Proverbs 5:15-23 (God-Glorifying-Sex)

Thank you for subscribing to the Shepherds Church podcast. This is our Lord's Day Sermon We pray that as we declare the

Word of God that you would be encouraged Strengthened in your faith and that you would catch a greater vision of who

Christ is May you be blessed in the hearing of God's Word and may the Lord be with you

While the world is spending billions of dollars broadcasting sex constantly speaking about sex constantly perverting sex and Participating in all kinds of aberrant and abhorrent kinds of sex

You would think that the church would be speaking loudly and proudly about what true sexuality and intimacy is and yet apart from the occasional blasting of the world's perversions and identifying its errors taxonomically

Rarely have we heard or have we seen in Christendom a God glorifying positive case for what biblical and faithful sexual intimacy is

I Know this may sound like a taboo topic But consider if the world is always talking about their wrong views of sex and if the church is never

Talking about the right view of sex then what is the world going to be filled with other than the perversion of sex?

Another way to say it it would be if the world is going to go on Speaking sex without truth and if the church prefers to preach truth without The truth about sex then what will be the result?

but a generation discipled by lies For this reason we have to talk about this topic because sex was not invented in a

Hollywood studio But in the mind of a holy God we have to let the scriptures talk about this because God's design for sex is a

Blessing that is why we have to let the Bible define it That's why we have to let the scriptures teach us how to enjoy it and it's right means and we have to herald a robust positive

God glorifying view of what sex is So that the weeds of perversion have no more room to grow if you want to get rid of reed weeds

You don't necessarily just pick them You actually have to sow the grass so dense that the weeds can't grow in the same way if we want to see the

Sexual perversion that is gripping our society choked out We have to fill the world with a positive view of a

God glorifying holy idea of what sex is Now last week we talked about in part one of this chapter 5 little miniseries that we've been on about Where do we run from to avoid sexual temptation last week?

We talked about that the way we fight sexual temptation is by fleeing it It is a dragon that is bigger and more powerful than you so you don't fight it face to face you run from it

What a day We're gonna talk about not where do we run from but where do we run to?

Today we're going to talk about what is a faithful sexual ethic and we're going to talk about that in three ways first we're going to talk about the two roads of sexual temptation of sexuality one is exaltation of God one is enslavement and sin

The next thing we're going to talk about is the exclusivity of sex and then the third and final thing We're going to talk about is the biblical and right enjoyment of sex

So if you will turn with me as we begin our time today in the Word of God and we'll be in Proverbs chapter 5 15 through 23 and Enjoy this because rarely at this church.

Do you have two sermons that finishes out an entire chapter? It is it is definitely a very interesting feature.

So let us read chapter 5. We'll start in verse 15 Drink water from your own cistern and fresh water from your own well

Should your springs be dispersed abroad? streams of water in the streets

Let them be yours alone and not for strangers with you. Let your fountain be blessed and rejoice in the wife of your youth as A loving hind and a graceful doe let her breasts satisfy you at all times be exhilarated always with her love for why should you my son be exhilarated with an adulteress and Embrace the bosom of a foreigner

For the ways of a man are before the eyes of the Lord and he watches all his paths his own iniquities

Will capture the wicked and he will be held with the cords of his sin

He will die for lack of instruction and in the greatness of his folly. He will go astray

This is the Word of the Lord. Let's pray. Let's pray Lord we thank you

That every aspect of life is covered in your word that you've not left us to grope around in the dark blind

You've given us instruction You've given us teaching You've given us holy counsel that we should seek to understand rightly

Lord help us today as we look at a more intimate topic to understand it rightly to understand it for the glory of God and Lord in everything we do whether we eat whether we drink or whatever we do

Let us do it to the glory of God Jesus name. We pray. Amen the first thing

I want to talk about is the exaltation or the enslavement of sex and I'm gonna take the passage and reorder it just a little bit.

