Proverbs 6:20–7:27 - Sexuality Matters to God
Proverbs: Wisdom for Life in God’s World • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 46:51
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Introduction:
If you have your Bibles let me invite you to open with me to the book of Proverbs chapter 6.
We will begin in verse 20 and we will work our way all the way through the end of chapter 7 this morning.
Through most of proverbs thus far we have heard the voice of a Father preparing his son to live according to wisdom…
He is teaching his son how to know God and how to live God’s way in God’s world.
These verses include two of the Father’s lectures to his son.
It should be no surprise to us that we have now our second and third lecture in Proverbs thus far that addresses matters of sexuality.
As King Solomon writes these proverbs, he knows the kinds of temptations that await God’s people…
He knows the kinds of conversations that Parents should be having with their children.
We are going to start out just reading verses 20-35, and then we will pray for understanding and then as we progress through we will read all of chapter 7 as well.
But first chapter 6:20-35 .
20 My son, keep your father’s commandment,
and forsake not your mother’s teaching.
21 Bind them on your heart always;
tie them around your neck.
22 When you walk, they will lead you;
when you lie down, they will watch over you;
and when you awake, they will talk with you.
23 For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching a light,
and the reproofs of discipline are the way of life,
24 to preserve you from the evil woman,
from the smooth tongue of the adulteress.
25 Do not desire her beauty in your heart,
and do not let her capture you with her eyelashes;
26 for the price of a prostitute is only a loaf of bread,
but a married woman hunts down a precious life.
27 Can a man carry fire next to his chest
and his clothes not be burned?
28 Or can one walk on hot coals
and his feet not be scorched?
29 So is he who goes in to his neighbor’s wife;
none who touches her will go unpunished.
30 People do not despise a thief if he steals
to satisfy his appetite when he is hungry,
31 but if he is caught, he will pay sevenfold;
he will give all the goods of his house.
32 He who commits adultery lacks sense;
he who does it destroys himself.
33 He will get wounds and dishonor,
and his disgrace will not be wiped away.
34 For jealousy makes a man furious,
and he will not spare when he takes revenge.
35 He will accept no compensation;
he will refuse though you multiply gifts.
Lets Pray.
My son, keep your father’s commandment,
and forsake not your mother’s teaching.
Bind them on your heart always;
tie them around your neck.
When the father says keep my commandments, do not forsake your mother’s teaching… he is identifying his teaching with the teaching of God passed down from and through the Scriptures.
The father is obeying Deuteronomy 6 by passing God’s word to his own children.
And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.
God has spoken, and the ministry of parents is to faithfully teach what God has spoken to their own children…
so that their own children not only know what God has said, but actually bind God’s words on to their hearts and tie them around their necks.
The idea is that wherever they go,
even when they leave the home,
they take with them the memorized, internalized, word of God
that will protect them when their parents are no longer around to protect them.
Thats the emphasis of verse 22 and 23…
Now listen to how the word of God passed down to our children then takes over the protecting and guiding work of the parent.
22 When you walk, they will lead you;
when you lie down, they will watch over you;
and when you awake, they will talk with you.
23 For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching a light,
and the reproofs of discipline are the way of life,
Children are born into this world needing guidance… needing direction.
The job of the parent is to teach and instruct so diligently that when they leave…
That teaching and that instruction will still lead them, watch over them, and even talk with them like a conversation partner when the moment of decision comes.
The word of God we teach them functions like a lamp guiding the way through the darkness of our world.
our reproofs of discipline over the years open for them the way of life.
This is why we are primarily a Bible teaching church… we believe that we all need the leading, watching, illuminating, life-giving word of God every day.
Verse 24 makes this transition for how the word taught to them will then protect them from one of the world’s most dangerous temptations.
to preserve you from the evil woman,
from the smooth tongue of the adulteress.
notice the word “to”
Somehow, someway, the commandments and the teachings of God pressed into the heart protects us from the ever encroaching temptation of sexual sin.
