Sermon: The Whore & Death

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If you want to turn your Bibles to Proverbs, chapter 5, we're in a series at Apologia Church through the book of Proverbs.

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We've done, since we planted this church over a decade ago, Romans, Matthew, Philippians.

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Now we're in the book of Proverbs, verse by verse. As much as is possible. This book is incredible and so there's times where we have to jump back and forth through different sections.

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Some of them go together and you're doing two sections at once. And so we're in Proverbs, chapter 5.

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We knew this was coming. If you were reading Proverbs, one a day, you know,

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I'm doing the book of Proverbs every month, one Proverb a day every month, we get to the book of Proverbs generally.

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You knew this was coming. Chapter 5, the loose, the adulterous, the forbidden woman.

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And so if you see this section, if you're familiar with it, you know that chapter 5, chapter 6, verse 20 on and some of chapter 9 really are the same theme, same conversation.

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The forbidden woman, the adulterous, the smooth talking, flatterer. And so I'm going to read, actually, an extended portion of this section today as we start because some of it sort of speaks for itself and some of it we're going to unpack.

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But I'm going to try to bring these sections together as, again, some have done before me. I think it's the right way to do it.

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I think it's a good way to do it so you accomplish getting through the book of Proverbs, pulling together the sections that are actually running in tandem with each other.

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And so we're in chapter 5, verse 1. This is our series, Wisdom from Above, God's Wisdom to His People.

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Chapter 5, verse 1 through 23, then chapter 6, verse 20 through 7 through 27.

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Hear now the word of the living and true God. My son, be attentive to my wisdom.

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Incline your ear to my understanding that you may keep discretion and your lips may guard knowledge.

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For the lips of a forbidden woman drip honey and her speech is smoother than oil. But in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two -edged sword.

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Her feet go down to death. Her steps follow the path to Sheol. She does not ponder the path of life.

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Her ways wander and she does not know it. And now, O sons, listen to me and do not depart from the words of my mouth.

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Keep your way far from her and do not go near the door of her house, lest you give your honor to others and your years to the merciless, lest strangers take their fill of your strength and your labors go to the house of a foreigner.

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And at the end of your life you groan when your flesh and body are consumed, and you say how

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I hated discipline and my heart despised reproof. I did not listen to the voice of my teachers or incline my ear to my instructors.

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I am at the brink of utter ruin in the assembled congregation. Drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own well.

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Should your springs be scattered abroad, streams of water in the streets? Let them be for yourself alone and not for strangers with you.

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Let your fountain be blessed and rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely dear, a graceful doe.

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Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight. Be intoxicated always in her love.

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Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman, and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?

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For a man's ways are before the eyes of the Lord, and he ponders all his paths. The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him, and he is held fast in the cords of his sin.

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He dies for lack of discipline, and because of his great folly he is led astray.

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Now on to 6, verse 20. My son, keep your father's commandment, and forsake not your mother's teaching.

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Bind them on your heart always, tie them around your neck. 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.

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For the commandment is a lamp, and the teaching a light, and the reproofs of discipline are the way of life, to preserve you from the evil woman, from the smooth tongue of the adulteress.

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Do not desire her beauty in your heart, and do not let her capture you with her eyelashes.

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For the price of a prostitute is only a loaf of bread, but a married woman hunts down a precious life.

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Can a man carry fire next to his chest, and his clothes not be burned? Or can one walk on hot coals, and his feet not be scorched?

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So is he who goes into his neighbor's wife, none who touches her will go unpunished. People do not despise a thief if he steals, to satisfy his appetite when he's hungry.

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But if he's caught, he will pay sevenfold. He will give all the goods of his house.

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He who commits adultery lacks sense. He who does it destroys himself.

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He will get wounds and dishonor, and his disgrace will not be wiped away.

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For jealousy makes a man furious, and he will not spare when he takes revenge. He will accept no compensation.

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He will refuse, though you multiply gifts. My son, keep my words and treasure of my commandments with you.

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Keep my commandments and live. Keep my teaching as the apple of your eye. Bind them on your fingers.

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Write them on the tablet of your heart. Say to wisdom, you're my sister, and call in sight your intimate friend, to keep you from the forbidden woman, from the adulteress, with her smooth words.

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For at the window of my house, I have looked out through my lattice, and I have seen among the simple,

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I have perceived among the youths, a young man lacking sense, passing along the street near her corner, taking the road to her house, in the twilight, in the evening, at the time of night and darkness.

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And behold, the woman meets him, dressed as a prostitute, wily of heart.

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She's loud and wayward. Her feet do not stay home. Now in the street, now in the market, and at every corner, she lies in wait.

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She sees him and kisses him. And with bold face, she says to him,

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I had to offer sacrifices, and today I have paid my vows. So now I have come out to meet you, to seek you eagerly.

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I have found you. I have spread my couch with coverings, colored linens from Egyptian linen. I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.

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Come, let us take our fill of love till morning. Let us delight ourselves with love, for my husband's not at home.

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He's gone on a long journey. He took a bag of money with him. At full moon, he will come.

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With much seductive speech, she persuades him. With her smooth talk, she compels him.

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All at once, he follows her. As an ox goes to the slaughter, or as a stag is caught fast, till an arrow pierces its liver.

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As a bird rushes into a snare, he does not know that it will cost him his life.

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And now, O sons, listen to me, and be attentive to the words of my mouth.

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Let not your heart turn aside to her ways. Do not stray into her paths. For many a victim has she laid low, and all her slain are a mighty throng.

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Her house is the way to Sheol, going down to the chambers of death. Thus far is the reading of God's holy and inspired word.

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Let's pray. Lord, please help us today. O God, we need this.

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We need this. Please help, Lord, the proclamation of this word today, by your

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Spirit, may be the words of God and not the words of a mere man. Challenge us, convict us, open our eyes, change our hearts, renew our minds.

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God, we need this, especially today. We need this.

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May your truth be proclaimed today, and your church changed, not because of my words but because of yours.

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In Jesus' name, amen. That's heavy, right?

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That is heavy. It's heavy.

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It's direct. It's true. I know, I announced, as we started today and assembled together as God's people,

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I announced that I recognize that the title of the message,

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Whores and Death, is provocative. I know that it is.

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I promise you, before God, I thought long and hard before I produced that title.

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How? How do you title these sections of Scripture in a way that is honest, that is as straightforward as the text itself, that summarizes and bullet points as a title?

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And I couldn't think of a better way to honestly title it, and hopefully as you've heard it now, you understand why we called it today

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Whores and Death. Because that's really what it's about. And it's interesting, because you can call it provocative as you open up Proverbs, this section here, large section, talking about the loose woman, the forbidden woman, the adulterous woman.

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You can call it provocative and offensive, and in some sense, that's understandable. It's offensive. We don't want to use that word very often.

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It's an offensive word. Whore. Slut. These are offensive words.

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You don't want to just throw that word out willy -nilly, and God certainly isn't doing it.

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And so yeah, that should be an offensive word. It's meant to be an offensive word, because that's not how

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God made the world, amen? And so yes, it's offensive. Murderer is also offensive.

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You should use that word, not willy -nilly, but seriously. Murderer, child molester, thief, liar.

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You should use those words in the right context, but of course, they're meant to be offensive.

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When you call someone a liar, it's offensive, because that's not the way God made the world.

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It is supposed to be offensive. The problem is, is that I was thinking as a minister of the gospel, trying to be very cautious to guard my own heart, guard my own mind, and not try to be provocative for provocative sake.

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As I've been trying to think through that, I think, yeah, of course it's offensive, and I'm so bothered by the fact that we're putting this on a title, but yet God speaks about it, because it's supposed to be offensive, yet it's not actually offensive.

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It's not offensive anymore. Because people today in our culture parade their sin like Sodom, and so what used to be a provocative word and an offensive word, whore, is something that actually is celebrated today.

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It's celebrated. It's a badge of honor. Don't believe me? Don't look this up. What's one of the most popular songs of the last two years?

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Cardi B's WAP. How's it start off? Whores in this house, there's some whores in this house, there's some whores in this house, there's some whores in this house.

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It's a badge of honor. It's no longer something that should bring somebody shame. It's no longer something that should bring so much dramatic consequence.

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It's something that people wear today as a badge of honor. It's something that's celebrated. The question is, what's your body count?