I'm gonna go with verse 20 through 23 first and Then we will work our way through the passage after that Solomon gives us two paths when it comes to sex the path of exaltation of God or the path of enslavement

This is what Solomon says Why should you my son be? exhilarated with an adulteress and embrace the bosom of a foreigner for the ways of a man or before the eyes of the

Lord and He watches all of his paths His own iniquities will capture the wicked and he will be held with the cords of sin and he will die

For a lack of instruction in the greatness of his folly. He will go astray and this teaches us first and foremost that sex is both a glory or It will be a grave

Sex will either be a glory or it will be a grave. This is not a neutral topic

Every step we take in sexuality is either one of worship or one of wickedness

It's either one of glorifying God or degrading his design a glory to the

Lord or a grave unto your flesh Solomon makes this very clear Sexual sin does not elevate it entangles.

It doesn't satisfy it enslaves. It does not bring freedom. It brings chains and This tells us something about the power of the flesh

Especially the flesh that is not enlivened by the Spirit of the Living God because it does nothing but crave perversion and We may ask ourselves.

Why do men and women so frequently reject the glorious gift of God?

That is sex in marriage. Why do people flee from? God honoring marriage to adultery.

Why do folks abandon the feast for the breadcrumbs? Why do they trade the banquet for the garbage can why do they trade in the sewer for the fountain?

Well, we could just as easily turn that question back on ourselves Why does our flesh crave what is not appropriate as well

The reason is because our flesh is weak and we must put to death That which is weak so that we can have that which is strong We must put to death that which is ugly so that we can have what is beautiful We must put to death that which is defiled so that we can have what is pure We must kill that which is bitter so that we can have that which is sweet.

Sex will either be a curse to you a Blessing or a blessing to you. It will either be a grave to you or it will be life to you

It will either be a fountain that feeds you or it will be a noose that chokes you in this way

Sex will either be about the exaltation of Almighty God or the enslavement of sinful men

How you handle this gift will determine your outcome and I find it so interesting that this passage talks about God's omniscience in the context of sex in this kind of binary of curse or blessing which is fixed and immovable because God himself is the one who invented sex and oversees sex

What I mean by that is That there will be no sexual deviants who linger

Not very long and blessing and there will be no Ones who are faithful with the gift of sex who persist forever in cursing

God sees every application of sex God is omnipresent and omniscient.

He beholds everything that a man does with his body that's what Solomon says the ways of the man are before the eyes of the

Lord and he watches all of this all of his paths and Maybe you've never thought about this before But God is aware of and God sees and God notices

The way that you steward his great gift of sex

This applies to how we sin with sex, but it also applies to how we glorify him

With sex in The context of sin remember I told you that no one has ever sinned in secret

No dark room has ever concealed a transgression from heaven's gaze the eyes of the Lord pierced through the locked door and every whispered

Deception every fraudulent text and every wondering glance are noticed by God whether you're married or whether you're single the eyes of the

Lord Do not miss anything Which means that? this is both a warning and A comfort it's a warning to those who indulge in hidden lust

Because in every sexual sin you are holding audience with Almighty God and Yet it's also a comfort

To all those who honor the Lord in their purity To all those who honor the

Lord in your singleness to all those who honor the Lord in your marriage To all those who honor the

Lord with your eyes as Job says I made a covenant with my eyes that I may not sin against God for all those who know that the

Lord and the author of sex sees delights and blesses your faithfulness in sex and teaches us something about his

Omniscience that he doesn't merely observe the sexual deviancy, but he also sees our faithfulness

Sings over our faithfulness rejoices and Blesses those who are faithful when it comes to sex

Everything in our life even the most intimate parts of our life is noticed by God and This means that Fundamentally because God sees everything that not all sex is equal

There's a kind of sex that God actually hates and despises But there's a kind of God glorifying sex that God loves and I know that this is a tough topic and I've actually never heard a sermon on a positive view of Biblical sexuality, but I would remind us here that we are not spiritualist and pietist that we are not

Gnostics That we actually do believe that the world is not purely Innately evil that it can be redeemed and that God does give us blessings in the physical world

We believe that our souls matter. We believe that our spiritual lives matter we believe that our faith matters and we also believe that how we eat and how we drink and how we walk and how we

Talk and how we participate even in things like sex deeply matters to God Because God cares about the spiritual things and the material things

Which means that we must not only love God with all of our heart and all of our soul and all of our mind but we also must love the

Lord our God with all of our bodies if We treat the beautiful gift of sex

With purity and devotion God will be glorified in our faithfulness, but if we pervert it

