Proverbs 6:24-35 (The Price Of Sexual Sin)

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

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

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

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Last week we stood right in the middle of the battlefield and we saw that parents are

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Not passive actors in their children's purity But that they're critical

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We found out last week that the war actually begins at home that the scripture says that the battle for future

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Sexual holiness begins not in adulthood not in puberty, but in the home

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That is filled with godly instruction And in this sense, we know that ordinary moments actually matter that the living room conversations that family worship at the dinner table while you may not be a

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John Calvin of Geneva father sitting at your table and while you may not be a katarina of on Bora ladies

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Sitting at your table but these ordinary normal Moments actually matter and they build up into a child

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The kind of heart that it's going to be armor for their future battles when you are no longer with them we saw how sexual sin is not avoided by happenstance, but it is repelled by discipline and that discipline is forged in the home forged in the family and forged through a faithful and Expositing of the

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Word of God in all aspects of life Today we're gonna move from that into the consequences of sexual sin

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We're gonna move from how we prepare for that to now what happens when we fail in that What happens when the foundation of purity is eroded what happens to a man or woman that engages in sexual sin?

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And what is the cost that's what we're gonna really be focused on today is what is the price that we must or that we will pay for sexual immorality and We're also going to look at who pays that cost and that is

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Christ So if you will turn with me to Proverbs 6 24 through 35 as we read our passage today and as we

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Explore what it means. If you'll join me in the word of God, Proverbs 6, 24 through 35 will be our passage.

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This is what the word of the Lord says. "'To keep you from the evil woman, "'from the smooth tongue of the adulteress.

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"'Do not desire her beauty in your heart, "'nor let her capture you with her eyelids. "'For on accounts of a harlot, "'one is reduced to a loaf of bread, "'and an adulteress hunts for the precious life.

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"'Can a man take fire in his bosom "'and his clothes not be burned? "'Or a man walk on hot coals "'and his feet not be scorched?

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"'So is the one who goes into his neighbor's wife. "'Whoever touches her will not go unpunished.

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"'Men do not despise a thief "'if he steals to satisfy hunger, "'or satisfy himself when he is hungry.

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"'But when he is found, he must repay sevenfold. "'He must give all the substance of his house.

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"'The one who commits adultery with a woman "'is lacking sense. "'He who would destroy himself does it.

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"'Wounds and disgrace he will find, "'and his reproach will not be blotted out.

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"'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 satisfied, "'though you give many gifts.'"

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This is the word of God. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you.

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And it is a good thing to say thanks be to God for your word. For the light and joyful word, and for the heavy word.

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Lord, we pray that today, that as we look in a section of Scripture that encompasses the end of Proverbs 6, and the entirety of Proverbs 7, also

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Proverbs 5, also Proverbs 31, and the beginning of it, and many other passages in this book, that Lord, we would endeavor to view this as grave, and as serious.

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Much biblical ink is spilled on the topic of sexual fidelity. Lord, may we not be squeamish when talking about it.

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May we not become so refined in our genteel sensibilities that we refuse to talk about it.

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that we refuse to talk about it. But may we, Lord, root our behavior in biblical holiness.

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And may we root everything that we do at the cross of Christ, who forgives us of our sin, but also gives us his spirit so that we will grow out of our sin.

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It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen. In this passage, every fall into sexual immorality begins not with neon flashing signs, not with shouts, not with anything overt, but with a whisper.

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In this sense, the flame begins with a spark, the affair begins with fantasy. Before a man falls into destruction, he gives ear to a whisper.

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Solomon begins with the subtle, because that's often where the siren song first hits us, in the subtle seduction, in the gentle tug that pulls a man off of his path long before he knows that he is lost.

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And why does Solomon start with a voice? Well, if we wanna understand that, we need to understand the voice that actually invites the immorality, and we will begin there with the whisper of the adulteress.