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What's your body count? That's a popular thing in our culture today. People walking up to girls on the street, interviewing girls, saying, hey, what's your body count?

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As though it were something to be celebrated. Someone's body count. And isn't it amazing? Someone wants to say the

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Bible is this old antiquated book, it's an old book, it really has no meaning for the modern world.

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And people today in our culture are asking the question to whores, what's your body count?

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And that is precisely what the book of Proverbs says. She brings these people down to what?

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Death. She makes them die. She brings them to death. Old and antiquated book.

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This is God's truth. And yet we live in a time where, because I believe, there's a lot of excuses for it, the lack of the proclamation of the gospel, the lack of boldness in the culture, the

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Christian church not fighting the way that God calls us to in the public square being light to the world.

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We live in a culture now that has so much Christian blessing and gospel blessing behind it.

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We've moved away from the world. We've hid behind our walls. And so now out there, the darkness creeps in because no light is shining into it.

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We have things like the sexual revolution that, well, now let's admit it, we are reaping what we sow.

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Or, better yet, didn't sow. In the culture around us. And so now it's a badge of honor.

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Being a whore, being a harlot, being a slut, being a hoe is just a badge of honor.

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It's celebrated today. I told you this was going to be hard today. I told you.

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But here's the deal. I promised you this before God. I'm not trying to be provocative. I'm trying to be faithful with the text.

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God speaks about the forbidden woman, the adulteress with her smooth words, and the consequences of living that sexually immoral life.

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These are God's words. My hope today is that you wouldn't be changed by or challenged by anything that I say as a man, but that these words from God would cut you, would challenge you, and that God would raise up a gospel -proclaiming church from within us and those who hear these words and actually establish then a righteous, holy, delightful, pleasurable, sexual, physical culture amongst married people.

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Amen? It's amazing, too. I'll just say this at the beginning. People have tried to mischaracterize the past.

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Of course, today we live in a time where people are trying to take down statues and erase history and all the rest, and they've got a lot of different reasons for that.

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Marxists usually do. But in terms of describing the past Christian culture, no, it wasn't a utopia, and you're always dealing with sinners.

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But those were some pretty amazing people back then. You think about the Puritans. People try to decry the

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Puritans today, and there's these sort of stuffy, you know, people that are against pleasure and all those things.

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Shows you've never read the Puritans, if you think that about them. Actually, they were very, very focused and committed to delighting in God and joy and pleasure, but they knew that pleasure had to be made or received in the way that God actually created it.

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Did you know that there's actually stories and records of the Puritans actually exercising church discipline on their members for withholding physical intimacy from one another?

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Do you know the Puritans did that? That they so prized pleasure and physical intimacy within marriage and the command of God, which you see right here, to find your delight in your spouse physically, and it's described in some pretty beautiful, poetic ways.

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They so believed that God created us to find joy and physical intimacy in our marriages that they said, no,

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God says you cannot withhold physical intimacy from your spouse, and if you're doing that, that is sinful, and if you will not repent, we're bringing you up on church discipline, because you're supposed to be sexual with your spouse.

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The Puritans believed that, and they did that. They also liked their beer. Amen? Okay.

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You can cut the atmosphere in this room with a knife right now. Laying foundations.

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Again, most of this, I think, speaks for itself. But we live in a time where you read the account of this woman in Proverbs, and you're like, that's not even offensive in our culture.

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In our world around us, it's not even actually something that's offensive. It is a badge of honor. People actually don't, they're not really bothered or offended by being called a whore or a hoe or a slut.

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It's in our music. It's celebrated. This is something that's okay to do. You can parade this, and you can be bold -faced about it.

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You have today, in popular culture, because of social media and the internet, you have only fans. Women who are proud of the fact that they're making six figures a month selling pictures of themselves on the internet to strangers and doing all kinds of evil and sexually immoral things.

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You have the whores of TikTok, the whores of Instagram, bragging on their body count, trying to seduce men with their bodies, parading their sin like Sodom.

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We have now the loose woman, the forbidden woman is elevated in our culture.

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We've lost the righteous indignation for such things. Do you agree?

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That's where we're at. Now, as we start this today, I want to acknowledge at the front, this isn't about an adulterous woman.

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This is about a forbidden woman. This is about a sexually immoral or a loose woman. And some women might say, excuse me, what about the man?

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And the truth is, is this section of scripture is putting a pin somewhere to describe the sexually immoral woman, the loose woman, but it applies also, of course, to the man.

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It's giving you an example. And in this case, and this is something that others have pointed out as well, another verse to this, the indictment here in the book of Proverbs is on the forbidden woman, the adulterous woman, the loose woman, and the foolish man who follows her.

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The indictment's on both. It's not one or it's both of them are being indicted here, the man and the woman.

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And much of this, as you look at how God is giving you an example, can be equally applied, and I will apply it to the man as well, the adulterous man, the seducing man as well.

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This is so serious, this issue of sexual morality, the loose woman, the harlot, the whore, the prostitute.

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It's so serious that God actually wraps sexually immoral or the adulterer into his greatest indictment of unfaithfulness.

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Now, get that. God at times in scripture, if you didn't know this, if you're new to the Bible, at times in scripture gives us so much imagery, so much symbolism.

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Jesus was... That was one of the most amazing things of Jesus' ministry is because Jesus could communicate with the most amazing wisdom, because he is the wisdom of God incarnate, he could engage with the most amazing logic, but at times he would just simply tell a story.

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He would give somebody a picture that would expose exactly where they're at, and in scripture God wraps, he wraps this issue of sexual immorality and adultery into his greatest identification of what unfaithfulness is.

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As an example, we're going to see in a moment here in Ezekiel 16 and Revelation 17, God depicts the unfaithful wife, the adulterous wife, and that to him is the premier example of unfaithfulness.

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He could have of course, and of course he indicts thieves and murderers and the covetousness elsewhere, but he could of course paint a portrait of unfaithfulness that describes a thief or a liar or a covetor, but he doesn't do that.

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Actually, in the book of Ezekiel you'll see when he wants to identify to his people what is this premier display of unfaithfulness, he uses the adulterous woman, the sexually immoral woman.

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So, go to that so you see it with your own eyes. Book of Ezekiel, chapter 16,

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Ezekiel 16. I'm not going to read this entire section,

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I'm just going to give you points here to show you how God describes his relationship that he has with his people, this covenant relationship of love that he has for his people.

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He describes that relationship as a husband to a wife. Isn't that amazing?

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That's how God builds the world. Man and woman, male and female, husband and wife, that's how he makes everything else.

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Everything else he does in history, he has the foundation of male, female, husband, wife, this covenant relationship together of love.

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And when God wants to describe just the love and the commitment that he has to his people, he does so as a husband to a wife.

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And he says to Israel in chapter 16, verse 6, And when

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I passed by you, I saw you wallowing in your blood. I said to you, In your blood live.

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I said to you, In your blood live. I made you flourish like a plant of the field.

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And you grew up and became tall and arrived at full adornment. Your breasts were formed and your hair had grown, yet you were naked and bare.

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When I passed by you again, I saw you. Behold, you were at the age for love. And I spread the corner of my garment over you and I covered your nakedness.

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I made my vow to you and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Lord. And you became mine.

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And you can keep reading here. As you read, he describes the bracelets he puts on her wrist and the chain on her neck and the ring on her nose and earrings in her ears and a beautiful crown on your head.

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And now the story switches. It changes. And God's saying, This is the relationship I have of love with you, the covenant

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I made with you. You're mine. And then God says in verse 15, But you trusted in your beauty and played the whore because of your renown and lavished your whorings on any passerby.

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Your beauty became his. You took some of your garments and made for yourself colorful shrines and on them played the whore.

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The like has never been or ever shall be. And so God continues in this text here.

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Honestly, it's powerful. He actually says, and you can read it later yourself, when he describes her sin and her unfaithfulness, he says,

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You're different though. You're different than other prostitutes because other prostitutes get paid for what they do.

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And he says, And you go out looking for people and you pay them and you accept nothing back. He says,

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So you're different. You're so unfaithful that you're looking for ways to give yourself away to others and you're not even receiving any payment for it.

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So you're different than other harlots. They get paid for what they do and you give yourself away for nothing.

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And that's how God describes this premier state of unfaithfulness. He wants to communicate to his people that he views the harmony between a male and a female, that covenant relationship of love and that marriage.

