Proverbs 5:1-14 (Fight By Flight: How To Have Victory Over Sexual Sin)

Thank you for subscribing to the Shepherds Church Podcast. This is our Lord's Day Sermon. We pray that as we declare the Word of God, that you would be encouraged, strengthened in your faith, and that you would catch a greater vision of who Christ is.

May you be blessed in the hearing of God's Word, and may the Lord be with you. It doesn't take a rocket scientist, it doesn't take someone who is very even astute to what's realize that we are living in a moment of societal insanity.

The Cultural Denial of Male and Female Difference

Our culture, and thankfully it seems that things may be getting better, but our culture is a culture that has denied the very fabric of reality and the difference between men and women, saying that there is no fundamental difference between a man and a woman.

A sitting Supreme Court Justice, Katonji Jackson, said, I don't know. I don't have a biology degree. As if she can't tell the difference between a man and a woman. This should be an undisputed fact. You can dig up a body hundreds of years later, and you can tell in the bones whether it is a male or female, but yet our Supreme Court Justice has no idea, even the idea that men are physically stronger than women.

You'd have to be drunk on ideological imbecility and satanic stupor to insist that a WNBA team could beat an NBA team. It has nothing to do with the giftedness of women or the quality of women, but it does have to do with the fact that men are stronger.

Men are faster. Men excel at things that women don't excel at, and women excel at things that men do not excel at. So in many ways, men are physically more powerful than women. That's just a fact. But there is one way where a woman is stronger than a man.

There is one way that a woman can use her body and destroy a man. And it's not through athletic domination. It's not through sprinting or outworking him in the fields. But there is a way where she can take her body and destroy him and drain him of his vigor and bring him down to the depths.

And that's what our passage today talks about. And there's a good example of this in a man named David. David was a man who killed tens of thousands of Philistine soldiers. There was even a song about him.

That's epic.

Saul has killed his thousands.

David has killed his tens of thousands for a bride price in order for David to marry one of his wives. You can read about it. I'm not going to go there. But he had to do a pretty incredible heroic act that would be pretty scandalous today.

Here's a man who killed giants, literally, and yet he was toppled by a naked woman. Now I'm not blaming Bathsheba for this. There's good evidence to say that he had the highest palace, that he had the highest position and he was able to see down.

There's no indication, at least in the text, that she did anything on purpose to attract him. But what I am saying is that in men's physical abilities and in their dominance over women, women have the ability in this way to give life to or to destroy a man.

David, in a sense, participated in his own downfall. He trusted in his strength. And isn't it interesting that it says when the men went out to war, David lingered. He participated in his own lust and in his own downfall.

Today we're going to look at what is adultery and what is lust. And I will tell you, it is one of the strongest attacks on men and on masculinity that hell has ever unleashed. It is so dangerous that Solomon tells us a completely different strategy for how to deal with it than any other sin.

And about 80%, just so you're aware of this sermon, is going to be directed towards my brothers because the passage is. So with that, I want us to look at four things today. I want us to look at what this passage says about the fundamental nature of men and women.

I want us to see number two, how we fight the sin of lust, not by fighting it, but by.

Fleeing it.

I want to look at eight reasons why we should run away from lust, like a man running from a hungry bear. And I want to finally end by talking about there is one and only place where you can find healing from your lust and from your sexual sins, and that is Jesus Christ.

So with that, if you will turn with me to Proverbs 5, 1 through 14, we will read the text, and then we will go into what it says. Proverbs 5, verses 1 through 14. The text says this. My son, give attention to my wisdom, incline your ear to my understanding, that you may observe discretion, and your lips may reserve knowledge.

For the lips of an adulteress drip honey, and smoother than oil is her speech. But in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword, her feet go down to death, her steps take hold of sheel.

She does not ponder the path of life, her ways are unstable, she does not know it. Now then, my sons, listen to me, and do not depart from the words of my mouth, keep your way far from her, and do not go near to the door of her house, or you will give your vigor to others, and your ears to the cruel one.

And strangers will be filled with your strength, and your hard-earned goods will go to the house of an alien. And you groan at your final end, when your flesh and your body are consumed, and you say how I have hated instruction, and my heart spurned reproof.