He will give us over as Romans 1 says to the debasement of our minds And he will allow us to become ensnared by it enslaved by it and ultimately crushed by it

Sex as I said before will either be a glory to you or it will be a grave to you how you handle it will be determining your outcome

Now what will the grave look like if you abuse this gift? There's many passages we could point to but we're already in one

So let's apply this one Solomon says in verse 22 that you'll be held with the cords of sin

What he's saying is that sexual sin lures you in with the kind of promises of hidden pleasure and yet it leaves you

Tangled up in chains. It even says that the cords of sin will be around the ankles, which is what it means that you will fall

Sexual sin never starts with a catastrophic fall And by the way, no one ever falls into adultery no one ever sins by accident in this way an

Accident is when you trip and you fall into the street There has never been a man or woman who's tripped and fell into an adultery

You walk Towards it step by step Blind to the chains that are being wrapped around your own ankles and before long you trip and you fall headlong into misery

It will either be a glory To you or it will be a grave to you

It begins often with a lingering look and then a thought that is indulged in too long

Then a desire that is fed that should have been mortified then a boundary that is pushed and then before long a vow

That was taken is now broken Solomon tells us the catastrophic results of those that follow

Sexual sin down into the grave. He says he will die for a lack of instruction and in the greatness of his folly

He will go astray Sexual sin as we talked about last week is not a playground.

It is a prison and as we mentioned before One of the ways

I think that we as Christians have failed in this area is by being so prudish and squeamish

That we've refused to talk about what is good and what is right? Many are fine to point out the gays and to say that is sinful

Or the transgenders and to say that's an abomination and it is But how infrequently have we looked at the scriptures for a positive view of what sex actually is a

God glorifying view of what sex is Again I mentioned to you.

I've never heard a sermon on the goodness and the glory of sexual intimacy

Not to say that there hasn't been one preached Just saying I haven't heard one and it's part of the reason why we wanted to do this series

Because I I'm human like everyone else So the Proverbs will force me to have to preach on all of these topics that every other book of the

Bible Or some of the books of the Bible don't really speak about and this is one of those topics and it's there

I wanted to turn To understand how can sex be a God glorifying thing?

Remember? We said that either be a glory to you or a grave. We've talked about the grave. How will it be a glory? Well, according to this passage of sexual sin leads to bondage then faithfulness leads to blessing and While sex is about the fertilization of an egg

It is not just about the procreation of the ovum. It is about the glory of God Let me explain if God delights in our faithfulness then a husband and wife engaging in godly intimacy is

Participating in a unique and a very personal very intimate relationship kind of worship

Paul says whatever you do do it to the glory of God and that certainly applies to how we participate in the gift of sex when we consider that sex belongs to God and it was not invented by fallen man that it was

Not designed as a tool for perversion or manipulation or any other means of self -indulgence when we consider that it's a holy creation of God given as a covenant blessing to a husband and wife then we cannot stand idly by as the world perverts it we

Need to extol its virtue. We need to talk about it. Rightly We need to show Christians why they need it how to participate in it

What the Bible says is actually permissible and how sex is a way that we can glorify

God We end up treating sex like it's neutral that it's that it's necessary, but not that it's

God glorifying in the same way that eating and drinking can be done to the glory of God first Corinthians 1031 so too

Can intimacy between a husband and wife in covenant marriage and since our lives are to be lived for the glory of God a couple who regularly engages in holy and faithful intimacy with one another are participating in the enterprise of glorifying

God and Enjoying him forever as they're enjoying each other for a lifetime

What does that mean what does that look like it means it's faithful Biblical sexual intimacy is faithful and it's rooted in covenant loyalty

If the God who brought you and your spouse into covenant unity Never turns his back on you never is impure towards you never cheats on you

Then you don't turn your back and become unfaithful to your spouse. It's sacrificial

Because it's Christian Biblical sexuality is sacrificial where each spouse is giving

Rather than taking it's joyful. It's a gift to be received with Thanksgiving It's exclusive it's to be guarded against corruption and It's frequent it's a celebration of love and commitment the world has taught us to see sex as either filthy or flippant but God has designed it to be faithful and fruitful if Marriage is not just praise were permissible, but praiseworthy

