Tiger and Proverbs 6/7

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Tiger Woods, Sin, and the Need for Prayer

Mike Abendroth here, No Compromise Radio Ministry. You can email us your questions or comments at info at nocompromiseradio .com. Podcasts there, book-burning issues, all kinds of things. Josh has done a great job with the website.

You wanna go there, we're on Facebook as well, No Compromise Radio. Today, I wanna talk about Tiger Woods. You have to basically be a recluse to not see and hear what's going on with Tiger Woods. I'm not much of a golfer, but I know he's at the top of the golf world.

And then now, it seems he is at the bottom of the world, not just the golf world, but the world. And I'm actually quite surprised because typically, what the world does is they say, well, he's a guy, it's a good old boys club, everybody does it, no big deal.

On the flip side, but that hasn't happened. What has happened is Gatorade has pulled the plug. Other marketers have pulled the plug. And there is a meltdown of catastrophic proportions. And so what do we need to think of as a Christian?

I try to refrain from all the different TMZ articles and as interesting as it might be, these dainty morsels of gossip, we need to make sure we think properly and biblically. And we need Tiger Woods, we know Tiger Woods needs the gospel more than anything else.

C .J. Mahaney is right in his article called Chasing Tiger, that it's not just the paparazzi who are chasing Tiger Woods, but it is his own sin. And wouldn't it be wonderful in the midst of this catastrophe, this family catastrophe, that there would be mercy and grace bestowed upon Tiger Woods to the saving of his soul?

That would be a wonderful thing. And so I ask you the question, have you prayed for Tiger Woods and his wife and their souls? That would be a good thing to do. And so as we think about this, we wanna make sure, but if it wasn't for the grace of God, we would go there, that we need to pray biblically and pray not like somehow we're better or, oh, look at him, but we realize our own shortfalls and we are forgiven people as Christians, yet we are not glorified yet.

And so we wanna walk humbly and properly before our God and not proudly and arrogantly like we would never fall to something like that. If you have your Bibles, I want you to turn to Proverbs 6. I read some of these verses last night to my kids as we talked about the Tiger issue, the Tiger Woods issue.

And we talked about what the Bible says about abstaining from sexual sin. And when you don't abstain from sexual sin, there is a price to pay. God blesses fidelity and God judges infidelity. It does not mean that infidelity is the unforgivable sin or unpardonable sin.

I'm not saying that at all. Sins can be forgiven. When there is repentance and forsaking, Proverbs 28 says that there's mercy to be found, there's forgiveness to be found. God does not hold sins against your account if he's already held them against Christ's account.

And so we want to make sure to say from the get-go, this kind of sin can be forgiven. But what does Solomon say in Proverbs 6? He basically says, you must not be immoral. If you look at verses 20 through 35, he says to his son, watch out for married wives, watch out for immoral women.

Now, in this particular case, it could be flipped around, but since he was talking to his son, he was talking about watch out for the women. If you have a daughter, you can say, watch out for immoral men.

There is no way around this, that both men and women sin in this way. And so if you look at Proverbs 6 .25, my son, observe the commandment of your father and do not forsake the teaching of your mother.

Bind them, listen to this kind of language of a figurative nature, continually on your heart, bind them, tie them around your neck. And so you wanna heed what your father says regarding this, Solomon says, and you want to have your life blessed by them.

And you want to be impressed in your mind, pressed upon your mind, what you think should be biblical, should be what your parents teach. There's a motivation here for this, because it says in verse 22, when you walk about, they will guide you.

When you sleep, they will watch over you. And when you awake, they will talk to you. This language from a parent regarding sexual sin will serve like a shepherd, like a shepherd's crook, leading you safely through the hills and the valleys of this immoral age and time.

Verse 23, for the commandment is a lamp, the teaching is a light, and reproofs for discipline are the way of life. For what particular reason? There's a comma there. Verse 24, here's the reason. Why should you pay attention to the godly instruction of your father?

To keep you from the evil woman, from the tongue of the adulteress. To keep you, literally the Hebrew says, from the woman of evil. To keep you from her smooth, slippery tongue. That is, she talks smoothly and wonderfully.

She knows how to use her words to seduce a man. Waltke said her tongue threatens to cut apart the very fabric of the godly home at the seam, where the generations are sewn together. And so Solomon says, you listen to your father.

He knows what he's talking about. Do not desire her beauty in your heart, nor let her catch you with her eyelids. When it comes to her eye and her seductive eye and her flirting eye, her lustful eye, you need to be careful not to desire that, not to lust after that, to covet it.