I have not listened to the voice of my teachers, nor inclined my ear to my instructors. I was almost in utter ruin in the midst of the assembly and congregation.

Let us pray.

Lord, the intensity of these words from Solomon is sobering. The fundamental nature of the attack has a severity that is unparalleled anywhere else in the Scripture. Lord, I pray, especially for our men today, that there would not be any hubris or pride.

Lord, I pray that there would not be any self-reliance to fight this sin. Lord, sometimes it's okay to recognize that there are dragons that are far too big, and that the only way to win is to run. Lord, your word tells us with this sin not to fight, not to stand, not to engage, to.

Run.

Lord God, I pray that our people, Lord God, I pray that me, Lord God, I pray that my children, I pray that all of our children would hear the warning of this passage. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. The fundamental assumption that is underlying this text is that there is such a thing as a man, and there is such a thing as a woman, and according to this passage, men are to be strong.

That is the fundamental assumption that you can take away from this passage. Men are to be strong. He is railing, Solomon is railing against a particular kind of man who cannot control himself. He's not railing against a disciplined man.

He's not going after a careful and deliberate man. He is excoriating the man who cannot control himself. He is going after the man who caves to temptation, who is weak in the face of his cravings, who feeds his lust instead of fleeing from his lust.

And in this, we see from Solomon who the ideal man actually is. To be an ideal man is to be a strong man, but it doesn't mean physical strength. If you're in your 90s or if you're in your teens, there is a way of being strong that is not accounted by how much you can bench press, although you should push yourself.

There's a kind of strength that's moral, that's mental, that's spiritual, that Solomon is talking about, a kind of strength that you use to tame yourself. This is the kind of strength that you use to master yourself, to bridle yourself in the face of alluring temptations.

And in this way, Solomon equates a strong man with a disciplined man. A man who is fit to rule the world is a man who must first rule himself. Men are not animals that give in to every innate impulse because a weak man will find slavery and misery when giving freedom to his flesh.

And a strong man will find freedom in making his flesh his slave. A man who is easily seduced, a man who gives in to his lust, is by definition weak and being withered. He may lift heavy things. He may fight and conquer enemies.

He may build all kinds of wealth. But a man who cannot control himself is on a path to destruction. Think about Samson, the strongest man before there was such a competition. And yet, this man who could slay armies was undone by a woman's whisper.

You think about Solomon, David's son, of all men he should have known that this kind of thing is especially important to safeguard against, and yet at the end of his life he's been mastered by a thousand pairs of hips.

God's expectation is that men would be self-controlled, that men would be chast, that men would be the kind of men who flee from this kind of sin, and that men would be the kind of men who give their love and affection to a single woman for a lifetime in covenant marriage, because that is a glory, that is a picture of the mystery of the gospel, because that is in fact what God himself has done.

Just a few verses down from our passage today, Proverbs 5 .19,. As a loving hind and a graceful doe, let her breast satisfy you at all times and be exhilarated always with her love. Men, your appetites were created for a woman, and a strong man protects those affections and guards them for her and not for many.

Men we are to take dominion over our sin, and we are not to be ignorant. I watched a documentary, it was a short documentary, I don't know what those are called, they're on YouTube, but I don't know the title for them.

I think it was one of the famous lion tamers decided to take one of them home and keep it as a pet, and he was quite pleased with how well it behaved until it mauled him and killed him. In the early days of sexual temptation, there is a kind of pleasure that seems tameable, and yet, just like that lion, it will rip you to pieces in time if you persist in it.

This is why men are called to be strong. Not physically fit to tame a lion, but actually surprisingly, the text tells us that we're strong enough to run away. The text is calling for men to be so strong that they would flee.

It sounds so counterintuitive to our minds, because when we think as boys about what kind of dragons are we going to slay, what kind of fights are we going to fight, all of us do it. I look at my four-year-old son, and every moment of his life, he is slaying some imaginary dragon in our house, whipping swords around, fighting some battle.

