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 mini series 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 gonna talk about what is a faithful sexual ethic and we're gonna talk about that in three ways.

The Two Roads of Sexual Temptation

First we're gonna 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 gonna 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 will 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 adulterous 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 adulterous 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 it 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 kind of worship.

Paul says whatever you do do it to the glory of God. 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 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 10 31 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 or permissible, but praise worthy 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 too 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 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 would 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. It symbolizes 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's 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 are 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 can 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 become 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 and an attitude that frequent love making should be a regular part of your marriage in your life.

This is why paul says in first 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 and 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 there 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 is 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 atoms 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 and appropriately he waited. And he was pure and faithful to her until she was his in your 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.

If you're married. If you're single.

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 in marital intimacy. In 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.