That's the first step towards sin. One compromise leads to another. Coveting this person in your heart, physically, sexually. Maybe back in those days they had their eyes all painted up to give some kind of brighter expression.

With all her wares, verbal and nonverbal, she is on the proverbial prowl. Why, verse 26 says, for on account of a harlot, one is reduced to a loaf of bread, and an adulteress hunts for the precious life.

Immorality is costly. Ask Tiger Woods. Immorality is costly. It is precious, morality is, and immorality is costly. Life is precious, and here this married woman in Proverbs 6 acts like a prostitute, but she doesn't even charge.

Adultery costs more than harlotry. When you commit adultery, it costs more than you just go to a whore and pay her. There's an inevitability of something that's going to happen here, Proverbs 6, 27. Can a man take fire in his bosom and his clothes not be burned?

Illicit sex outside of marriage is like playing with fire. Those are the verses I read to my children last night as we talked about it, that sin finds you out, that we ought to pray for this man, that he would be forgiven, and his wife, if she's not a Christian, that she would be forgiven as well.

One day Tiger will stand before God and all his golf game and all his championships and all those dollars that he has will not mean anything. God desires righteousness and justice, and we are imperfect and we fall short of the glory of God.

That is why Jesus had to come and be a sin bearer for sinners like Tiger Woods, like me, and then be raised from the dead. If you play with sexual sin, you are playing with fire. Just imagine if you would, we don't want to get too graphic here on No Compromise Radio, but just imagine if you have a swimsuit on, men, and you have some hot coals, you're out there at the barbecue and you're making some hamburgers, and there's those red hot, white hot coals in your Weber grill, and you just take those things and you just dump them on your lap.

And I wonder how that would feel. I don't ever want to feel that, but that's the kind of pain, that's the kind of cost. Illicit sex is like playing with fire. Verse 28, or can a man walk on hot coals and his feet not be scorched?

Verse 29, so is the one, Tiger Woods, who goes into his neighbor's wife, whoever touches her will not go unpunished. Go into another man's wife, it's like fire. There's going to be a cost for sexual infidelity.

There will be a price for sexual unfaithfulness. It is impossible to commit adultery without having trouble occur. Oh, it may take a while, it might be unseen, it might even be unseen and unheard and unknown until the day of judgment, but you will be found out.

Say, what's God's will for my life? I'll tell you what God's will for you is. It is for you to be pure sexually. 1 Thessalonians 4, for this is the will of God, your sanctification, that is, in particular, specifically, that you abstain from sexual immorality.

If you're a Christian, I know something about you. It's God's will for your life to be sexually pure, that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and in honor, your own body, that you know what to do with your body, not in lustful passion like the Gentiles who do not know God.

Unbelievers act that way. When you were an unbeliever, you probably acted that way. Pagans and Gentiles and tax collectors and unbelievers, people who weren't Christians today, they act like sex is a God and they have an urge and they fulfill that urge, but they don't know God.

And that verse goes on to say, verse, that section goes on to say in verse six, and that no man transgress and defraud his brother in the matter sexually because the Lord is the avenger in all these things, these sexual immorality things.

Just as we told you before, Paul says, and solemnly warned you, for God has not called us for the purpose of impurity, sexually, but in sanctification, sexually. Consequently, he who rejects this is not rejecting man, oh, Paul, you just made that up, but the God who gives his Holy Spirit to you.

When you reject this counsel, you're rejecting God's counsel. You say, well, that's the moral majority, that's the Republican Party, that's Mike Huckabee, that's Palin, that's my pastor, that's Augustine, that's Paul, no, this is God.

Solomon presses in Proverbs 6, this illustration home, this truth home by a comparison, verse 30. Men do not despise a thief if he steals to satisfy himself when he's hungry. I mean, you might not like it if a thief steals to feed himself or his kids, but there won't be a despising, a loathing.

You might even sympathize with a thief. You might not approve, but you would sympathize. But when he is found, he must repay sevenfold. He must give all the substance of his house. And so when the thief is caught, he has to pay back, and he has to pay back sevenfold, and then the deal is done.

But when you steal and defraud another person by taking their spouse sexually, there's no sevenfold payment. There's no forgiveness, there's no looking over, there's no dusting over, there's no leniency.

You might sympathize with a thief if they attempt to steal something so their children can eat, but you will never approve of, nor sympathize with, nor be lenient toward someone who commits adultery. There is no way to make full restitution.