It is inate to our nature to stand and to advance, and we look at people who run away like they are cowards. But brothers, I'm telling you, this sin you do not fight. This sin you do not face. This sin, the most manly, responsible, righteous, and courageous thing that you can do is run away, is flee.

And there takes a kind of strength to do that, because this sin allures, this sin draws, and this sin pulls. The most courageous thing you can do is run when it comes to this sin. Now, I did say that 20 of this sermon would be in application to our ladies, and I think that this text describes the exact opposite of an ideal woman.

It calls her the adulteress because she uses her body as a lure and as a weapon and as a poison in order to entangle, manipulate, and control men, and it says she does not even know what she's doing in her destruction.

She is destroying human beings with her body, and she doesn't even know it. She's using the most powerful gift that God ever gave humanity, which is the female body, which is meant to bring life to the world.

She's using it to bring death. See, the ideal woman in Scripture is a life bringer. It's a chaste woman, a virtuous woman, a pure woman, a woman who brings and gives her life to her family, a woman who gratifies the desires of a single man, her husband, and through that work, she brings life to the world.

She brings societies into existence. She brings flourishing and humanity to life through the immortal souls that come through her womb. The ideal female is a chaste, virtuous, life-giving woman. Now, we live in a world that has all kinds of descriptions of what the ideal woman is, and many of them have to do with body type.

Well, I will tell you this. The ideal woman is not about pants, shirt, or bra size. The ideal female body is a body that brings life, that gives life, and uses her body to bring blessings to the world, not death, ruin, and destruction.

This is why God made woman beautiful, because she's glorious. And in her glory and in her beauty, she takes the very meager gifts that a man will give her and she turns them into life. She takes a single sperm cell and turns it into an immortal soul.

She takes a paper paycheck and turns it into a meal. She takes what little provisions that her husband can dig up out of the earth and she turns them into a home, and she turns them into a culture, and she turns them into flourishing.

And yet this woman in this text is not a life bringer. She is a death bringer. She uses her body to burn things down like a spider luring her victim into its web. In Solomon's day, this woman would need to paint her face and put on a particular kind of outfit and leave her home and go out into the world.

But we live in a world today where you don't even have to leave your home in order to bring.

Death to the world.

Sending pictures, posting pictures, pornographic websites. There was a lady recently, if you heard about this, who decided that it would be a good idea to go through 1 ,000 men in a day. A death bringer is what that is.

God's expectation for woman is that she would be beautiful, that she would be glorious, and that she would bring life to the world. She would steward her body like a treasure in the same way that we don't post our bank account numbers for all to see.

She doesn't post her beauty for anyone but to those to whom it belongs. Like the Mona Lisa, you and I may go and we can see it covered, we can see it wrapped, we can see it behind panes of glass, we can see it behind protection, but there's only a single person in that museum who can take it down and take it out and look at it in all of its glory in the same way women.

If you don't steward your body well, it's not about your rights. It's not about, well, he shouldn't do that. There is an application here to say that your body will either bring life or your body will bring death, so use it to bring life.

Clothe it to the glory of God and unwrap it for one so that you may bring life to the world. That's what this text is saying. Men are to love and provide for their wives. Men are to be strong. Women are to protect, unveil their glory, and bring life to their home.

That is what the fundamental assumptions of this text is. Now, the rest of the text applies to the men, and we need this passage today, don't we? There has never been a moment in human history where adultery has been more ubiquitous.

If Jesus is right and he's the Son of God, so everything he said is true, to look at a woman with lust is to commit adultery with her in your heart. Therefore, with the ubiquity of pornography, then there is not a single human being in this room who has not been affected by lust and adultery, whether actively or in your past.

No, you no longer have to go down to the Crystal Palace to procure the services for an adulteress. It's everywhere. It's everywhere, even in places you don't want it to be. You think about the weird places that this has crept into.

Shampoo commercials, where it's some sort of pleasurable experience to wash your hair in order to market these products to us. I saw this one this week, and I added it into the sermon for this reason.

You think about things like logos for companies. The Tempur-Pedic logo is a nude woman. These kinds of things have infiltrated everywhere. Our society calls this liberation, and yet this is nothing but slavery and bondage.