Then let us not settle for the chains of sin and Let us drink freely of the good gift that God has given us in proper order which is covenant marriage as Christian we have to reject the false pleasures of the world and embrace the true joys of God glorifying sex in anything less is slavery

Just as a roaring fire warms a home When it's kept within the hearth

So will it burn down the same home if an ember even an ember Leaves and lands upon the carpet

So to sexual intimacy must remain within the confines of covenant marriage

And if it is it will be a glorious blessing and if it is not it will burn things down And that brings us to the exclusivity of Sex as designed by God Solomon says this in verse 15 through 17 drink water from your own cistern and Fresh water from your own.

Well, should your springs be dispersed abroad streams of water in the street? Let them be yours alone and not strangers for you.

It's a funny way to talk about sex a Cistern in a chapter that's entirely devoted to either sexual sin or sexual freedom in marriage

He compares it to a cistern and I think there's a reason for that Solomon says drink water from your own cistern.

What does that mean? Well a cistern in the Near Eastern world was an underground container that held water

It was a family's Who lived in an area of the world that was arid?

That was dry It was a family's Essential water supply that they would drink from draw from and it would keep them and their animals alive

It was personal it belonged to the family. It wasn't a community cistern It was their cistern and it was for their life and for their good and for their health

Without the blessing we lose sight of this If your water pipes break and you don't have a toilet and a shower

You start to realize how much we actually lean on Modern comforts but in a world where there was no indoor plumbing and there was no showers and there was no readily available water

Your cistern would have been one of your most prized possessions if it cracked Then you would lose all of the life -giving water that was in it.

It was signal to you that you were going to die in this passage

Solomon compares sexual intimacy with two different ways to use a cistern a

Cistern that is filled with life -giving resources that would keep them alive And in this way, it is symbolized as a blessing

It is symbolized as something that is life -giving is symbolized as something that is a precious source of nourishment

That brings unique and exclusive blessings to a husband and a wife but when

Solomon says That we are to drink from our own wells our own cisterns

He is saying two things. Number one. He is saying That we must have regular frequent purposeful intentionally delightful intimacy with our spouse

And he's also saying and no one else By comparing intimacy to water which is one of the fundamental resources of life

He is saying that it is something that we cannot live without I should have heard some amens

Solomon is saying if you don't drink your water sparingly Then neither should you participate in sexual intimacy sparingly?

That's the point. He's making And this is where we see the blessing and the curse of it because there is a place where frequent and joyful Marital union is a blessing and there is a place where even the smallest perversion of it is a curse

Solomon Positively commands husband and wives to drink from their own cistern That's a command to drink to enjoy to have intimacy to have to have fellowship with one another in that most

Beautiful way as life -giving water is to the lips when you were thirsty and he also warns against its folly

He warns against wasting The water by pouring it out like a cistern being poured out needlessly into the streets

When I was in Iraq, I thought about this example this morning When I was in Iraq the dumbest possible thing that we could have done in the first month

I was there right after George Bush stood on the boat and declared the shock and all I Was there like in the beginning?

No phone. No lights. No motor car. That was when I was there in that beginning day

Water was so precious to us that we didn't take showers It was it was gross

But there was about 31 to 32 days Where I didn't have a shower in Iraq because I didn't have the water

Our water was so precious to us that all we would do is drink it We wouldn't even wash our hands

Because it was so precious Imagine what it would have looked like to take our water and to dump it right in the middle of the sands of the

Iraqi wilderness How foolish and pointless and stupid that would have been? Solomon is saying

That if you pour out your sexual intimacy in any way on anyone on anything other than your spouse

You are doing exactly what I would have been doing if I poured out our essential water supply you're inviting death if one of the marriage partners is being gratified by someone else in their head or in actuality or participating in any act of sexual intimacy alone

Without their covenant spouse Then the life -giving nature of sex becomes a noose around the sinner's neck and it chokes the marriage

Solomon says let them that's the enjoyment the life the nourishment let them be yours alone yours plural and not for strangers and Again in this sense we see a dual principle.

It's a dual principle of exclusivity that we often don't look at When we think about exclusivity we think about marriage is for the marriage.