Verse 32, the one who commits adultery with a woman is lacking sense. He who would destroy himself does it. That's exactly where Tiger Woods has found himself. I don't know all the details. I don't know if everything is true, but if, in fact, he has committed adultery, he has lacked sense, and he would destroy himself.

And it looks like he has destroyed himself in some way, shape, or form. I think America is fairly forgiving. America likes to sin, so they don't want to hold this over his head too far. They want to encourage sexual immorality, but when they catch somebody doing it, then they say, oh, that's too bad.

I'm sure Tiger, whether he gets divorced or whether he goes on, will play again, and everybody will say, oh, remember those days. But at least short term, his life is upside down. The guy can't even go out of his house.

Verse 33, wounds and disgrace he will find, and his reproach will not be blotted out. And so he has found wounds. He has found disgraced. He's found both of those, physical wounds and disgrace. Verse 34, for jealousy enrages a man, and he will not spare in the day of vengeance.

He will not accept any ransom, nor will he be content, though you give many gifts. So whether Tiger Woods has slept with someone who's been married or not, I don't want to read too much into the text.

So Tiger Woods aside, if you commit adultery and you are sleeping with someone who is married, that spouse of the married person you slept with is not going to be too happy, to say the least. If that person's a man, that man will be jealous, and he will not spare in the day of vengeance, the text says.

So don't destroy yourself. Don't do that. Don't buy into, well, if I look at pornography, it's not really real adultery. We want to run from that kind of adultery as well, that adultery of the mind. Be careful.

Listen to what the scriptures say, and God wants you sexually pure. You don't want to be duped by some kind of adulteress. You don't want to say, well, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. No, you need to flood your mind with the word of God.

Proverbs 7: Wisdom as Protection Against Seduction

Listen to Proverbs 7 as we move towards the next chapter that's tied in with the same theme. My son, keep my words and treasure my commandments within you. Why? Well, let's keep going. Keep my commandments and live, and my teaching is the apple of your eye.

Bind them on your fingers. Write them on the tablet of your heart. Say to wisdom, you're my sister, call understanding your intimate friend for a specific purpose. Here's the purpose in Proverbs 7, 5.

Why ought you to remember what the scriptures say, what your parents told you about the Bible, that they may keep you from an adulteress, from the foreigner who flatters with her words. Scriptural teaching serves as a barrier.

Bible instruction serves as a protection from the way of the loose, immoral, lustful woman. You don't want to be a victim. And in the next section of scripture, you see seduction described. Proverbs 7, verses 6 through 23.

You just see it happen. Don't be spiritually naive. Don't be sexually naive. This is a explicit little encounter here. It is not pornographic at all, but it graphically teaches the truth. Proverbs 7, verse 6.

For at the window of my house, I looked out through my lattice. And so you can just imagine in some kind of Israelite house, looking out over the lattice. And what is seen? I saw among the naive and discerned among the youth, the young man lacking sense.

So he looks out the window and he sees a simple, naive, gullible person passing through the street near her corner. And he takes the way to her house. And so instead of fleeing immorality, like 1 Corinthians 6 says, like Joseph running away from immorality, he goes closer.

Proverbs 5 says, keep your way far from her and do not go near the door of her house. In the twilight, chapter 7 says, in the evening, it's getting darker by the way, in the middle of the night and in the darkness.

Four descriptions of time. It's twilight in the evening, in the middle, in the darkness. What's this written for? No one will notice. No one's going to find out. Two consenting adults, how can anyone get hurt?

Here comes the vixen and behold, sudden change, attention. And behold, the woman comes to meet him dressed as a harlot and cunning of heart. Oh, this is going to be easy pickings. Here's this harlot and she has a certain intent.

One man said if Potiphar's wife could make brilliant Joseph look guilty, how much more can this sly vixen make the brainless Hulk look guilty should they be caught? She is boisterous and rebellious. Her feet do not remain at home.

She is now in the streets, now in the squares and lurks in every corner. You can see how the narrative begins to pick up pace. You begin to read it and you want to read it faster. And here comes the seduction.

So she seizes him and kisses him. And with a brazen face, she says to him, I was due to make my peace offerings. Today I have paid my vows. She runs right up and begins kissing this person. And the kiss is really a strangulation.

The noose is now around the neck. And here the tightening of that noose begins. You can imagine her running up, grabbing the tunic and begin to just kiss and kiss and kiss. She says to him, I was due to make my peace offerings.