Now there are a lot of things we can discern from this but, the first thing I want us to take careful note of is this foundational principle that is being most attacked and denied in our culture.
This is a foundational truth for today’s message:
God’s Word is Clear About Sexuality
God’s Word is Clear About Sexuality
Wisdom is Knowing God and Living God’s Way in God’s World.
The Lord by wisdom founded the earth;
by understanding he established the heavens;
By wisdom, God founded the earth…, and by that wisdom he created all things… including humanity as male and female to function and relate to one another in his world according to his design.
He made male and female to be wonderfully different from one another and to function within relationship to one another in monogamous, committed covenantal love.
We see the design as early as Genesis 2.
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
In both the Old Testament and the New Testament, God very clearly forbids any kind of sexuality outside the boundaries of God’s design for men, women, and marriage.
There is not a gray area here.
Sexuality and Sex according to God’s design is a big deal to the God of the Bible
Because God designed marriage and sexuality to reflect what is the greatest love story ever written.
Listen to the words of pastor Ray Ortlund,
Marriage is not just another mutation in human social development. Marriage is a divine creation, pointing to something beyond us. A man and woman falling in love, committing themselves with lifelong vows of faithfulness, uniting sexually, living life together “’til death do us part”—it is all pointing to the mega-romance of Christ and the church in love forever.
A man and a woman in love display the ultimate story of the Son of God coming down to win to his heart, with great suffering, a bride from the wrong side of town. God created the universe for the purpose of telling that love story.
More than any other reason, that is why our sexuality matters, whether married or single. Just being a man is a gospel privilege. Just being a woman is a gospel privilege. What we are is about the gospel.
- Raymond C. Ortlund Jr.
Sexuality matters to God.., because our sexuality and our marriages were designed to reflect the most ultimate,, most glorious, eternal realities of the universe - Christ’s sacrificial obedient love for his church.
31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”
32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.
When Paul chooses to articulate how naturally sinful we are,
he references particularly humanities disposition to rebel even against God’s design for male and female relationships.
We are all born sinful.
Our desires are broken from birth.
Our affections are so naturally corrupted, that our humanity turns on nature itself.
24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
Notice in Romans 1 how exchanging God
runs parallel with exchanging God’s design for sexuality.
Reject God’s design for Gender and Marriage and you are rejecting God himself.
God’s Word is Clear About Sexuality
The question is not whether God has spoken on these matters, the question is whether we will fight against our own broken desires that lie to us about the path to joy. The question is whether we will be God and submit to his authority in our lives.
In verses 27 through 29, Father tries to communicate how silly it is to think that someone can rebel against God’s authoritative design in these matters and think that there will be no consequences.
27 Can a man carry fire next to his chest
and his clothes not be burned?
28 Or can one walk on hot coals
and his feet not be scorched?
29 So is he who goes in to his neighbor’s wife;
none who touches her will go unpunished.
The Father even seems to suggest that sexual sin has unique and more serious consequences then even something like the sin of theft.
30 People do not despise a thief if he steals
to satisfy his appetite when he is hungry,
31 but if he is caught, he will pay sevenfold;
he will give all the goods of his house.
32 He who commits adultery lacks sense;
he who does it destroys himself.
33 He will get wounds and dishonor,
and his disgrace will not be wiped away.
34 For jealousy makes a man furious,
and he will not spare when he takes revenge.
35 He will accept no compensation;
he will refuse though you multiply gifts.
The father argues that if you steal money from a man, you can reconcile by giving that money back...
But if you sleep with a man’s wife…, there is nothing that can be done that can truly fix or undo what has been done.
You can try to pay the man a sum of money but he won’t take it.
No compensation, no gift, can undo the damage, or satisfy the rage and fury of the husband whose covenant marriage has been defiled.
Now if you have been wronged in this way, don’t take this proverb as a license to carry on with forgiveness and rage. The husband acting out in rage in this proverb is not the shining example…, rather its designed to show how deep the hurt and pain and consequences of sexual sin really goes.
The point here is that there are inevitable, temporal and eternal consequences to this kind of sin that are unique to any other kind of sin.
