Proverbs 21:16,  The man that wandereth out of the way of understanding shall remain in the congregation of the dead.

The prayer of the man that does not want to be a wanderer is wrapped up in the pleadings of this familiar song:

Prone to wander, Lord I feel it,

Prone to leave the God I love,

Take my heart, Lord, take and seal it;

Seal it for the courts above.

That man that does not want to be known as a wanderer pleads with the Lord to take his heart and close up the holes in it.

He knows that there are those tendencies of the heart to leave the God he loves.

He knows that his heart is the cause of wandering and he wants his heart fixed so that it will not wander.

He wants his heart fixed so that it is fit for God's house.

Take my heart Lord, take and seal it.

Apply the sealing ointment of thy word, Lord!

Take thy word and make my heart constant and stop it from wavering and drifting and wandering.

Fix my heart, not as though it were broken, but fix it from wandering and wavering from your word.

David said in Psalm 23:4,  Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil:

He did not say Yea, though I wander through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.

No, David was a walker, not a wanderer.

A walker has purpose; a wanderer has no purpose.

David said in: Psalm 57:7,  My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing and give praise.

David knew that when his heart was kept from wandering from the God he loved the natural outcome was a heart that sang praises to the Lord.

His was a heart that was prepared for every event because his heart was stayed upon God.

Stay means stay. A stay is that which does not move from a position.

A guy wire that holds an electric pole from moving is a stay.

It does not allow that pole to move.

It does not allow that pole to wander from its fixed position.

That's what a heart does that is fixed upon God.

It does not wander. It has no reason to wander because there is nothing worth wandering to when a heart is fixed upon God.

David said in Psalm 112:7, that a good man.,...shall not be afraid of evil tidings: his heart is fixed, trusting in the LORD.

Evil tidings do not shake the man whose heart is fixed on the Lord, the man that does not wander from the word of the Lord.

The man whose heart is fixed is fixed for whatever duty God commands.

As a structure is framed to bear the load designed for that structure his heart is framed for any call of God.

Put the load on this man's heart and it will bear the load.

It is a heart that is strong in the Lord and a heart that wears the full amour of God.

The fixed heart is not tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness as is written in Paul's epistle to the Ephesians.

But the man that is described in our proverb is not a man with a fixed heart but he is a wandering man.

Notice that this is a man that wanders out of the way of understanding.

That means that this man was once in the way of understanding.

How else can he wander out of the way of understanding?

This is a man that was taught the way of understanding.

This is a man that professed the way of understanding.

Those who knew this man thought he was a man of the way of understanding.

But in his heart he is a wanderer.

He is not fixed in the way of understanding.

He knows not of what David speaks when he says his heart is fixed.

His heart is not settled on the word of God.

He only dabbles in the word of God.

He does not treat the word of God as the word of God.

In reality he rejects the authority of the word of God over his life.

The word of God may be prominent is his life but it is not preeminent and it all has to do with the authority of the word of God over his life.

His way of wandering is not straight.

His way is winding, shifting, rambling.

There is no certain course or object in view of the wanderer.

His way is crooked, and his purposes shift from one way to another.

He has no anchor of his soul because wandering will not connect to the anchor of the word of God.

He will not permit it! Wandering is opposed to anchoring.

Only if the word of God is the anchor of a man's life will that man not wander.

Don't we see this over and over in those who were reared in the way of understanding.

Count the numbers who have gone through our own Christian school and who at this very minute wander through life.

No spiritual purpose, no spiritual direction!

They despised the birthright of their home, they despised the teaching of this school and their way can only be described as a wandering way.

No anchoring ever takes place.

Jude calls them wandering stars to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.

They never allowed their heart to have an comprehension or appreciation of truth.

The way of understanding was too confining, too narrow, too humbling.

Instead of confidence in God they preferred confidence in themselves.

Instead of pleasing God they please themselves or others for personal gain.

This is the one who was in the way of understanding but having no anchor in the way of understanding they wander out of the way of understanding.

Jesus talked about this man as the man by the way side who heard the word but the devil came and took the word out of his heart.

It is interesting to note the meaning of the words way side.

It literally means by the side of the way; in the vicinity of the way.

It is not in the way but it is near the way.

This is a man who is wandering.

If he was not wandering he would have been on the way, not on the way side.

He is close to the way but he is not anchored to the way.

Only Christ keeps a man in the way of understanding.

Only Christ is the anchor of the way of understanding and without Christ a man is doomed to wander out of the way of understanding.

What a disservice a parent does to his children when he sends them to a Christian school for the wrong reasons.

He reasons to send them here to keep them from the pollutions of the world, the lack of discipline, the immorality, the drugs, the danger in the public schools, the bad companions.

But as he leans to his own understanding that always satisfies his own self serving motives he concludes that come the right time those children will come out of the Christian school and go elsewhere.

He plays all his cards right. Everything he does is self serving, not God serving.

But he does not know that he has placed those children in great danger.

He has placed them by the way side of the way of understanding.

They now may become that which Peter in:

2 Peter 2:20,21, speaks of,  For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.

Better to not put your children into Christian school if you do not live what is taught there.

If they do not see in you what they are taught and have what they are taught reinforced at home better that they are not in the Christian school or in the church.

Save them from doom!

Better to have a mind and a heart that is not corrupted by such hypocrisy.

They have more of a chance!

Jesus said that they that endure to the end, the same shall be saved.

The saved are an enduring people.

They are not wandering people.

They are continuing people.

Because they are in a constant and that constant is Christ.

A person that is a wanderer is not in that constant, is not in Christ.

Proverbs 21:16,  The man that wandereth out of the way of understanding shall remain in the congregation of the dead.

He shall remain in the congregation of the dead, meaning he was never in the congregation of the living.

He was in the way of understanding but he wandered out of the way of understanding.

Never saved and never to be saved as long as he wanders.