I was just on my way to church. I'm not immoral, I'm religious. I'm a Christian. I'm saved. How could love like this be so wrong? We're in love, we're engaged. God wants us happy. God created sex and I feel like having it.

I've got God's pleas, we're good to go. I went to mass, it's Saturday night. We've already been there and now it's later in the night. Therefore I've come, chapter seven, verse 15. I've come out to meet you, to seek your presence earnestly.

And I have found you. I look for you. I've been up since this morning looking for you. I had you in mind when I rolled out of bed. This is all calculated to ensnare this young naive person. I've spread my couch with coverings, with colored linens of Egypt.

I've sprinkled my bed with myrrh, aloes and cinnamon. I've done all this for you. Every expense, jot and tittle of all this stuff is up for you. The delights that wait for you, not just sexually, but this bed of myrrh, aloes and cinnamon.

All this wealth for you, she's prepared it. The bed is ready. Verse 18, come, let us drink our fill of love until the morning. Let us have some adulterous love. We know that's not really real love, but let's delight ourselves with caresses.

Let us drink our fill of love. Just earlier in chapter five, that drinking metaphor was used for sexual intimacy, where Solomon says, drink water from your own cistern, as you're supposed to have sex with your own wife.

And so everyone knows what she's talking about here. And then in case you're worried about my husband, she says in verse 19, for my husband is not at home. He is gone on a long journey. He's gone, reminds me of the movie Fatal Attraction.

He's taken a bag of money with him. At full moon, he will come home. He's not gonna come home for a long time. He's just not gonna be there for an overnight trip. It's gonna be weeks before he gets home.

Full moon, this man should run like Joseph right now. Skedaddle, he ought to get out of there. But no, verse 21, with her many persuasions, she entices him. With her flattering lips, she seduces him. This is the doctrine of adultery.

Suddenly he follows her. As an ox goes to the slaughter, are as one in fetters to the discipline of a fool. We don't have the lurid details. We don't have some kind of sorry sexual description here. We just have the ox going to the slaughter.

Until an arrow pierces through his liver as a bird hastens to the snare, so he does not know that it will cost him his life. The stupid ox, the stupid bird cannot see a trap. It cannot see death around the corner.

And this stupid, moronic, foolish fellow, morally ignorant, morally stupid, can see no correlation between sexual immorality and the trap of death. From sexual bliss to divine judgment within one moment.

So Solomon says, now therefore my sons, listen to me and pay attention to the words of my mouth. Do not let your heart turn aside to her ways. Do not stray into her paths. Don't go there for many are the victims she has cast down and numerous are all her slain.

Her house is the way to shield death descending to the chambers of death. That's what we need. We need this kind of instruction. If Solomon wanted to teach his children this, dads, I think it's about time for you to give that instruction to your young 12, 13, 14 year old kids.

If your young boys are 12 or 13 and haven't had the talk yet, better not be waiting for your wife to give the talk. This is your responsibility, husbands, to give the children the talk. And here's the talk.

Here's what sex is. Here's how God created it. Here's how it's good in the relationship of a man and a woman in marriage. Here's how God has blessed all these things. And here, when it's perverted, here's what happens.

And then teach your children. You need to teach your children that this is sinful and that God sees everything, that darkness doesn't hide anything from God. The eyes of the Lord are in every place watching the evil and the good.

How much more the hearts of men, Proverbs 15. And you need to teach your children that people's iniquities capture them and they die for lack of instruction, Proverbs 5 says. And if you're listening to this and you're sexually active now outside of marriage, then you need to stop.

You need to repent. If you're married and you're pure with your wife, but you have your mind wandering into pornography on the internet, you need to repent right now. You need to stop. And you need to think on things that are true and honorable and right and pure and not somehow be lazy and instead of winning your wife for the night, you have to go look at something on the screen.

Don't do that. Don't deceive yourself. And don't forget God isn't mocked. Well, there's much more to be said, but I started talking about Tiger Woods. You need to pray for Tiger Woods. You need to say to yourself, this is an object and this is an illustration for me, an object, a mental illustration to say no to sexual sin, that it costs, that it will cost everything, that I should run from it.

And if you're flirting around with girls at work, you need to stop it. If you're looking at things on the internet, you need to stop it. If you're looking down at Tiger Woods down your nose saying I'd never do that, you ought to stop it.

You ought to look at things from Christ's perspective. Christ can forgive this sin. And Christ, if he's forgiven you, wants you to be pure. Read Proverbs 6 and 7 and then think about Tiger Woods. I think your whole world will be turned right side up.

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