Solomon says, for a reason, my son, give attention to my wisdom. Incline your ear to my understanding that you may observe discretion and your lips may reserve.

Knowledge.

The call of Solomon to his son in this sin is not to linger.

It is to flee.

You know, I was thinking about one of my favorite movies. I don't watch it very often, but it's Saving Private Ryan. And that scene on Omaha Beach where they're running towards the enemy, and so many of them are dying, and how manly and masculine that scene is, and how there's a kind of glory even if a bullet takes you out and you don't make it back home.

There's a glory in running after the enemy. In every other sin, that's true, but not here. Not here. The Bible never tells us to fight directly with sexual sin. The Bible never tells us to engage it. The Bible never tells us to run it down or shoot it down.

The Bible tells us to fight by flight, to flee. Solomon says, keep your way far from her and do not go near to the door of her house. He doesn't say, draw close. He doesn't say, linger in her presence.

He says, keep your way far. Do not walk down the alleyways of sin. Do not walk into the entertainment that is proliferated with nudity and call it entertainment. There are many shows that exist today that are unbefitting for the Christian.

I remember that I wanted very much to watch, I don't even remember the show now, probably for the best. It was a really popular one, but I look up every show that I watch. I look up every show that I watch on multiple different websites because I want to flee from this sin because I know how powerful it is.

And I couldn't watch that show because it had nudity in it. Even if it's just a millisecond, I won't watch it because we can't operate under the presumption that we can fight this, that we can ignore this, that we can linger in this.

We fight by fleeing it. We fight by avoiding it. We fight by drawing away from it. The man who lingers on lust will become its slave. It is too powerful for you. It is too alluring for you. It is going to master you.

Do not give in to it. James even tells us to fight the devil, James 4, 7. We're told to fight against the world, 1 John 5, 4. We're told to fight our flesh, Romans 8, 13. But sexual sin, we're told to run.

We should pay very close attention to that point. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6, 18, flee from immorality. Romans 13, 14, make no provision for the flesh to regard to its lust. Make no provision. He tells Timothy, a young man in ministry, 2 Timothy 2, 22, flee from youthful lust and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.

Earlier, we said that the bad example that you don't want to imitate is David, who lingered on his rooftop until Bathsheba's body mastered him. The example, brothers, for us is Joseph, who when Potiphar's wife came to him to seduce him and tempt him, and she grabbed his robe and yanked his robe off of him, he ran away naked.

He ran away where everyone in that city could see his nakedness. He ran away from it because he knew that it would master him. He knew that he could not stand in its presence. He knew that he would do some act of sin against his God, and he ran.

He is our good example. Because we're not strong enough to fight it. It's too charming. It's too alluring. It's too seductive. And if you resist it, you will lose. If you reason with it, you will compromise with it.

Men who hover over lust will fall into adultery, whether it's in your visual consumption or whether it is in your bodily experience. The pattern is clear. If you stay, you will fall, and if you run, you will live.

And in that sense, fleeing is not cowardice. Fleeing is the only way to win with this sin. He says in Proverbs 5, 3 through 6, but in the end, she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death.

Her steps take hold of She-Hole. She does not ponder the path of life. Her ways are unstable, and she does not know it. And he continues in verse 8, keep your way far from her. Do not go near the door of her house, or you will give your vigor to others.

The only way to win in this sin is to run.

That's it.

Every other defense that you can concoct is en route to your downfall. Death awaits the stubborn, and learning how to flee is the only path to victory. So let me bring this down really, really on the granular level.

Brothers, if you have a cell phone that you can't control yourself with, get rid of it. Better to go through this life with joy and with peace, with God, than to have the stain and the death and the withering that comes from this sin.

If you travel for work, and you're alone in your hotel room, and you can't control yourself, quit your job and stay home and get something else. Better to walk through life with Christ and the freedom that comes from running from this sin than to have a noose around your neck with a paycheck.

If the gym that you're going to is tempting you because you can't keep your eyes to yourself, quit and buy the equipment at home. And if you can't afford it, use your extra energy to work harder to buy it and then work out from home.