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He views that as so powerful, so foundational, so everything, that he describes what he sees as the peak of unfaithfulness as this unfaithful wife, the unfaithful woman.

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It's a powerful thing and it's an indictment. You can read Revelation 17. He gives a spectacular symbol of,

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I believe, a covenantally unfaithful Israel in Revelation 17.

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She's wearing the priest's colors, drinking the blood of the saints and the martyrs of Jesus. She's got

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Babylon written on her forehead. She's in league with Rome.

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I think it's a perfect description of what was happening in the first century. But when he wants to describe covenantally unfaithful

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Israel, he does so with the unfaithful wife. You see, God, we have to understand this as we open

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Proverbs, God sees this relationship, male, female, husband, wife, covenant relationship.

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He sees it as so foundational to the world, male and female, covenant, love, physical intimacy and pleasure, family, children, faithfulness.

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He sees this as the foundation. This is the summary of humanity in some sense.

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That relationship, male and female. It's interesting because some of you guys may have heard just this past week,

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I think it dropped this last week, Matt Walsh, a Roman Catholic, was on Joe Rogan's podcast, a very popular podcast, and they were talking about the issue of trans and other things, and then the issue of marriage came up, and I just want to say

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I think Matt Walsh lost and he lost badly. He lost and he lost badly because he tried to play the myth of neutrality against an unbeliever who actually wasn't very neutral at all, was he?

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But Matt Walsh refused to anchor his argument for marriage as between one man and one woman in the words of God.

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He refused to touch scripture, he refused to refer to Jesus in terms of what did Jesus say about marriage?

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I mean, I think that's probably a good thing, right? If Jesus is who we claim to be, if he is God, the creator of Joe Rogan, and everything in the universe, if he's

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God in the flesh, if he says, from the beginning, he created them male and female, and a man shall leave his father and his mother, and shall cling to his wife, there shall be one flesh,

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I would say that if Jesus is God in the flesh, we should listen to Jesus, and not just listen to Jesus, we should use his words when we're defending the very institution he created.

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Because if it's just my own subjective experience, my own feelings versus yours, as another random result of evolutionary processes, then olly olly oxen free, everything's up for grabs.

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Nobody's right, nobody's wrong, there is no good, there is no evil, there is only blind and pitiless indifference,

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Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden. That is the atheist, the unbelieving world view, there is no good, there is no right, there is no wrong.

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And so it's just really, how do you feel, and how do you feel, but you have to understand, brothers and sisters, as you look at texts like this, about the forbidden woman, the adulteress, the loose woman, we have to understand, the reason this is so broken, and so evil, and so not supposed to be the way, is because God created the most beautiful, powerful institution, marriage, between one man and one woman, to be faithful for life, amen?

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That's the truth, and some of you guys are in this room right now, and you're thinking, well I haven't been faithful to that, and I'm a sinner, praise

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God for the gospel, praise God for that cross, amen? But we can't diminish the truth of God over what he's created in marriage because of our own sin and unfaithfulness, amen?

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So repent, get your hearts right, and let's establish righteousness and justice from the word of God, amen?

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That's what we must do. Listen, something that Dr. Bonson said that I thought was so cutting, and it was precise, it was sniper fire, and it is the identification of what is the problem, with all this looseness and all this sexual immorality, all the impurity, what's the problem?

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You see, we've robbed ourselves of what true joy and true pleasure is, physical intimacy is meant to be celebrated and enjoyed within the context of marriage, and God's not embarrassed to talk about it.

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Did you hear what I read? Were you listening? Some of you guys,

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I could hear the seats creaking when I got to the part about her breasts. He said it, these are the words of God, so don't be afraid to say it.

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Did you hear how God said the way to preserve yourself from the forbidden woman, the adulterous woman, the loose woman, is to find your satisfaction in your wife?

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Did you hear it? That's physical intimacy. That means that Christians are supposed to be the ones who celebrate and delight in physical intimacy with our spouses more than anybody.

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We've got a justification that gives it meaning, and what Bonson said is that the unbelieving world, they want to twist sexuality and physical intimacy, so they have, he says, we've in our sin divorced our genitals from our hearts.

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Let it set for a second. The world today says, do what you want, increase your body counts, be sexually immoral, be a whore, be a hoe, be a slut, do it all.

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What's the point? It's all about pleasure anyways. Yeah, you've destroyed this glorious thing.

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You just divorced your genitals from your hearts. You're like an animal. That's what the world does with human sexuality when we live in a way that God hasn't created us.

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You see, we've abandoned true pleasure and sexual joy to dumpster dive into the darkness of sexual morality, and we think that's pleasure.

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We think that's joy. There's no intimacy there. There's no real pleasure there.

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There's no real joy there. It's a moment of lust, and it disappears, and so does the guy, and then so does the girl.

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One night stands. I like how Bonson said, it's so old school, the no -tell motel.

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That's something only an old person would say, have you ever said that? I never heard it before,

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I don't know. But it's a good one. So let's see, let's try to unpack this.

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It's a huge section, but they go together. Read them together, this section five, six, and then into nine as well.

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Read it together. Describes her in different ways. But let's assess her, and again, in assessing her, we're also assessing him.

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This is how God is giving us a portrait, an image. How does the adulteress, the forbidden, the loose woman, how is she described?

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She, or he, uses her words to seduce you.

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She uses her words to seduce you. Proverbs chapter five, verse three, text says, for the lips of a forbidden woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil.

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Chapter six, verse 24, says to preserve you from the evil woman and the smooth tongue of the adulteress.

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Chapter seven, verse five, to keep you from the forbidden woman, from the adulteress with her smooth words.

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Chapter seven, verse 21, with much seductive speech, she persuades him.

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With her smooth talk, she compels him. So one of the identifying marks of the forbidden woman, the seductress, the adulteress, the harlot, one of the marks of this woman, or again, man, and this happens, many of you know, you're old enough to know this, with the adulteress man, the loose man, the man who tries to destroy a marriage by entering into something that is not his own, they try to flatter you.

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They try to build you up. They try to have you numb your conscience.

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They say things to you like, you deserve so much better. I love you more than she does.

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Maybe some of you are old enough to know some people who have had marriages impacted by adultery, and I think oftentimes you hear it with the woman who's gone away with another man and she's broken away from the marriage with a guy at work, and how is that usually described?

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How is that usually described when it comes to the woman who leaves her marriage and leaves her husband for another man, maybe she met at work or she met out somewhere?

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It's often described as, well, he was listening to me, right? He seemed like he cared about me.

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He was so sweet to me. He was so nice to me. He said so many kind things to me.

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He built me up. He made me feel so good about myself. And here's the point, yeah, that's what harlots and loose women and loose men do, is they use their words to flatter you.

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And you have to be aware. Wisdom would say, be aware of the loose woman, the adulterous woman, the forbidden woman who will use her mouth to deceive you by flattering words, smooth words.

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That's how she's described. She uses her words to seduce you. But listen to the consequence.

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721 says, with much seductive speech she persuades him, with her smooth talk she compels him.

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And it says, here's the consequence, verse 22, all at once he follows her.

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As an ox goes to the slaughter, or as a stag is caught fast, till an arrow pierces its liver as a bird rushes into a snare, he does not know that it will cost him his life.

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You're so easily deceived, we're so easily deceived by the flattery, by the smooth words like oil, coming from this woman, or again, coming from the man, not recognizing that now all of a sudden you're being led away, like an ox to the slaughter, just waiting to get your neck cut, or your head cut off.

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It only leads to death, but it starts with, what, words.

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The lips. She's also described in terms of how she works at seducing you.

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It's not just the words. She is dedicated to working on seducing you.

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The forbidden woman, the adulteress, the whore, the harlot, however you want to describe it, it's described in a number of ways.

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She works at seducing you. How? Well, in chapter 6, verse 25, it says that she works at seducing you with her beauty.

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With her beauty. It says in verse 25, do not desire her beauty in your hearts, and do not let her capture you with her eyelashes.

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With her eyelashes. She works on seducing you with her beauty. Now, isn't it amazing?

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This is what's so compelling, I think. When you read this, you're reading something written in the context of this is revelation of God, to the people of God who've received the law of God, you've got wisdom from God, with the covenant people of God, and what's being described here in terms of how she tries to capture you with her beauty is her eyelashes.

