“Learn From His Error” – FBC Morning Light (5/22/2024)

Well a good Wednesday morning to you. Today in our Bible reading in the book of Proverbs, we're reading chapters 5, 6, and 7, and this section brings up somewhat of an enigmatic situation for us, doesn't it?

Because these Proverbs were written by Solomon, and what we know about Solomon is that he was a lover of women, and he had a lot of wives and had a lot of concubines.

Between his wives and concubines, I think he had one for every year for a millennium, a thousand between the two, and obviously that's messed up.

I mean, that's just really messed up. But what really makes it challenging for us when we come to this section is that Solomon is writing to his son, and he's warning his son against the adulteress, and he says, stay away from the strange woman, the woman who is seductive and will lead you to the grave, and all that kind of thing.

And we really kind of scratch our heads over this, don't we? We say, well you know, doesn't

Solomon's practice kind of undermine his advice? On the one hand, yeah, it certainly would.

I mean, if you were Solomon's son, and you're looking at Dad with his harem, and Dad's saying to you, stay away from strange women, you'd say, well, you know, who are you to talk?

I mean, why should I listen to you? I mean, it seems like you're having a good time and all that kind of stuff, and just ignore his advice.

But I wonder if Solomon wrote much of this later in life, when he had the perspective of time and age, and could look back over his own mistakes, and realize, you know, this was really foolish on my part.

I can't say that for sure, we don't have a timeline that's given to the writing of the Proverbs, but what

I do find interesting is in chapter 5, Proverbs 5, verses 15 and following, he says, you know, drink water from your own cistern, and running water from your own well.

And of course, he's being very figurative here about having, you know, sexual relations just with your wife.

And then he says in verse 18, let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice with the wife of your youth.

Rejoice with the wife of your youth. Is Solomon saying here, you know, one of my 300 wives, of a thousand wives and concubines, just one of them was the wife of my youth, and I should have been satisfied with her, and with her alone.

You know, we have no way of knowing what kind of challenges and complications were a part of Solomon's life with such a harem, but he does counsel his son in this regard.

And I personally think that, yeah, he's looking back over his life and thinking,

I should have listened to this advice when I was a kid, when

I was 20 years of age, and I got married for the first time with my first wife, and I should have been content with that.

And he passes that advice on to his son. Now whether or not that's exactly the case,

I don't know, but I do know that the advice is sound. The advice is sound.

Men, rejoice with the wife of your youth. And we live in a world where there is plenty of seductive stuff all around us, and what we need to do as men, by the grace of God, is to put blinders on and just be satisfied with the wife of our youth.

No matter how old you are, you're in your 80s, you're still married, you and your wife are together.

After all these years, rejoice in the wife of your youth. Did you just get married in the last couple of years?

Rejoice with that woman for the rest of your lives. Stay with her. Ignore all the siren sounds of the seductive women.

No, rejoice with the wife of your youth. Be satisfied ever with her.

Sound advice from one who should have listened to his own words.

Our Father and our God, we do thank you for Solomon's counsel here, and realize that he made horrible mistakes in this regard, and I pray that we would learn from his errors and be faithful in our marriages, we pray in Jesus' name for his sake, amen.