Buyer Beware

First the father warns of the “lips of the forbidden” whose words are “smoother than oil”. The father tells him the best way to be safeguarded against the lips of this woman is to safeguard his own lips. That is, don’t fall into the trap and web of her smooth words, rather speak in a way that doesn’t create trouble. You don’t trust her words because even she doesn’t know how dangerous her ways are. How does she tempt him, with words that inflate his ego, he praises him in ways that he doesn’t feel that his wife does, she makes him feel important and valued.

Who is this women? It is someone other than the man’s wife. Someone that he is not married to. Someone that is intentionally and deliberately seeking to turn this man to the path of destruction. She is hunting for him.

There are many ways this temptation comes into place. Whether it is extramarital sex, pornography, or masturbation each of these speaks sweetly as if they can satisfy us.

In the end what adultery takes his guilt and depletion of resources, he will pay the price of his actions. How does adultery do this? It takes your time, when you are seeking out lust, adultery, or porn you spend time in it when you should be spending it on other things like your job, or your school, your family, and all the other responsibilities that you have. When your adultery has become public it will exploit you, lead to your ruin and take away your respect.

What this man realizes is that by the time he realized just how much this lust and adultery had taken from him it was too late, he had nothing left.

Lust devalues the intimacy God intended

But what the father encourages the son to do is enjoy “the wife of his youth”. In other words, find joy in the pleasure of the one God has planned for you and don’t think you will find something better with someone else. He tells him that he can continue to be “intoxicated” he can still find beauty in his wife even after years and years of marriage. That they can still bring “refreshment” that they will never find in an adulterous relationship.

-No kid ever likes to just drink water. You want high-c, Capri sun, Hawaiian punch, soda, or whatever other sugary drink you can get your hands on. When you get older it is coffee, tea, alcohol, soda. We would rather drink those rather than water. But water is what sustains life, it brings us happiness throughout our life, it keeps us from getting headaches, it keeps our brain active, it prevents us from pulling a muscle and gives us better endurance when we run. Oftentimes we think that marriage will be “boring” and that we need to make it more “spicy” but you lose the true benefits that comes from sex within marriage, it will satisfy you and it will give you life. And here is the other thing. Water satisfies because it is there when you need it to satisfy. If you have ever taken a run, or wake up on the middle of the night and you are dehydrated, or you have a headache, the other things don’t task good because it isn’t what you need, what you need is what will truly satisfy. You enjoy water more when it is the satisfaction you need rather than the satisfaction that you want. But if your life is full of porn, of sex in relationships or other sexual activity, if it is filled with lust after women, then your going to desire it, but it won’t satisfy.

In ch. 6 the father calls his son’s desire for the adulterous woman as “self-destructive”. That it will lead to destruction in his life. It will lead to humiliation. This is why the father tells the son not to “lust” after this woman. Because that is where it starts, with lust. This path to destruction all starts because the son looks at someone that he doesn’t have a right to enjoy a relationship with and believes that he can possess it. Because behind all levels of lust and adultery is one sin, coveting. You take what is not yours to possess, you look at women as an object to be consumed, as something there to satisfy your needs rather than as someone you make a commitment to before God. What do I mean by this? Read what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6:15-20

“Don’t you know that your bodies are a part of Christ’s body? So should I take a part of Christ’s body and make it part of a prostitute? Absolutely not! Don’t you know that anyone joined to a prostitute is one body with her? For Scripture says, The two will become one flesh. But anyone joined to the Lord is one spirit with him. Flee sexual immorality! Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the person who is sexually immoral sins against his own body. Don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought at a price. So glorify God with your body.”

See, the person that you give yourself to is someone that you should be willing to be unified with for the rest of your life. But if you are not willing to give her a life-time commitment then you are consuming her, you aren’t caring about her and what is best for her. You are satisfying your own desires. You’re being selfish.

I read this the other day “if intimacy is with a person, not just with a set body parts, then it can be approached only within the mystery that makes up a person. It cannot be “consumed.” The apostle Paul explained the mystery at the heart of the one-flesh union in Ephesians 5 to a congregation gathered in a city known for the temple of Artemis, in a culture where temple prostitution - the use of sexual orgasm for the alleged purpose of connecting to the divine - was a cultural norm. When Paul wrote that the joining of man to woman points to the communion of Christ and his church, he did so not just by using abstract principles but by showing us how all this fits in a cosmic and redemptive story. Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. He washer her with water. This cannot be mimicked by a momentary firing of nerve endings. It can be modeled and embodied by nothing less than the giving of an entire life. And that requires a commitment to share the same story - in sickness and in health, until death do us part.”

See the fundamental sin is that you are not willing to wait for the story to be completed. You want to cut right to the end, you want to get to the “good part” and cut out all the middle and in between. But no good story cuts out the middle, in fact, the middle makes the ending that much better. If there is no struggle, if there is no sacrifice made, if there is no pain, then the ending doesn’t have the same beauty and weight.

We are called to choose life rather than death

Then the father tells the story of an inexperienced youth who doesn’t recognize the danger that he is getting into. He walks down the street and he meets this women with a hidden agenda. The son doesn’t see it but she leads to death and destruction. In fact the woman says she had just performed her religious vows and now she is in need of money. tries to show she has a religious devotion and that she has must have this relationship in order to survive. Then she moves towards her proposal. She has prepared something very tempting. She prepared her bed, she has sprayed perfume to smell enticing, and opportunity where they won’t get caught. What he doesn’t know is that he is paying for her services with his life.

The father warns that even though she looks appealing that looks aren’t always what they seem. That the seductions takes down even large armies.

See this father is warning his son about a trap that any man can fall into, but even more so a young man who doesn’t know better. Who hasn’t lied life and seen the destruction that comes to one who has acted on temptation.

You may hear this and say “this will never happen to me” or “I am not tempted by this”, or “girls don’t even like me”. Whatever it is. Maybe it isn’t even women, maybe it is feeling to homosexuality. The same truths still apply. Because at one point in your life you will be enticed to something. Whether it be to masturbation, pornography, to one day say “how valuable is my virginity for a wife anyways?” “It is just sex”. But it is not “just sex”, it is unity between two individuals. Because here is something you don’t hear. If you watch porn, if you have sex with someone, if you lust after every woman you see. One day, if you have a wife, you will compare her to all of those women you watched, ever person you had sex with, ever lustful though. And you will have to fight even harder to have only eyes for your wife, it will haunt you.

But here is our hope. God can redeem, God will redeem. He will love you even when you mess up, he can give you a strong marriage even after watching pornography and having sex, and whatever it is.

Notice that the father doesn’t speak shamefully about the son, but just warns him of the danger. Because just because you slip up, or make a mistake doesn’t mean that God does not love you. In fact, that shame that you may feel, that isn’t the Lord. God doesn’t want you to be shamed, He wants you to repent and know that you are loved, that He desires the best for you which is why He tells us about the dangers that lie ahead. Because we will make promises, “God I won’t do it again, I will change.” but then we still make the same mistakes. God loves you even when He knows your mistakes, He knows your struggles and yet He loves you anyways. Because when you beat yourself up, when you feel so much shame and guilt that you never tell anyone about your struggle, that is when the devil wins. Because the only way to forgiveness is by bringing the darkness into the light. Because the place where you feel the most guilt is where God loves you.

Because in your struggle what you are really looking for is Jesus. You are looking for something that can take the pain away, that can help you not to feel lonely, you are wanting to feel wanted and desired.

So how do we get there?

Confession

Prayer

For yourself, for one another. Someone needs to be praying FOR you.

Be healed in the Spirit.

James 5:16 “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is very powerful in its effect.”

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