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Right? You think about the woman who sort of like turns around and looks and like, right? The eyelashes. Because that was that seductive -natured work towards getting you to notice me is just the eyelashes.

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Today? Today? Today? In our culture, we're not talking about eyelashes.

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We talk about the woman who's the forbidden woman, the adulterous woman, the woman who is the harlot.

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She's not just using her eyelashes. No, we live in a culture of yoga pants, stretch pants,

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Instagram. The hook goes in. Now, don't pretend like you don't know what

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I'm talking about. Be honest. You're not going to get free from something by putting on the

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God face, so let's all be real with each other. Are you ready for real talk, guys? Real talk? Real talk is you opening up your

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Facebook to check on messages and all of a sudden you've got a stream of shorts of half -naked women trying to seduce you with their beauty.

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You got married women in half -naked wearing stretch pants that only go to the, like barely below the waist, like doing workout videos and you're inundated with it on Instagram or Facebook.

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You thought you were getting an app so you can communicate with friends and like share funny memes, but what do we get?

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You've got the forbidden woman, now it is a mass of them constantly trying to put their hooks into you and I with their beauty, but it's not just eyelashes.

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It's being now fully acceptable half -naked, half -naked in public.

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I can't go to the grocery store in my area of town without running, it's right across the street from an

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LA Fitness. I can't go to the grocery store without having to pass by 10 women that are half -naked.

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Those goods aren't for me, ma 'am, right?

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I said this was real talk. That's not for me. That is for the joy and pleasure of you and your man.

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Women, those are precious things, those are glorious things that don't belong to me.

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I shouldn't see that. And Christian women, other Christian men shouldn't see parts of your body that are made for your husband.

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Stop making excuses. Christian culture today loves to make excuses like, well what about the guy, it's his job to stop dressing like a whore.

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Oh no, it just got thicker in here. Stop dressing like a whore.

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Do you need to hear it that bluntly? Stop making excuses and say, well he needs to guard his eyes, you need to stop dressing like a whore.

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So here's the deal, I'll make a deal with you. I'll guard my eyes, you stop dressing like a whore. Sound good?

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And by the way, if you're like, oh that's provocative, that's what the text says.

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Whore, harlot, prostitute. You're going to see more. She does it through her dress.

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Chapter 7 verse 10. The text says, chapter 7 verse 10, and behold the woman meets him, what's it say?

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What's it say? Dressed as a what? Prostitute.

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Wily of heart. I told you I'm not trying to be provocative, I'm a minister of the gospel,

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I'm just trying to speak from the text. When I said stop dressing like a whore, it's because Proverbs 7 says, she, this forbidden woman, does what to capture men with her beauty?

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She does what? She comes dressed like a what? A prostitute. I .E.

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a what? Whore. There's like three of you that are brave enough to say it. It's in the text.

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It's in the text. She comes dressed like a prostitute.

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What does that look like? Somebody who's revealing parts of her body, somebody who's advertising things to others that only belong to her husband or should belong to the man she's covenanted with.

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She comes dressed like that. She uses smooth words. She bats her eyelashes. She uses her beauty to seduce people and she comes dressed like a prostitute.

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That's what the text says. She does so. She hooks people, not just through her words, not just working hard with her beauty trying to seduce you through her dress, but through her behavior as well.

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She wants to make her heart and her desires obvious to everybody around her.

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The text says in chapter 7, verse 11, it says she is loud and wayward.

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Her feet do not stay at home. In chapter 9, verse 13, the description goes like this.

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The woman folly is loud. She is seductive and knows nothing.

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This is the woman being described as boisterous, willful, obvious.

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If you're old enough, you know what that looks like. The woman who clearly is making it obvious to all the men in the room what kind of woman she is.

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She's making it obvious. She's boisterous. She's willful. But the text also says she is wily of heart.

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That's a person who is secretive. The text actually says wily like coyote.

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When do we use that word today? The word is closed. She's secretive.

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She's secretive. She's wily. She's clothed. She's plotting. She's got secrets. She's trying to ensnare people.

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She's working with her beauty to seduce people. She's using her words and she's making it obvious to everybody around what kind of woman she is.

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That she's available. She's trying to constantly create those relationships with other men. And so, the text also says that she is comfortable in the darkness.

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Look at chapter 7 verse 9. It says, in the twilight, in the evening, at the time of night and darkness.

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That's where she operates. That's where she operates. You ever think about the seedy parts of town, right?

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The seedy parts of town, like how when the lights go down, when the sun goes down, that part of town becomes very dark and all of a sudden now, it's like the night of the living dead.

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Everything starts coming out of the ground, right? It starts coming out into the streets. I remember when

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I first moved here to Arizona, Van Buren, that stretch of Van Buren was epic.

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I mean, it was something like I had never seen before. I was from D .C. and of course we had prostitutes that were on the street in D .C.

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But when I came to Arizona to teach a seminar in December of 1995, when they took us back or taken us to the airport, we drove on Van Buren and it was wall to wall prostitutes.

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So, me and guys were in town during that time. It was darkness and it was prostitutes lining the streets all the way down.

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When night time came, it was epic. The drug dealers were out. The prostitutes were out.

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The strip clubs were opened up with lights, neon lights pointing. Why? People love, like this, love to operate in the darkness and she is clearly operating in the dark and why, of course, we know in John chapter 3.

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What does it say about men and women in our sin? John chapter 3, verse 19.

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And this is the judgment. The light has come into the world and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.

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Why do they operate at night? How come when the lights go out, it's all taking place at night because people don't want to be exposed?

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They want to hide in the darkness. People aren't walking outside advertising, I'm the adulterer, I'm the liar,

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I'm the thief. They operate at night because they love darkness and they want to hide their sin.

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Still with me? It says about this woman, the forbidden woman, that she's proud of herself and has no shame.

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She's proud of herself and she has no shame. Chapter 7, starting at verse 13.

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It says she seizes him and kisses him and with a bold face she says to him,

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I had to offer sacrifices and today I have paid my vows so now I have come out to meet you, to seek you eagerly and I have found you.

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She's proud of herself. She has no shame. And notice what she's saying. She's trying to break down the conscience.

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It's amazing, it's incredible. These words from God written so very long ago has literally the psychology of the adulterous forbidden woman down.

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Down to even how she soothes her own conscience and how she will try to break yours down too.

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Now again, this is describing the forbidden woman, but you could easily place the man here as well who's just as loose and just as sinful.

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How does she break down the conscience? How will she try to break you down? Not just with her eyelashes, not just with her beauty, not just with her flattering words, not just working on you, but she will try to break down your conscience.

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How? How does she do so? It says that when she seizes him and kisses him, the bold face, she says what?

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Here's verse 14. I had to offer sacrifices and today I've paid my vows. What's that?

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I'm a good person. I'm a moral person. I see

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I'm not bad. I'm a good person. I'm religious even.

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Notice she vows. I paid my vows. I see, look, you can be like me. You can engage in this rendezvous.

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Look, I've made my house so nice all night. Just you and me. I've made everything so sweet.

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It's going to be an amazing night together. And look, I'm a good person. I'm religious. I paid my vows.

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I'm a good girl. See, I'm moral. You can be moral. You can be right with God. You can do all the religious things, but you can still come away with me.

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You can keep this secret. Wow. The playing on the conscience to try to break it down.

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I'm a good person. I'm religious. I'm moral elsewhere. I'm a good girl. You see, that is how the forbidden woman or the forbidden man, the person trying to seduce you will come.

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They will try to break down your commitment to, here it is, Christ and God's law.

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They'll try to break it down. They'll try to wear down your conscience by saying, you can have both.

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You can have Jesus. You can be a Christian. And you can live this life of sexual infidelity.

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You can have both. I paid my vows. Come to my house. I paid my vows.

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Come to my house. This is how she's described. She tries to break down your conscience.

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Look at chapter 9. Start at verse 14. It says this. She sits at the door of her house.

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She takes a seat on the highest places of the town, calling to those who pass by who were going straight on their way.

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She has no shame. She is bald -faced in this. And you're thinking to yourself, you're like, alright, come on.

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This is a little bit overboard. You got a woman in her house, like, calling out into the public square as random people are walking by.

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She's offering herself to random people in the public square. There's nobody really like that.

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Instagram, TikTok, Facebook shorts. Women advertising themselves to every passerby.

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Man I love God's word. Man I love God's word. This is just the truth.