The question then becomes, why would anyone sin in this way?
If God’s word is clear on this sin and if God’s word is clear on the consequences associated with this kind of sin, why would anyone play with this fire or walk on these coals?
Well, that's what the father turns to more fully in his next lecture.
Now turn your attention to chapter 7.
having this foundation now laid that God’s word is clear on sexuality.
We are going to move quickly addressing 5 Truths about Sexual Sin from chapter 7.
My son, keep my words
and treasure up my commandments with you;
2 keep my commandments and live;
keep my teaching as the apple of your eye;
3 bind them on your fingers;
write them on the tablet of your heart.
4 Say to wisdom, “You are my sister,”
and call insight your intimate friend,
5 to keep you from the forbidden woman,
from the adulteress with her smooth words.
The reminder once again is, make God’s wisdom your intimate friend.
Keep the commandments.
Treasure the commandments.
Every sexual sin, and really every sin, is always first a break down of this kind of instruction.
#1 Sexual Sin is First a Rejection of God
#1 Sexual Sin is First a Rejection of God
It always begins with the question of the serpent in the garden, “Did God really say that?”
Does God really care about sexuality?
Does he really care about faithfulness to my marriage, sex outside of marriage, or the gender he gave me at birth?
Does he really care about my purity?
Sexual sin is always first a rejection of God’s benevolent authority over every aspect of your life.
It is always a questioning of whether God really has your best interest in mind and whether God really did clearly speak on this thing that you are now tempted to do.
In the parable that follows, the Father articulates the kind of person who goes to his death through sexual sin.
6 For at the window of my house
I have looked out through my lattice,
7 and I have seen among the simple,
I have perceived among the youths,
a young man lacking sense,
8 passing along the street near her corner,
taking the road to her house
9 in the twilight, in the evening,
at the time of night and darkness.
The young man in the parable lacks sense.
He is simple, which in the Hebrew means he is open…
He is not committed to what God has instructed, rather he is open to any path or opportunity that comes along.
In other words, he has already neglected and rejected the instruction of God before he ever passed along the street near her corner.
He has already ignored God, long before the twilight of his destructive decision.…
But its never just an ignoring of God’s voice… its a trading of his voice for the voice of another.
We plug our ears to the voice of Lady Wisdom, and we open our ears to Lady Folly… and she is always quick to speak.
10 And behold, the woman meets him,
dressed as a prostitute, wily of heart.
11 She is loud and wayward;
her feet do not stay at home;
12 now in the street, now in the market,
and at every corner she lies in wait.
13 She seizes him and kisses him,
and with bold face she says to him,
#2 Sexual Sin Pursues You
#2 Sexual Sin Pursues You
We don’t live in a morally neutral world that is simply ok with your purity.
No we live in morally corrupt world that is not satisfied until you join in on the corruption.
The adulteress is described as “wily” of heart.
Dictionary definition of wily is “skilled at gaining an advantage, especially deceitfully”
Think “wily coyote” except more successful.
Sexual temptation is skilled at gaining an advantage, especially deceitfully.
The woman in this parable is loud and wayward and she waits in the street, and at the market, and at every corner.
She is forward, bold, and hard to avoid.
And so is sexual sin in our culture.
It is marketed, celebrated, and normalized on your social media feed, and in commercials on t.v., and at the theater, and in crude joking with friends…
It is always accessible and in pursuit of you.
It pursues you, while at the same time the corruption of the human heart also desires it.
Notice the ways in which she allures the young man.
13 She seizes him and kisses him,
and with bold face she says to him,
14 “I had to offer sacrifices,
and today I have paid my vows;
15 so now I have come out to meet you,
to seek you eagerly, and I have found you.
Notice how she personalizes it…
I came to meet you.
To seek you eagerly,
I have found you.
#3 Sexual Sin Appeals To Self-Esteem
#3 Sexual Sin Appeals To Self-Esteem
Sexual sin is never purely a physical act to satisfy a physical appetite.
There is always a mixture of personhood and identity in every sexual act.
