Reflection — well-considered thought — is needed in order to remember past instruction.
Lust
“Purity” — corruption and lust degrade the heart and moral sensibilities. Lust spoils understanding, injures inwardly like nothing else and leaves a lasting effect in life. It breaks down the finer sensibilities in us learned in the subjective relationships of nature (father and mother).
We need divinely ordered affections and established relationships, which are pure, sacred, wholesome, safe and rewarding. To have them is to have happiness as high as can be attained or experienced on earth in nature.
The presence of God in communion keeps our hearts with the conscience thoroughly active. The conscience is the door by which truth enters the inner man — this is intelligence.
Attention to past instruction, constancy in communion and subjection to the instructions of father and mother are the only safe-guards. The Lord ponders our path; should not we?
One Drop of Honey
The strange woman is one outside of covenant relationship (scriptural instruction), and never ponders her path.
“The lips of the strange woman drop honey...Come not nigh the door of her house: lest thou give thine honor unto others, and thy years unto the cruel ... and thou mourn in thine end, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed” (Prov. 5:3-113For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil: 4But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a twoedged sword. 5Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell. 6Lest thou shouldest ponder the path of life, her ways are moveable, that thou canst not know them. 7Hear me now therefore, O ye children, and depart not from the words of my mouth. 8Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house: 9Lest thou give thine honor unto others, and thy years unto the cruel: 10Lest strangers be filled with thy wealth; and thy labors be in the house of a stranger; 11And thou mourn at the last, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed, (Proverbs 5:3‑11) JND).
Don’t go near her — one drop of honey from her lips is enough to bring death, morally and physically — the meaning in this chapter. Just one drop of honey and a precious life is ruined. Think of how this affects the person, the family, friends and life in general, by giving in to lust. The pangs of conscience are no exception.
Remorse
Sin and religion often run together.
“Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well. Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets. Let them be only thine own, and not strangers’ with thee. Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love. And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger? For the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord, and He pondereth all his goings. His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins. He shall die without instruction; and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray” (Prov. 5:15-2315Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well. 16Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets. 17Let them be only thine own, and not strangers' with thee. 18Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. 19Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love. 20And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger? 21For the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord, and he pondereth all his goings. 22His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins. 23He shall die without instruction; and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray. (Proverbs 5:15‑23)).
Attention should be given to the present relationships, so that we do not lust after another.
What is needed is moral intelligence — wisdom, knowledge otherwise a careless son will come into ruin.