The borrower is slave to the lender.

Proverbs 22:7, NIV

For many of us there was simply nothing like the freedom of leaving the nest and starting out on your own. It's not that we did not love our parents, but we all know that there comes a time when we are no longer children who require the care of mom and dad. So we go out and get that first real job and then our first apartment (preferably in that order). Do you remember the feeling? Walking into your home for the first time, taking off your jacket, hanging it up in your closet and sitting down in your chair to read your book or look at your tv.

The new-found freedom was indescribable! And you savored it for a while, but then something strange happened. Your perfectly good car was no longer perfect or good. Your friends at work had better ones, so you were delighted when you found that you could afford one too. Now life really was good for you had a new place of your own and a nice car to impress your friends with. But while the newness was wearing off of the car, you found the monthly payment to be just as fresh this month as it was the first month you received it.

Things started "tightening up" after that and there were months that you just couldn't do all the things you wanted without a little help from a big friend. For most of us, that big friend came in the form of a little plastic card with Visa or Mastercard printed right on the front. Now, we thought, we really were free for we always had that piece of plastic to help us make ends meet a little neater. 

But when the bills started coming due, the freedom ended and we now found ourselves in so deep that we thought we would drown. It was at this point we learned the 3,000 year old truth stated above: "The borrower is slave to the lender". 

Most of us have been there and most of us survived, but it wasn't fun. It certainly was no longer freedom. Still, once we found ourselves under that crushing mountain of debt, the only thing to do was to begin the long and arduous process of digging out from under it. Some of us are still doing so, and all of us wonder if there wasn't a better way. Of course there is a better way. We could have learned of it before we got in too deep if we had only read our Bibles and learned the lesson the easy way instead of the hard way.

It's the same way with sin, only magnified. The Word of God warns us against things like telling lies, getting drunk,  losing our temper, or getting involved with sexual immorality, but way too many people always seem to have to learn the hard way. Just look around and you will see the consequences of sin. And you don't have to look far. Sometimes you just have to look in the mirror. The insidious nature of sin is to promise us the freedom to do whatever we want, but we learn too late that sin is not freedom, it is slavery!

The good news, for those who will accept it, is that Jesus came into this world to set us free from sin! But we have to accept His terms if we are to escape the terrible consequences that always come hand in hand with sinful behavior.

And, just like the debt-slave wishes that he had learned the danger of debt before it was too late, so too will the slave to sin. This is why God warns us against such things. He knows that sin will enslave just as surely as debt enslaves, so He warns us in advance to avoid these things. The wise man will learn from His instruction before hand. The less wise comes to the knowledge later, but can still avoid permanent enslavement if he will only do something about that knowledge now. The foolish man just keeps on going.

Which man are we?