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And we need to get right with it. In verse 14, she's calling out from the door of her house to everyone who passed by.

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Verse 15. Verse 16. Whoever is simple, let him turn here, in here. And to Him who lacks sense, she says, stolen water is sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.

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What's that? That's another way for her to break down her conscience. On the one hand, she just says, she says what,

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I've paid my vows. You can be Christian. You can be religious and also have this rendezvous.

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You can also engage in this. You don't have to deprive yourself of this pleasure. I'm also good.

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I'm a moral person. She breaks you down. She breaks you down. And here, what is she saying? She says, verse 17, stolen water is sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.

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What's she saying? You're going to love the rush of this. This feels good because it is forbidden.

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This feels good because it's not allowed. You're going to love this because stolen water is all the sweeter.

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When Bonson was speaking on this particular text, he brought up one of Augustine's comments where Augustine was describing how before he was a

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Christian, that he and some guys had like gone into a pear field that didn't belong to them.

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And they went just to steal pears from this pear farmer. And they're just stealing pears and eating pears.

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And he says, he says, I didn't even like pears. I hated pears. But I did it because there was something in me that wanted to do what was not allowed.

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And that's what she's enticing people with, right? You can be a good person and also be sexually immoral.

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And wouldn't this be amazing? It would be so pleasurable because guess what? This is forbidden by God. And you know that it's so much sweeter.

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Do you see what she's offering? Break down the conscience. Break down your will. Beware of the forbidden woman.

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And I love, I love what, how scripture describes her. Just that word itself. Did you stop to think about that? She's the forbidden woman.

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Forbidden. Don't go near her. Don't touch her. It's forbidden. Don't go there.

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Don't do that. She's the forbidden woman. Keep yourself far from her. Now, something to remark on here about her offering this water that's sweeter and this bread because this is not allowed so it's going to be so much better.

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Something to identify from what we know as Christians. In Colossians chapter 3, the Apostle Paul says that Christians, we, we have been raised up with Christ.

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We are presently seated with him at the right hand of the Father. We are alive from the dead and he says, and therefore, because you've been raised up with Jesus, he says, put to death what is earthly within you and he names some sins.

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One of the sins that he names there in Colossians 3 is he names sexual immorality and he says this. Ready?

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Which is idolatry? Sexual immorality, God's word,

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God's revelation, inspired word from God, sexual immorality is idolatry.

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What is idolatry? The worship of a false God. And Paul says that sexual immorality is false worship.

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It is worshiping a false God and here's the problem with sexual immorality as idolatry is that false gods do not satisfy real needs.

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False gods don't satisfy real needs. And so while you've got this seductress, you've got this forbidden woman, you've got this harlot, you've got this prostitute offering herself and trying to use her words and use her beauty, trying to break down your conscience, she's saying, look, this will be so amazing because it is not allowed.

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Well it's not allowed because it's not the true path to pleasure. It's not the true path to joy.

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God's not keeping you from the forbidden woman because he wants to rob you of joy. He's saying you're dumpster diving in human sexuality.

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There is no pleasure there. There is no joy. It's a moment. What is it? It's an orgasm.

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And then what? No love, no commitment, nothing. That's all it is.

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And false gods do not satisfy real spiritual needs. They never will. They never will.

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They cannot. And what's told to us in the text in Proverbs is that there is, because of this woman, and this is where wisdom has to hit us, this is where discretion must come in.

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Discretion is seeing what's ahead of you, planning, understanding what's ahead of you, knowing what's ahead of you.

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There is unavoidable pain linked to this relationship and this woman. It's unavoidable.

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Scripture is clear on this. Chapter 6, verse 27, describes this.

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Can a man carry fire next to his chest and his clothes not be burned?

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Or can one walk on hot coals and his feet not be scorched?

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There are unavoidable consequences. You will not get out of them.

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There are consequences now and here and today, and there are eternal consequences.

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And wisdom is calling out to us, guard this, keep this, don't depart from this, set your eyes on this, treasure this up.

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There are consequences. You will be burned by this, now and maybe later.

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That's the warning. No matter what your excuse, no matter what your excuse, the text says, verse 29, so is he who goes into his neighbor's wife, none who touches her will go unpunished.

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People do not, this is powerful, this is powerful, people do not despise a thief if he steals to satisfy his appetite when he's hungry.

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But if he is caught, he will pay sevenfold. He will give all the goods of his house.

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He who commits adultery lacks sense, he who does it destroys himself. What's that saying? What's that saying?

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What's bringing up the idea of a thief? Like you know, somebody is on the streets, they're destitute, they have no money.

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You might find out that person like walks into a Fry's grocery store or a Bash's or Walmart or whatever, they walk into a grocery store, they have nothing, they've been starving for days, they walk inside and they steal some food and walk out.

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There's a certain part of us who recognizes the plight of the poor and says, it was immoral and it's wrong, but I understand like,

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I understand where the man was. He was starving, so he stole, and the text is saying that.

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The text is saying, people do not despise a thief if he steals to satisfy his appetite when he is hungry, but if he is caught, he will pay sevenfold.

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The point is this, no matter how much sympathy you have for the excuse of the sin, you will be held accountable.

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That's what the text says. You're going to be held accountable. And so no matter what your excuses are, oh,

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I got addicted to porn when I was eight, oh, you know, I've been a sexual addict my whole life,

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I saw it in my dad's room and I grew up my whole life and I had this, you know, I went to college and it was just really bad,

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I've always had this addictive personality around this situation, or, you know, my wife, she uses it as a weapon and we haven't been intimate in forever and here's the deal, listen, all sympathy aside, you're still going to reap the reward.

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You're still going to have the consequences. You can have all the excuses you want for your sexual sin, and the text is clear, wisdom is saying, it doesn't matter, you will pay sevenfold.

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You will have to face the consequences. Unrepentant, you'll face the consequences.

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If it doesn't end, you'll face the consequences. No matter what the excuse, sevenfold.

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Highly encourage you to check out that series on Proverbs, I think it'll bless your life, but this quickly,

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I'll just give you the references, Bonson lists some temporal consequences, including the eternal consequences.

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I'll just give them to you so you can look at them again later, we already read through them, but in terms of consequences of hooking up with the loose, seductive, forbidden woman, 726 through 27, her body counts.

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This one I'm going to talk about for a second, 726, it says this, let's start at 25, let not your heart turn aside to her ways, do not stray into her paths, for many a victim has she laid low, and all her slain are a mighty throng.

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Her house is the way to Sheol, going down to the chambers of death.

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I just want to say again, glory to God for his word, and I love the providential moment we're in today, where college age girls, young women, are bragging on their body count.

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Their body count. God was describing the body count ages before this generation.

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The body count. Because that's precisely what's happening, these women, the adulterous woman, or the adulterous man, when you go into them, you are their victim, like an ox led to the slaughter, the destination is the chamber of death.

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You are being brought into a house that has already had a lot of victims. Yeah, body count is right, and if you go into her, if you lack discretion, if you lack understanding, if you go near her house, you'll be added to her body count, which means you go down to death.

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That's what the text says. I wonder if people on TikTok got that from chapter 7. Chapter 5, 9 through 10, this is powerful, wasting your sexual energy, wasting your sexual energy.

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Chapter 5, 9 through 10, it says, lest you give your honor to others, and your years to the merciless, lest strangers take their fill of your strength, and your labors go to the house of a foreigner.

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The point is, is God created the family, God created male, God created female, God created them to have a covenant relationship of love and commitment for one another, and God's saying, don't waste your intimate energy on a stranger.

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That's supposed to be used for your family, the building up of your family, and your wife, and your intimacy with your wife, that's what that's for.

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Don't waste it on a foreigner, don't waste it on a stranger. There's a consequence, there's another consequence.

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Chapter 5, verse 4, bitterness, guaranteed bitterness. Another consequence, chapter 6, verse 33, wounds and dishonor.

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Another consequence, chapter 5, verse 11, flesh destroyed. There's a number of things you could say about that, especially today with rampant

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STDs and unforgiving STDs, and STDs that almost can't be touched today with even the strongest, the strongest things we have in the past that would have worked, but you're promised flesh destroyed.

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Chapter 6, verse 26, it will be costly to you. Chapter 6, verse 33, there will be irreversible disgrace for you.

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Chapter 5, verses 12 through 14, shame and consequences. Chapter 6, verse 34, jealousy will be enraged.