An example a man gave me one time I thought was very poignant, and many in today's world will look at this and think that it's silly. This man drove to work at 7 .30 and got to work 30 minutes early and read his Bible in the parking lot because at eight o 'clock or around, there was a woman in his neighborhood who ran.

And because he could not not look at her when she ran, he said to himself, I will go early. I won't even put myself in the situation. And I'll read my Bible and I'll pray. See, the reason I think this sin is so powerful is because we can't be real.

We look at each other and we say, I'm not the one who struggles with that. I don't have those thoughts.

Yes, you do.

Yes, you do.

And the antidote is not denying it. The antidote is not sweeping it under the rug. The antidote is not pretending that you're macho and that you can fight it. The antidote is not saying, oh, this doesn't affect me.

The antidote is not any of those things. The antidote is living a life where you are fleeing from it, where you were giving no provision to the flesh, as Paul said, where you're throwing up every boundary possible to flee from this sin.

Solomon says, from the lips of an adulteress drip honey and smoother than oils her speech. The reason that this sin is so powerful is because it's sweet to the taste.

I remember I read a book by Thomas Brooks called,.

Today is a day where I'm forgetting everything. Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices. Pick it up. The first one that he mentioned is golden, literally. He says that sin, especially must is like a golden hook that a fish sees shining in the water and it goes up and it takes the bait.

And do you know what happens when it takes the bait? It lodges itself in its mouth and it rips and it pulls that fish to its destruction and death. Brothers, that is what lust is to you. It is a golden hook in your mouth that you cannot fight against.

It will pull you in. It is like a Venus fly trap that gives you nectar before it gives you destruction. The adulteress, the porn, the website, the flirting, the words, the text messages, they appear like a gift, but they are a snare for fools.

Avoid it at all costs. She will whisper to you, if it's actually whispered to you or if it's in your head, you deserve this. No one understands you. No one will ever know. This really isn't a sin. You wouldn't need this if she took care of you.

All the lies that Satan tells you are from hell. And you're a fool if you believe them. Because in the end, she is bitter as wormwood, which takes us now to the consequences. The text is clear.

Flee from lust. Flee from this sin.

Don't fight it.

Don't engage it. Paul says in Romans 8, 13, to put to death the misdeeds of the flesh and you will live,.

Not the sin.

Run from this sin.

That's the first part. And the reason is because there's consequences if you don't. The first consequence is that lust is bitter. It says that it's bitter as wormwood. If you know anything about the ancient spices, wormwood is extremely bitter and acrid to the taste buds.

It's often associated in the Bible with judgment and sorrow. It is a sign of cursing upon your life. Wormwood is like lust in that it brings curses, regret, shame, dissatisfaction, and bitter pain on you.

It will curdle your joy. It will toxify your heart and it will choke out your soul and it never delivers on its promises. So flee from it. The second consequence is that lust is painful. Proverbs 5, 4.

It's sharp as a two-edged sword, which means that it will slice you, cut you, stab you, sever you, and impale you.

You will not win.

And as it carves you up, and as it slices through your conscience, and as it tears your family apart, and as it leaves you bleeding out in silent agony, I want to mention what it's doing to you. Thomas Brooks quote says, for a drop of pleasure, they swallowed an ocean of wrath.

That's what it's doing. It has cut you up and sliced you up to inject in you curses and wrath. I'm not speaking hyperbolically. In fact, I'm struggling to get the language to communicate it. It will cause you spiritual distance from God, which is the greatest curse imaginable.

And yet we yawn at that. It will cause mental health disorders proven. It will cause impotence and erectile dysfunction proven. In fact, it's marketed to you as if it's the most masculine thing for you to do.

And yet it will rob you of your masculinity. It will wither you to the core. You must flee.

You must flee.

You can't fight it. Number three, lust is deadly. Proverbs 5, 5, her feet go down to death and her steps take hold of shield.

And it leads to all kinds of death.

It will kill your walk with God. It will kill your physical health. It will kill your relationships. It will kill your standing within a community. You've watched all of us have the completely sardonic and ridiculous pharmaceutical commercials.

If you take this pill, it will do this and this and this and this and this and this. And you're like, gosh, the side effects are worse than the cure. Well, imagine if there was a commercial for what Pornhub would do to you.