So don't go outside, but it also means Because he's comparing it to life -giving water

That we're also to protect it from stagnancy within the covenant marriage as well

Let me say it this way Pouring out water in the desert is dumb but also leaving a cistern full of water and letting it become stagnant is

Also just as useless to the family as a maniac pouring it out in the middle of a desert

If you pour out the water, it's wasted. But if you let it sit and You don't let it move

And you don't let it be poured then it stinks and It becomes polluted and this gives us a principle about how sexual exclusivity actually works

Yes, it could be a curse But it can also be a blessing and there's two ways for it to become a curse if you pour out your

Intimacy on someone outside of your marriage then it is a curse. But If you let it sit and you refuse to pour it out in your marriage

It's also a curse if you And or your spouse are withholding affection from one another intimacy from one another letting it sit in the cistern of your marriage and letting it become putrid

Then it will become as deadly to your marriage as adultery It will come foul and unpotable and this naturally leads us to a very important practical question

How frequently should a married couple engage in sexual intimacy?

Is it a monthly thing? Is it a weekly thing? Is it a daily thing?

well, I Would not dare make a law Where the Bible does not? but I would say that since the imagery is

Drinking water it suggests something probably on the level of more frequent than less

Let me say it this way If you and your spouse are one of the unique people on earth who can live without drinking water then go and do likewise

But if you're like every other human being on earth and you need more water more frequently than you actually drink

Then adopt a posture in an attitude that frequent lovemaking should be a regular part of your marriage in your life

This is why Paul says in 1st Corinthians 7 3 through 5 the husband must fulfill his duty to his wife and likewise

Also the wife to her husband The wife does not have authority over her own body

But the husband does and likewise also the husband does not have authority over his own body But the wife does stop depriving one another except by agreement for a time

So that you may devote yourself to prayer and then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self control

With this in mind. I want you to know That exclusivity in marriage works two ways

It works against giving your intimacy to those who are outside of the covenant and it also works against withholding intimacy from those who are within Because it's life -giving.

It's essential. It's necessary It's good and because it glorifies

God and that leads us to our final section Which is enjoyment in sex

Proverbs 5 8 through 18 through 19. This is what it says Let your fountain be blessed and rejoice in the wife of your youth as a loving hind and a graceful doe

Let her breasts satisfy you at all times be exhilarated Always with her love if ever there is a passage in the

Bible that is a positive view of the glory of sex This is it Solomon says let your fountain be blessed

He's speaking vividly about the blessings of sexual intimacy within the confines of a covenant marriage the

Hebrew word. They're blessed Baruch means abundant favor enrichment flourishing blessing and Because he mentions a wife's breast

That they can be satisfying to a man all the days of his life. He's communicating a kind of sex that is not mundane obligatory but life -giving

To you and your spouse a mountain spring delivering Life -giving water in this way sexual intimacy in marriage is not to be begrudged.

It is not to be Mundane it is to be exhilarating as he says

He says as a loving hind and graceful doe let her breasts satisfy you at all times be exhilarated always with her love the term in Hebrew exhilarated shagah is an imperative in the

Hebrew language It implies joyful intoxication it means being

Captivated even overwhelmed by marital pleasure far from the scriptures looking at sex in a puritanical way as if it's a necessary Evil, it's commanding us to give ourselves permission to enjoy it and Far from being embarrassed by or hesitant by sex.

God is Enthusiastically endorsing it within marriage He's commanding that it be enthusiastically engaged in in marriage because he loves us and he gave us this gift

Because it's very good When husbands and wife freely joyfully faithfully engage in marital intimacy

Then they boldly declare the goodness of God's creation. They boldly

Declare their love for one another but even deeper and better and more holy and more beautiful than all of that is what's underneath the act of sex

Which is the glory of Almighty God and this gets us to the point. Why does sex exist?

I was talking to I was talking to Don and Ethan pardon me if I use this example a friend of Ethan's told him

Something about the nature that it's we're just like dogs and Don and I were so repulsed by that and saying

To reduce the beauty of what is happening to an animal That we're just animals that we're just atoms in motion is a disgusting perversion of what

God has created It is not Just for our pleasure.

It is not just body parts in motion It's not just for procreating and making babies.

