching his son. Now he reminds his son that he was once the child receiving instruction from his own parents. Solomon’s parents were David and Bathsheba. David and Bathsheba knew from experience how much sinful choices could cost.

After David committed adultery with Bathsheba and arranged for her husband Uriah to be killed, God sent the prophet Nathan to confront David about what he had done. Nathan told David that although God would forgive his sin, his choices would bring painful consequences into his own family.

2 Samuel 12:10–11 (KJV) 10 Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thine house; because thou hast despised me, and hast taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife. 11 Thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house, and I will take thy wives before thine eyes, and give them unto thy neighbour, and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this sun.

 

David lived to experience those painful consequences. The child born from David and Bathsheba’s adultery died. Later, David’s son Amnon raped his half-sister Tamar. Tamar’s brother Absalom took revenge by having Amnon killed. Absalom later rebelled against David, took control of Jerusalem, and forced his father to flee. That rebellion ended with Absalom being killed and David grieving the death of another son.

God had warned David that his adultery and murder would bring consequences into his own house, and David lived to see those consequences. David could not go back and change his choices, but he could pass the wisdom he had learned to his son — including the wisdom that a seemingly small sin like looking at a woman he desired could result in all the pain and destruction he lived through.

Solomon says his father warned him to guard his heart.

Proverbs 4:4 (KJV) 4 He taught me also, and said unto me, Let thine heart retain my words: keep my commandments, and live.

 

Solomon had parents who knew what could happen when the heart was not guarded and sinful desires were allowed to control our choices. The wisdom they had learned through painful experience was passed to Solomon, and now Solomon is passing it to his son. That brings Solomon to the place where our choices begin.

Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life. (Proverbs 4:23, KJV)

 

Solomon tells his son to guard his heart because what is allowed to live there will eventually affect the choices he makes and the person he becomes. Solomon has already shown his son what can happen when our choices begin moving us in the wrong direction.

Proverbs 4:14–15 (KJV) 14 Enter not into the path of the wicked, and go not in the way of evil men. 15 Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away.

 

David knew where one wrong choice could lead. Looking at Bathsheba did not look like the beginning of adultery, murder, and years of sorrow in his family, but we have already seen where that choice took him.

That is the picture Solomon gives his son with a path. We take one step, and that step puts us in position to take another. The danger of a sinful choice is not limited to what happens in that moment. It moves us in a particular direction. That is why Solomon says:

“Enter not.”

“Avoid it.”

“Turn from it.”

 

He is teaching his son to think about where a choice leads before he takes the first step — using the son’s grandfather as a personal illustration.

Solomon then describes the two directions a life can take.

Proverbs 4:18–19 (KJV) 18 But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day. 19 The way of the wicked is as darkness: they know not at what they stumble.

 

The path of the just becomes brighter. The way of the wicked becomes darker.

David’s life helps us understand that difference. Long before Bathsheba, David had also faced choices that could have taken his life in the wrong direction. But at that time David chose to follow God’s character instead of pleasing himself. Saul was trying to kill him, and David had opportunities to kill Saul first. His own men encouraged him to do it. David refused because he knew Saul was the LORD’s anointed. David could not control what Saul did, but he could control the choice he made in response to Saul.

David took what he knew about God and made a choice that imaged Him. He chose to let Saul live, even though it meant David would continue living on the run.

Years later, when David saw Bathsheba, he allowed his desire to determine his choice instead of what he knew about God.

Those two moments in David’s life help us see the two paths Solomon describes. Our choices either move our lives toward the wisdom of God or away from it. They are shaping what kind of person we are becoming.

Solomon brings that thought back to the individual choices his son will make.

Proverbs 4:25–27 (KJV) 25 Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee. 26 Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established. 27 Turn not to the right hand nor to the left: remove thy foot from evil.

 

PONDER THE PATH OF THY FEET Before you take the next step, think about where it leads. Do not look only at the choice in front of you — look down the road. •      Where does this choice lead? •      What choices will it make easier to choose next time? •      What kind of person will I become if I keep making choices like this? •      Does this choice reflect the God whose image I was created to bear?

 

That brings us back to the two sayings from the beginning of the lesson.

“There is a choice you have to make in everything you do. So keep in mind that in the end, the choice you make makes you.”

 

“Watch your thoughts, they become words; watch your words, they become actions; watch your actions, they become habits; watch your habits, they become character; watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.”

 

Solomon is teaching his son to understand this truth before he has to learn it through painful experience.

Guard your heart because your choices come from it.

Ponder your path because your choices are taking you somewhere.

Remove your foot from evil because the first step in the wrong direction can lead farther than you ever intended to go.

 

We make choices every day, and those choices are shaping our habits, our character, and the direction of our lives. And ultimately, the direction of our life has an eternal destination. The way of sin ends in death. The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. The choices we make reveal what is ruling our hearts and the direction in which we are living.

The wise person guards his heart and makes choices that reflect the God whose image he was created in.