And it said, if you take this, it will shipwreck your faith. It will leave you riddled with misery. It will rob you of your manhood and your vitality. It will wither you and it will kill every good thing in your life.

And it will leave you dead. Would you take it, brothers? Would you take it?

Run.

Number four, lust is unstable. She does not ponder the path of life. Her ways are unstable. Lust is like enriched plutonium. You don't play with it. Because the one who plays with that, an explosion will ensue.

It may not be immediately, but it will come. Lust leads to whole life instability. It causes, I've already said this, anxiety, depression, addiction, physical effects. Flee from it, brothers. Number five, lust will wither you.

Proverbs 5, 9. You will give your vigor to others and your years to the cruel one.

Solomon is saying,.

By the lips of the Holy Spirit of God, who authored this passage, that if you do this, you will give away your strength. If you do this, you will give away your vitality. If you do this, you will give away your vigor.

If you do this, you will surrender your own masculinity. There are men today in their early 20s who are completely impotent because they have given their life over to this sin. They have given their masculinity to others.

They have given their vigor to others and they have given their years to the cruel one. Normal sexuality invigorates a man. Men thrive under burden. If you don't know that, then I'm here to tell you, men thrive under a burden.

If you give a man something easy, a man will become lazy. But if you make a man work for it, if you make a man fight for it, if you make him scale a mountain, if you make him do something, then a man will grow.

And let me tell you, and I don't mean this to be funny, marriage is a burden, but a good one, but a good one.

Having a wife is a burden,.

But it is a good burden. Porn and lust is a killer of men because it is too easy. A wife will require a man to grow up. A wife will require a man to provide. A wife will require a man to be responsible and get out of his pajamas and stop playing Xbox in his mother's basement.

A wife will cause a man to learn how to woo her for her affections. A wife will be the kind of righteous burden on a man that blesses him. Whereas lust will be the kind of hapless ease that will slowly kill him.

When a man has to chase after a woman, attend to a woman, provide for a woman, please a woman, it invigorates him and it brings life to him. But if you throw sex in his lap so that he doesn't have to work for anything, he doesn't have to grow up and mature, it will kill him and it will wither him.

And do we wonder why we have a masculinity crisis in our country? The Bible is so true to the human condition, is it not? These things are here for us if we would listen. Number six, lust impoverishes you.

It says strangers will be filled with your strength and your hard earned goods will go to the house of an alien. It says that, you know, a godly man stores up an inheritance for his children, but yet the man who gives himself the lust will give away everything.

He will lose everything to strangers. Is it worth the price so that your generation suffer because of you? Because of a cheap thrill?

Run.

Number seven, lust will make you miserable.

It says, and you groan at the final end when your flesh and your body are consumed. Lust is like leprosy. It will eat you alive and it will leave you groaning to the bitter end.

Is it worth it?

Flee it.

Number eight, finally, lust will humiliate you. Solomon says, I was almost an utter ruin in the midst of the assembly and the congregation. The one who fights and lust in private will be exposed in public.

Hear me, men. The one who fights their lust in private will be exposed in public. They will be humiliated and embarrassed. Your family will be shattered. Your friends will be disgusted. Your community will see you as a fool.

Everyone around you will bear the scars of your cheap thrill.

Flee from the sin.

Don't fight it. Don't linger over it.

Flee it.

Fleeing Lust and the Eight Consequences of Sexual Sin

But as we close, I don't want you to be the kind of man who flees without a direction. I'm asking you and telling you from the scriptures.

To flee from this,.

But I'm also telling you to flee to something. And it's not to the gym. And it's not to more hours at work. It's a good thing to work hard. It's a good thing to exercise. It's a good thing to eat well.

It's a good thing to have a hobby. But I'm telling you that underneath those things, there is a place for you to flee.

That is not work,.

That is not more distractions, that is more helpful for you. The call is not for you just to flee from something. It is to flee to something and it's to flee to the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus ran to righteousness, which makes him the true man, which makes him the true and the better Joseph.

Joseph ran from the adulterous. Jesus ran to Calvary.

And in that,.