This church loves that feature, but that's not all it is It is ultimately and totally for the glory of God and for the demonstration of Jesus Christ and his bride to the world

That's what Paul says in Ephesians 5 that God made Adam and Eve he made their bodies Compatible to each other and he gave them the gift of sex not as an end unto itself

He gave humanity the gift of sex as a demonstration of the glory of Christ in his church when we engage in holy covenant faithful Married intimacy we proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ We proclaim the story of a

God who came looking for his bride and who was faithful and pure and true every moment

Until he brought her into his love He reserved his love and affections faithfully for her.

He loved her and he clothed her. He washed her in the water of his word He made her radiant and holy in his love a love that will endure forever in marital covenant union that's the point of sex and That is why the pagans misuse it

Not because they fail to understand and on many ways they do the organic mechanics of sex

But because they don't understand what sex is pointing to and that's the gospel Anyone can misuse their body parts

Anyone can be Adams in motion, but not everyone understands the telos and the foundation of it is

Christ It is a demonstration of Jesus's faithfulness his purity his joyful passionate love for his church which means that Christians are the only people on earth who actually can do sex rightly and yet how

Prudish and squeamish we have been to where we've avoided it It is the greatest privilege

For a Christian man and a Christian woman to get this thing right because this declares the glory of Christ and his bride a

Kind of sex that's free of all shame because he's free of all shame free of all guilt because he has no guilt

It's pure and beautiful Reserved and yet it's regular joyful and it's exhilarating and it points to the ultimate love and affections of God Who's poured out on us through Jesus Christ?

When a husband delights in his wife and when her breasts are ever satisfying to him he is preaching a powerful sermon of Jesus's delight of his church and When a wife gives herself to her husband and she receives his love

She is telling a powerful story of how the church has received the love of Jesus last week we talked about what we are to run from and to flee from This week.

We're talking about what we flee to and brothers and sisters Ultimately, it is

Jesus Christ So that whether you're single whether you're married or whether you're a widow

You can honor God with your body in a way that's biblical in a way that's satisfying in a way that's glorifying

If you're single your purity and your preparation for marriage mirrors. Jesus is waiting faithfully for his bride and He didn't come early to take her inappropriately

He waited and he was pure and faithful to her until she was his in her singleness

Live your life as a demonstration of Christ If you're married do not open your cistern up to anyone or anything or any

Time unless it is to pour it out onto your wife or husband like Jesus poured out his love on us and You can't say everything

But if sex is a complicated thing for you If there's all kinds of shame involved in it for you

If there's guilt from past sins Lies that the enemy has told you lies that the world has told you physical or bodily struggles that you have

Then I want you to take Any modicum or ounce of shame and take it to the foot of the cross because it is in Jesus Christ that we see faithful love that heals all perversions and in that remember just like we need water to live and Water to be nourished and just like the church needs

Jesus our marriages need to be nourished in his devotion and marital intimacy and Marital love husbands and wives need each other and it has little actually to do with sex drive mood or spark.

Those are lies Those are lies that Hollywood Has told us culture has told us that it has to be this engrossing inflamed sort of Uncontrolled and unrestrained passion.

I don't feel that way when I drink water. Oh I I need my

Berkey water. I drink it because I need it.

I Drink it because it makes me healthy. I drink it because it nourishes my body

Well in the same way You may not always be in a specific mood but intimacy with your spouse tells the story of the gospel

So therefore Have sex to the glory of God glorify God in your sex

Do it regularly and faithfully to the enjoyment of your spouse and in it

Tell the story of Jesus and his great love. Amen Let's pray Lord, we thank you that in every aspect of our life, even the most intimate parts

The gospel has permeated there's nothing No atom of existence where your gospel has not

Permeated defined and crept in Lord, we pray that our marriages in this church

Would be a symbol and a declaration of Jesus and his bride Lord, we pray that our singleness in this church

Would be a declaration of the patience and the purity of Jesus who waited for his bride

And Lord we pray for the widows For those who cannot engage

That Lord your love would be satisfying and sweet and that it would always remind them of the

Intimacy and love that you have for your bride Lord, we pray that Lord I pray that this church and I pray that the church would reclaim a beautiful and positive and glorious view of What sex is and unto the glory of God?