Every one of us have this mixture of insecurity and the need for affirmation from another.
Adultery is never just about the physical thrill.
Its always about filling up what is lacking in your own self-esteem.
There is something in us that wants to be wanted.…
that longs to be longed for…
and thus we look for love in the wrong places…
Sexual intimacy is like a drug that temporarily satisfies the craving of your soul to be loved, appreciated, and adored.
The only problem is, that like a drug, you come down off the high and you realize that the world you were living in for the moment was only a harmful lie and you are left with worse self-esteem then when you first begun.
The LGBTQ movement especially appeals to this yearning…
Everyone wants to be included, we want to belong, we want to be celebrated…,
and in the present sexual revolution, the LGBTQ community promises that you will both get to enjoy sexual experiences without limit and you will be celebrated as courageous for doing so.
Even if you are loving and kind and welcoming to all people.... If you don’t embrace the sexual revolution as good and right, you will be an outcast in popular society.
If you engage in LGBTQ celebration, however, You will be welcomed into a whole community of people who say, we have sought you eagerly, we have found you. You are one with us.
But such affirmation, such inclusion, such self-esteem boosting through sexual acts.... they are cheap substitutes, like a statue of a golden calf rather than relationship with the true and living God.
Those longings for inclusion, for love, for affirmation, can only ever truly be satisfied in the kind of relationships that the God of the universe offers you.
It is Christ Jesus who seeks you eagerly,
who comes out to meet you,
and you invites you into relationship with himself through the sacrifice that he made for you.
God loves you…
and he wants you to enjoy that affection through the avenues he has prepared for you…
eternal life, forgiveness, joy, a loving church family, and a meaningful life of glorious purpose serving the one true God forever.
But you have to trust him.
Sexual sin appeals to self-esteem but only God can fill up what is lacking in an empty soul.
But of course its not just self-esteem that sin appeals to.
The temptress continues.
16 I have spread my couch with coverings,
colored linens from Egyptian linen;
17 I have perfumed my bed with myrrh,
aloes, and cinnamon.
18 Come, let us take our fill of love till morning;
let us delight ourselves with love.
#4 Sexual Sin Appeals To Selfish Desire
#4 Sexual Sin Appeals To Selfish Desire
The temptress is just pulling out all the stops here.
You are going to delight in this!
The sheets are luxurious, perfumed with richest of smells.
She is appealing to his senses in every way promising an evening of delight that will be worth it.
This is how all sexual sin works and it is how all sin works…
Sin wants you to zero all of your attention into the here and now moment of external senses…
Sin wants you to ignore any kind of perspective that would cause you to look to the ramifications for tomorrow or for next week.
Sin doesn’t want you to think about how it will effect your friends, your family, your life, your soul.
Sin’s every day effort is for you to forget about eternity and live for today.
Enjoy soft sheets, good smells, and physical delight here and now… even if it leads you to hell.
There is deception weaved into all this, even in her definition of love.
The temptress calls what she is offering “love”… but that is not what she is offering.
love wants what is best for the other person
she wants what she can get from him even if it costs him
love is marked by sacrificial commitment to another.
she wants satisfaction from him, but makes no sacrificial commitment to him.
Love doesn’t last only for a night and end in the morning
True love goes on and on to every morning there after
She is not offering love.
Love does not look like a perfumed bed, where someone wants to take my life from me.
Love looks a lot more like a bloody cross, where Jesus gave his life for me… where he committed to save me, forgive me, and love me despite my sin, despite my failures, despite my unfaithfulness…, despite whether he felt like it Or not in the moment of his sacrifice.
but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Sexual sin appeals to my selfish desires. , but true love is expressed in self-lessness.
The temptress here is acting in selfishness and appealing to selfishness.
And she’s promising that no one will ever know.
19 For my husband is not at home;
he has gone on a long journey;
20 he took a bag of money with him;
at full moon he will come home.”
21 With much seductive speech she persuades him;
with her smooth talk she compels him.