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You sleep with another man's wife, or another woman's man, the consequences when that person comes looking for you will be serious, and they will be paid.

01:00:07

You won't be able to pay them off. And chapter 6, verse 32, it destroys the soul.

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Chapter 5, 5 through 6, is described as death and shield she brings people to.

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Chapter 7, 27, and 9, 18, the same thing. So there are temporal consequences, there's immediate consequences, you cannot get away from them when you do this and engage in this and pursue the forbidden woman or the forbidden man, but ultimately there's also eternal consequences.

01:00:39

Chapter 1 of Corinthians, sorry, 1 Corinthians, 1

01:00:46

Corinthians chapter 6, verse 9, 1

01:00:59

Corinthians chapter 6, verse 9, or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?

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Listen closely, brothers and sisters, listen to these words. These were the challenging words to me in the text.

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Do not be deceived. You see, there's an element of what's going to come next.

01:01:28

He says don't be deceived. Do not be deceived. There's an element of what's coming next where you can be deceived in this world.

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People will lie to you, people will lie to you, people will try to break down your conscience and they'll say, no, no, you can have

01:01:43

Jesus and you can have the Bible, you can be Christian, you can be religious, you can come to your church and sing your songs, and you can still be this way unrepentantly.

01:01:51

Paul says this, don't let anybody deceive you. They will try to deceive you.

01:01:58

Do not be deceived by them or yourself. Here it is, neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

01:02:25

What's that saying? If you are not at war with your sexual sin, if you are not at war with your sexual sin, then hell is your home.

01:02:44

The text says gloriously after that hard hit, and I know it's hard, the text says after that, and such were.

01:03:00

Isn't that amazing? Because I believe there are people in this room right now that heard that and are thinking, oh,

01:03:07

I'm at war with my sin, but is that me? Is that me? Maybe you're in this room and you don't know

01:03:13

Jesus, and you're thinking to yourself, He named me, I'm in that list,

01:03:20

I'm in the list of those who have hell as their home. You don't inherit the kingdom of God.

01:03:27

I'm in the list. And the glory of the gospel is what comes after, and such were.

01:03:33

Such were some of you. But you were washed. You were sanctified.

01:03:39

You were justified, declared righteous, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of God.

01:03:45

Here's the point. The description of the sexually immoral, of the homosexual, of the idolater, the thief, the drunkard, the reviler, as a person, that that's who you are.

01:03:56

That's who you are. That's what you identify as. You've got no problems with it. That's your life. That's your heart.

01:04:02

That's where you're going. You're pursuing that. And Paul's saying, if that's you, the sexually immoral, if that's your life, if that's what you're committed to, that's where you're going, you won't inherit the kingdom of God.

01:04:16

If you're not at war with your sexual sin, then hell is your home. The glory of the gospel is that God saves us.

01:04:26

He washes us. He forgives us. There's sexually immoral people in this room who are going to heaven.

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There's adulterers in this room who are going to heaven. There are thieves in this room who are going to heaven.

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There's murderers in this room right now. Murderers who are going to heaven. Why? Because you were washed.

01:04:45

You were sanctified. You've been declared righteous. But how? Because you're in Christ now.

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Such were some of you. A death has occurred. There's an old man, there's an old woman, and there's new life.

01:04:57

Amen? That's the truth. But let's be honest about the nature of this sin.

01:05:05

You will go down to death, temporarily and eternally. The promise is this, if that's your life, if that's who you are, if that is your daily pursuit, if your heart is open to it, if that's who you are, it identifies you.

01:05:18

So you will not inherit the kingdom of God. You will go down to death and will not return.

01:05:25

It's irrevocable. So what?

01:05:35

So what? That's heavy, right? It's the truth. I would like to think that if this was preached more, we wouldn't be dealing with what we're dealing with now.

01:05:52

Personally, and in the world around us, immediately around us. So what, first thing?

01:06:01

How do we get free from this? The forbidden woman, the adulterous woman, the whore, the harlot, or the man.

01:06:09

How do you get free from it? First and foremost, I have to say it, you know the answer. Turn to Christ and live.

01:06:16

Turn to Christ and live. There is only one righteousness that's going to avail before a holy

01:06:22

God, and it will never be you. It will never be yours. And you can't make yourself better right now by hearing all this, being convicted by it, challenged by it.

01:06:32

You can't make yourself better in the eyes of God by saying, I'll do better. I'll fix myself.

01:06:38

I'll do better. I'll polish myself up. I will wash my own robes. The only hope that we have is a righteousness that is foreign.

01:06:48

It's His righteousness. Jesus is God in the flesh who lived perfectly and obediently. He died for sinners and He rose again from the dead.

01:06:56

And the call of the Gospel is turn from your sin to Christ and believe in Him.

01:07:02

Trust in Him. Come to Him and live. You come to Christ and the truth is, now you have a new heart.

01:07:10

And now you have a mind that is open to the truth of God. Now you have desires, divine desires from God for God, for His holiness, for His law, for His wisdom.

01:07:23

So the answer is first and foremost, you have no hope. You are lost outside of Jesus.

01:07:29

The only hope is in Jesus Christ and in Him alone for all eternity. So come to Christ and live. Receive that gift of eternal life.

01:07:36

That's the first thing. The second thing is keep these words of wisdom.

01:07:42

I mentioned it last week. I'll just say it quickly. How many times from chapter 1 to where we're at now have you heard from wisdom from above,

01:07:51

God's wisdom given to us in the book of Proverbs, how many times have you heard keep it? Treasure it up. Listen.

01:07:57

Keep your eyes set on it. Don't depart from it. How many times are we going to hear it? And the answer is over and over and over again because we're creatures.

01:08:04

We're fallible. We fail. We lose strength. And God's wisdom says, my son, my son, don't let it depart.

01:08:12

My son, treasure it up. My son, cry out for this. My son, don't forget this.

01:08:18

Why are we reminded? Because each day is a new day to fail.

01:08:25

Each day is a new day where we need new mercies from God. Each day is a new day where we need strength from God and empowering by His Spirit.

01:08:34

That's why. That's why. So keep it. Next, and this is very important.

01:08:41

In terms of how do you avoid the woman, we're told, and now it's going to get hard, so prepare yourself.

01:08:47

Chapter 5, you're like, I thought it was. Chapter 5.

01:08:56

And this is, by the way, it's consistent. It's so consistent through scripture. We could do a whole sermon just on this theme of fleeing, running, don't go near, put to death, don't toy with it, don't play with it, pluck out your eye, cut off your hand.

01:09:13

That's how God tells us to deal with these sins. And God says about the woman or the man, the loose man, the loose woman, the adulteress, the harlot, the forbidden person.

01:09:24

He says, chapter 5, verse 8, keep your way far from her and do not go near, do not go near the door of her house.

01:09:42

Some of you guys right now, maybe God is working on your heart and your mind and you're thinking to yourself, Lord, thank you for that in my heart,

01:09:48

I'm repentant, Lord, thank you for that change of mind. I want victory in this area. Whatever it looks like,

01:09:53

Lord, tell me now. It's going to look different for many of us, but the don't go near her door part is obvious enough.

01:10:02

Don't entertain. Don't go near the door. You stay far from the forbidden woman, the forbidden man.

01:10:10

Stay far. Maybe some of you guys have found yourself in the last couple of weeks or days or months in a relationship that's inappropriate with someone of the opposite sex, someone that's not your husband, someone that's not your wife.

01:10:22

You've had some conversations that are a little over the line and you guys have found yourself getting closer and closer to talking about intimate things and you're sort of actually treating each other now like husband and wife in a low -key kind of way.

01:10:34

Don't go near. Repent. Cut it off. Immediately. Run. Flee. The text says don't go near her house.

01:10:41

Here's another text. First Corinthians, chapter 6, verse 18 says this. How do you deal with sexual immorality?

01:10:47

Flee! Flee! Sexual immorality. Do you feel it?

01:10:55

Run. Run like Joseph with Potiphar's wife. That story fascinates me.

01:11:02

Joseph in Egypt, his brothers, like let's throw him in a pit and say an animal killed him and like dip his coat in blood and look like that shirt.

01:11:12

Let's dip it in blood. And, you know, it's like, sell him into slavery. Can you be honest? Can you be honest?