#5 Sexual Sin Falsely Assures of Secrecy and Security
#5 Sexual Sin Falsely Assures of Secrecy and Security
She promises that her husband is gone on a long journey.
There is no chance that anyone will ever know about this night together.
She is promising secrecy and security…
Sin never ever delivers on this promise of secrecy and security.
It may for a short season…, but disaster is soon to come.
Sin is always uncovered.… often in this life and certainly on the last day of God’s judgment.
In fact, you should want it to be uncovered In the here and now.
It is God’s grace that your sin would come to light now rather than remain in darkness until the last day.…
Sin exposed is the only kind of sin that can rightly be addressed, combated, forgiven, and overcome.
If you are living a double life this morning, constantly covering up the sin you are living in,
let me warn you …., the safety and security of the darkness you live in is a lie.
true freedom, true life eternal and life more abundant, is only found through confession of sin to a Savior and to a church family who offers to both forgive you of that sin and help you fight that sin.
That secret sin is not your friend to protect.… it is an enemy to expose.
Listen to how the father describes the fate of the young man who succumbs to these lies.
22 All at once he follows her,
as an ox goes to the slaughter,
or as a stag is caught fast
23 till an arrow pierces its liver;
as a bird rushes into a snare;
he does not know that it will cost him his life.
24 And now, O sons, listen to me,
and be attentive to the words of my mouth.
25 Let not your heart turn aside to her ways;
do not stray into her paths,
26 for many a victim has she laid low,
and all her slain are a mighty throng.
27 Her house is the way to Sheol,
going down to the chambers of death.
What a foolish exchange.
There is a God who loves you.
A God who created sex and sexuality to be enjoyed in a particular way… a way that leads to life and life more abundantly.
There is a God who wants what is absolutely best for you, who wants life for you, who offers eternal life to you.
There is a God who shows his love for you by going down into the chambers of death on your behalf.
Jesus of Nazareth, like a committed husband, laying down his life for his wayward bride came for you and died for you.
He plunged himself into Sheol for you
And took the punishment you deserved To have a loving relationship with you.
Why would you run after a sexual relationship with someone or something that leads you into the chambers of death.… when God offers you a relationship with himself that delivers you unto ever lasting life?
What do we do with all this?
What do we do with passages like Proverbs 6 and 7.
Allow me to leave you with four takeaways:
Confess -
Confession of sin is the doorway into salvation - you have to recognize before God that you need his forgiveness before you can ever receive it.
Confession of sin is the doorway into Christian community - the only way to be known, loved, and helped, is to be honest with others about your struggles.
Without confession of sin, there is no revival, there is no spiritual awakening, there is no movement of God. Every great movement of the Spirit in the Bible is marked by a spirit of confession… and repentance.
Repent -
Confession is only part of the equation.
It is one thing to admit that you have sinned.
It is another thing to actively turn from that sin in faith and dependence on the Lord.
What does repentance look like for you this morning?
What has God called you to which you have refused to do?
What has God called you to let go of which you are still holding on to?
Repent.... and then that repentance only begins the battle we will continue to fight.
Combat
The devil is scheming. two weeks ago we acknowledge that if the devil is scheming against us, then we too should be strategic in our warfare against sin.
We should take real steps and put in place real boundaries for our war against sin…
That sermon was two weeks ago… what steps have you taken? What boundaries have you put in place?
What does spiritual warfare look like for you these days?
Let me encourage you, recruit some comrades, some brothers or sisters in Christ that will help you combat the enemy.
One of the things you will notice about the man wandering into the adulteresses home… he was traveling alone.
Don’t travel alone. Confess, repent, and combat with a group of people who are as committed to your holiness as you are.
Rest
The proverbs often expose us to the sin, the guilt, the shame, and the consequences of our decisions.
But they also prepare us for the gospel message that saves us.
The message of Christianity is not primarily a message of all things you should not do… rather it is primarily a message about what Christ did to save us and to wash us clean from all the things we have done.
9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality,
10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
That is what the one true God offers you, if you will turn to him in faith today. lets pray.