01:11:19

I'm going to be honest with the text. Joseph's a man. He's not a robot. He's a man. And he's endured all this evil and hardship, like, on family.

01:11:29

It's going to kill me. And the only person that stopped him, by the grace of God, is

01:11:34

Reuben, who's like, no, he's our brother, let's not kill him. I mean, out of all our brothers,

01:11:40

Reuben, thank you, Reuben, you get a sandwich named after you. I find it so fascinating that you would think that a man in that state had every excuse just to indulge, right?

01:11:59

He goes from, like, this place, this position with his father, you know, he's, like, the cherished son, he's got the amazing

01:12:05

Coogee jacket, all those things, he's got it all, and now he's enslaved to Egypt and thrown in a pit and all the rest, and now he's in Potiphar's house and Potiphar's wife is like, come lie with me.

01:12:16

Let's be honest with the text. He's just a man. Most men in that situation would probably be saying this,

01:12:22

God's abandoned me. There is no God. Who cares? Why can't I have a little pleasure? No.

01:12:28

He remains committed to God. Potiphar's wife, I'm assuming because Potiphar's position was probably pretty attractive, and she's like, lie with me.

01:12:35

Joseph has every opportunity to indulge in this sexual rendezvous, and what's it say?

01:12:43

It says that he fled. He ran. He ran so much that his coat, like, is left in her hand that she uses it as an excuse, and you'd be thinking, this is what gets me,

01:12:54

I love the story, he flees, he doesn't sin, and you would think, like, yeah,

01:12:59

God's gonna bless me for this, right? He's so gonna bless me, like, I had a chance to, like, indulge sexually in something that, like,

01:13:06

I shouldn't. That's totally sinful. It's against God's law, and I have every opportunity here, like, you know,

01:13:11

I didn't do it. So praise God, all glory to God, and all of a sudden, you know, he's, like, in cuffs.

01:13:18

You're like, wait, what's happening? What's happening? I didn't do anything with her. And they're like, no, she says that you tried to rape her.

01:13:25

So now he goes into a dungeon. He's probably down there pulling his hair out, like, what's going on, right?

01:13:30

But the truth is, is God was sovereign the whole way through, and he elevates him all over Egypt and saves all the surrounding people because of Joseph there, and he was faithful the whole way through, but how does he deal, even in the midst of every possible excuse to go ahead and indulge, he flees from sexual immorality.

01:13:50

So you flee. Don't go near her door. Flee. And of course, you know, Jesus, he says, you're gonna deal with your sin, be serious with it.

01:13:57

He says, if your eye causes you to sin, do what with it? Pluck it out and do what? Throw it.

01:14:03

Get it far from you. Don't put it in your pocket. Don't pluck and put it in your pocket. We love to play with our sins that way.

01:14:09

Be honest with yourself. Sometimes we do a lot of scratching of our eyeballs as Christians. Sometimes we do a lot of rubbing butter knives against our wrists with our sin, rather than saying, put it to death, cast it off, get it far from me.

01:14:23

Flee, don't go near her house, and cut it out. And here, here's where I want to be faithful and not provocative.

01:14:33

I just want to deal with the text. This is where we're ending today. Chapter 5. I've prayed about this, because I want to make sure that we address this as a church with the word of God, and I don't want to be loose with God's word, and I do not want to be provocative in any way, but I want us to be honest with what the text actually says.

01:15:00

I talked to the elders before I came up here, and I said, pray, because I want to be faithful.

01:15:06

We have to address it. In chapter 5, verse 15, one of the ways that we're told in God's wisdom of how to avoid the forbidden woman, the adulteress, the harlot, how we're to avoid this person, we're told to make physical intimacy with your spouse one of your greatest joys and priorities.

01:15:41

Christians are prudes. Christians just want to rob you of joy and pleasure. I'm sorry,

01:15:47

God said from his own mouth that the way to avoid this sexual sin is by being physically sexual with your spouse, and intimacy with her should be something that you prize and you delight in.

01:16:03

So one of the ways you avoid the adulteress woman is by being married and being physically intimate with your spouse.

01:16:11

The text says, should your springs be scattered abroad, streams of water in the streets?

01:16:18

Let them be for yourself alone. The idea here is, you know, we have water just piped into our houses, and here right now you can just turn a faucet, push a button, and water flows in.

01:16:27

It's harder then for people to do that, because you have to go a long distance, you have to draw water out of a well and go back to your house.

01:16:34

It would be senseless to spend all that energy going out there to some well, dragging the water up, dragging it home, and then just scattering it in the streets.

01:16:43

People would say, why are you doing that? Why are you doing that?

01:16:50

And that's what the text is saying. Why are you scattering your physical intimacy energy, what

01:16:57

God ordained for it to do and be? Why are you doing it with a stranger? Why are you wasting it?

01:17:02

Don't waste it! And the text says, and I love this, drink water, verse 15, from your own cistern, singular.

01:17:13

Flowing water from your own well, singular, cistern, well, singular, singular, this belongs to you.

01:17:24

You want it? Get it here. This is where, this is where you belong, in this place.

01:17:29

Don't scatter it. Don't destroy what God created this for. Enjoy it here, and let's keep going.

01:17:37

Let them not, let them be for yourself alone, verse 17, and not for strangers with you. Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely dear, a graceful doe.

01:17:48

Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight. Yeah, it says that.

01:17:56

The Bible just wants to avoid pleasure, and it's just down on, it's down on physical intimacy, it's down on that.

01:18:04

This is saying, this is what's beautiful. And this is what it's made for.

01:18:09

This is how it's supposed to be. Here it is. Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight.

01:18:21

Get ready, ladies. Be intoxicated always in her love, all times, always.

01:18:32

Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman, and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?

01:18:41

He's saying to the men, he's saying, this is where you're supposed to have it. This is where you're supposed to find it.

01:18:47

You're supposed to be intoxicated with your wife. So break off the chains, and understand that God is telling you one of the ways that you avoid sexual immorality is by doing it properly in the relationship that God has ordained.

01:19:08

And so you know, 1 Corinthians chapter 7, verses 1 through 5, one of the things the apostle

01:19:13

Paul says to people, he says, of course, he says, it's better to marry than to burn with lust.

01:19:20

And he's saying one of the ways you avoid sexual immorality is by getting married, getting married, getting married. And he tells married folks, he says to married folks, do not deprive one another.

01:19:31

Don't deprive one another. Let her breast all times, all ways.

01:19:38

It's this physical relationship of intimacy that God ordained it to be. It's with your husband and your wife, and God says to married couples, don't deprive one another.

01:19:46

You don't belong to yourself, and she doesn't belong to herself. You belong to one another, so don't deprive one another. And I've always thought this, you can read this later,

01:19:53

I've always thought this. He says, except the only way married couples should deprive one another physically, he says, is mutually to decide too fast in the area of physical intimacy for a short time.

01:20:11

And then he says, to quickly come back together again so that there's no struggle with lust and sin.

01:20:17

So I have a question. This is something to think about. If we're told that one of the ways you avoid the forbidden woman, and you avoid the lustful circumstances to get married, and to be physically intimate, and to enjoy one another physically, you're being told that, and Paul says, the only time that as a married couple you should actually not be physically intimate is for a short time and a fast.

01:20:40

Now question, how long is a typical fast? Now this is where you can start, some of this is where you start saying, well

01:20:46

I don't know what he means by a short fast and a short time. But clearly the Apostle Paul, under inspiration, says that married couples are supposed to be intimate.

01:20:53

And the only time you're not supposed to be intimate is when you decide together to fast for a short time, but to quickly come back together again, physically, as a married couple.

01:21:02

The air is thick in here right now, isn't it, yeah. So the text says, my question is, not all of us fast like Nicoletta, with the 40 day fast situation, okay?

01:21:13

I don't think Paul's talking about 40 day fasts there. By the way,

01:21:19

I'm glad you're still with us. Here's the point.

01:21:25

Chapter 5 clearly says one of the ways you avoid sexual sin is through marriage, enjoying each other, being intoxicated with each other.

01:21:35

Paul says, get married, don't burn with lust, get married, don't burn with lust, and he says to married couples, he says, do not deprive one another.

01:21:45

And I want to say, right now, there's no excuses for our sexual sin, you'll pay sevenfold. But there are things you'll have to answer for in your marriage.

01:21:53

If you are depriving one another in your marriage because you're angry, you're in a fight, or you're just being ugly and you're trying to withhold from one another, just know, you'll answer for that.

01:22:07

You'll answer for that. Because the command of God is that this was created for joy and to glorify

01:22:13

God, and it's meant to be here, and one of the ways you preserve a marriage from sexual sin is to be intoxicated with each other, and to be physical with each other.

01:22:22

And we're being told in God's word not to deprive one another. So married folks, brothers and sisters, let's just have a quick and honest conversation about this issue.

01:22:35

When you're being told in God's wisdom, physical intimacy belongs here, it should be always, and don't deprive one another, we see that elsewhere, the question has to be asked, is this an area of spiritual concern in your life as a married couple?

01:22:52

Is it something that you put before the Lord, and you say, you know what Lord, you gave me this as a gift, and you're actually calling me in your wisdom to use it this way, is this an area of spiritual focus for me as a husband and as a wife?

01:23:06

Can I just be honest, real talk? I've sat in front of couples, I've been a pastor for a long time,

01:23:14

I have countless counseling sessions, I've sat in front of couples who are not doing so well together, their conflict, some of the stuff is just sin on both sides, stuff that needs to be put down, a lot of pride, a lot of blame shifting, not willing to just confess their own sin, and you'll find out in some marriages that they haven't been intimate with each other for three months, six months, a year, two years.

01:23:47

I've heard that more times than I can remember. And sometimes I'm trying as a pastor, as a minister of the gospel,

01:23:53

I'm trying to dig down to the heart level, how are you sinning as a husband, how are you sinning as a wife, and then I'll find out as we get to the end of the conversation, it's kind of obvious, but I'll find out as we get to the end of the conversation,

01:24:03

I'll say, well when, are you guys being physically intimate with each other? No, it's been six months.

01:24:19

This is actually something that's not in the Bible. Some of you guys are squinting right now, that's my wedding ring.

01:24:29

This is not something that's in the Bible. There is no book in the

01:24:35

Bible that has a chapter and a verse that says, and here's the marriage ceremony, and here's the symbols

01:24:41

I want you to use, in terms of like, put a ring on the finger. This actually has a long tradition, some of it's actually pagan, but they believe there was actually a line from your finger to your heart, and all this other crazy stuff, but that's not what we mean by it, what do we mean by this?

01:24:58

That this is this circle that goes and goes and goes, and it's a circle, and it's a circle that goes, it's an unending relationship of love and commitment, it will never end, it just goes and goes and goes, and when we get married, the day of the marriage,

01:25:09

I'm about to do Jerry's marriage, yeah, Jerry and Katie, I'm about to do yours, we're going to have a time soon where you guys are going to,

01:25:15

December 3rd, we're going to put the ring on the finger, and we all know in the modern tradition, when we put the ring on the finger, what we're saying is, before God and community, before God and witnesses, is we're saying that this is my symbol to you and me, that we are for each other, covenanted together, and that this is ours, we are for each other,

01:25:43

I belong to you, you belong to me, we belong to each other, and this is the symbol of that union.

01:25:50

We do that today with this symbol, but to be honest, this isn't in the Bible. Do you know what is in the

01:25:56

Bible? They shall come together and become what? One flesh.

01:26:02

So actually, biblically speaking, when someone comes to know someone intimately, physically intimately, know them, or they come together in a marital union, it is that portrait of male, female, physical union that is the display of face to face relationship and intimacy and commitment, we are one flesh together, our parts all fit together, amen?

01:26:31

And it is that display that is the display of our covenant union.

01:26:36

You are saying something physically to your spouse, when you are face to face, physically intimate, you are saying,

01:26:43

I'm yours, you are mine, we are one. And if you deprive one another, if you deprive one another, and don't invest in this physical union and delight with each other as we're commanded to in Proverbs, if you deprive one another, you are saying to your spouse, no more.

01:27:09

When we deprive each other physically in a marriage, we are shouting to each other, I'm no longer committed to what

01:27:17

I said to you. I don't want to be one with you. I don't want to keep my covenant with you.

01:27:24

You see, listen, remember I said at the very beginning, this is what we'll summarize, is the modern world, unbelief, divorces the genitals from the heart.

01:27:34

The word of God teaches something much more beautiful, and the physical act of love between a husband and a wife is a lot more than momentary, fleeting pleasure.

01:27:46

It is deep, and beautiful, and profound, and lasting, and you are saying something to your spouse when you are physically intimate with them.

01:27:56

You are shouting to them, I'm yours, and you are mine, and we are one, and through thick and thin, and conflict, and argument, and sin, and stumbling,

01:28:08

I'm still yours, and you are still mine. And so one of the things I say to married couples who love

01:28:14

Jesus, is you need to repent, and you need to repent, and you know what you need to do right now? We're buying you guys a hotel room at a resort up north, and you're leaving here, we're getting babysitters for you, and you two tonight are going there, and you're going to have a little...

01:28:31

Why? Because you need to stop saying to each other that I'm not yours anymore, and you're not mine anymore, and we're not covenantally together anymore.

01:28:38

The word from God says this, you want to preserve your life from the forbidden woman, the adulterous one? You want to preserve your life?

01:28:44

Be physically intimate with your spouse. Married people, sorry, so married people, there's your word.

01:28:50

Single people in this room right now, pray for your husband, pray for your spouse, now prepare your heart for them, now ask

01:28:58

God to bless you, and some of you guys are maybe like, well I can't find the perfect one, maybe you need to lower your standards a bit.

01:29:06

What, was that a wrong thing to say? Oh, we're going to keep going now. It's 6 .15,

01:29:13

I'm sorry, we're on it, so okay. Can I say this? This is from the heart, this is not a joke.

01:29:21

This is something the elders, Pastor Zach, Pastor Luke, we talk about it all the time. When I say lower your standards, mostly,

01:29:27

I'm talking to you men who've been raised on porn. I'm talking to you men who were raised on porn.

01:29:36

Christian men that are like, I just can't find the right woman, who you looking for? Who you looking for?

01:29:41

Is she godly? Does she love Jesus? Some guys are like, ah, she's not my type,

01:29:48

I'm like, she's better looking than you. I've had people tell me that, I'm sorry,

01:29:55

I've had people, men tell me that, I've had Christian men tell me that, not married, they've said things like, ah, she's really not my type, she is like, way, way above.

01:30:06

What are you looking for? The problem is, is you've got a bunch of young men in this generation that have been raised on porn, and what you are looking for isn't a reality to begin with.

01:30:15

Does she love Jesus? Does she love Jesus? Is she a godly woman?

01:30:22

Marry her. I understand that we should be physically attracted to the person we're married to, yes, and amen, but guess what?

01:30:29

At a certain point, all of this is going to go to the floor. And that's still going to be a person you have to love.

01:30:37

Now, here's the deal, at the same time, you should be working single people, I didn't even know we were doing this today, okay.

01:30:44

You should be working as a single person who loves Jesus, who desires to be married, you should be working on your own heart right now.

01:30:51

You should be working on yourself because if your idea of perfection and joy is the spouse, that's become an idol for you, and you're going to be crushed when you get married and realize that's a really bad god.

01:31:03

So make sure you're satisfied in God today, first and foremost. Work on your delight in God and pleasure in God right now, and you see that person that God's going to give you as a bonus, not as God, not as salvation.

01:31:18

I can't tell you how many single people have been crying their eyes out to me, and we're praying for the spouse, crying their eyes out, if I could just get married, if I could just get married, and we're doing all things, don't make them a god, make sure you're right with God first, and then they get married, and a year later, they're in my office with all the marital conflict, and I'm like,

01:31:33

I didn't know this was going to happen, I didn't know it was going to be like this, I'm like, ha ha, ha ha ha, I told you, it's a really bad god, only

01:31:41

Jesus really satisfies, not your wife, not your husband, amen? But you should work on yourself, single

01:31:47

Christians, if you love the Lord and you want the spouse, work on yourself, make yourself an attractive person spiritually, and you know what, it doesn't harm anything to also make yourself an attractive person physically, for the person, amen?

01:32:02

Am I allowed to say that today? Yes. Trust in God, don't make him an idol, and actually make yourself somebody that would be appealing to the person that you want, make yourself the spouse that you would want to marry.

01:32:19

Thank you, I'm going to aim it over there, okay, okay, let's pray, Father I pray that you'd bless,