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That's where Solomon begins. To keep you from the evil woman, from the smooth tongue of the adulteress, do not desire her beauty in your hearts nor let her capture you with her eyelids.

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The war begins here with a whisper. The seducer begins with a whisper, not with a shout.

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Sin doesn't shout at us at first. It doesn't storm through the front door. It slips in through the side window.

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The war for purity in that sense does not begin in the bedroom. That is where the disaster is in its full display, but it starts in the mind.

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It starts in the hearts. It starts in the affections. It starts in the imagination. Solomon says that she has smooth words.

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He's talking about her words like they're the oil on top of the razor blade, like they're the honey that hides itself in the hook, and the smile that feels safe but yet slits your throat.

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And that way, lust doesn't come at first demanding. It comes to charm you and to disarm you, inviting you to coffee, not to combat.

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The combat comes later. The Hebrew phrase here, smooth tongue, means flattery that is polished for seduction.

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Words that are crafted to confuse you, to charm you, to disorient you, not in love, but to like a spider wooing you into her web to kill you.

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And in that sense, Satan knows how to conquer a man, not overtly, says he comes as an angel of light, but covertly, and in that sense, the heart is what falls first long before the body.

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Solomon says, do not even desire her beauty in your heart. Why would he say that? He could have said, don't touch her.

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He could have said, don't do that physically with her, but he starts with the heart.

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He says, do not even desire her because sin begins first in the heart, and when it's reached full maturity, then it kills the body.

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What Solomon is saying is by the time your hand is reaching for her or for the mouse or for the whatever else, your heart has already lost the war.

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And in that sense, the battle is not just about sex. The battle is not just about the physical.

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The battle is about worship because at the end of the day, every sin that we fall into is at its root a worship problem.

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It's not about lust, it's about loyalty. The true battle is a battle of allegiance.

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Who are you loyal to? Notice he doesn't say, did you touch the woman?

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Who isn't your wife? He says, do not even desire her, meaning don't betray

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God with your aberrant, idolatrous heart.

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Because every flirtation, every wandering eye, every text, every act redounds ultimately to a betrayal of our worship.

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Do we worship this God or do we worship our cravings? Do we worship our carnal impulses or do we worship him?

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In that sense, sin is vertical far before it's horizontal. Far before you sin against your neighbor, you've sinned against your

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God because every sin is ultimately a sin against your maker. That's why David says, against you and you only have

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I sinned. That's a funny verse because he sinned against a lot of people. He sinned against Bathsheba and he executed her husband.

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He sinned a lot. He lied about it. He pretended like he didn't exist. He had a lot of horizontal going on.

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And yet David in his conscience can say, against you and against you only have

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I sinned because David understood not that he was trying to minimize what he did to Bathsheba or to Uriah or to anyone else, but ultimately underneath every sin is a sin against God.

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That's why Solomon says, not just don't sleep with her, but don't even admire her.

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Don't gander at her. Don't stare at her. Don't linger with your eyes over her because desire is where sin inculcates and spreads in your heart.

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Desire is stage one of the cancer long before you even can see it on an x -ray.

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And when you desire something that is not God, your desires, your affections are aimed at the wrong sanctuary, at the wrong comfort and at the wrong

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God. And in that sense, fantasy is a liturgy. It's just to the wrong

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God. And in that sense, nobody can say that lust is an accident.

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No one can say that it was a mistake even. A mistake is when you trip and you fall into traffic.

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That's a mistake. Who has ever tripped and fallen into a woman? That's not a mistake.

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That's premeditated. That's heart level idolatry that is now so putrefied in the body that it now has led the body to its own destruction.

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And notice, she doesn't capture him with her body. She captures him with her eyelids.

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Nor let her capture you with her eyelids as sort of the winking, fluttering eyelashes of the adulteress.

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The downfall happens long before he's undressed her. That's the point.

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She baits him with blinking eyes and like an ox, he goes dumbly to his death.

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In that sense, the bar for sexual immorality is actually really low because the hook is set in the affections, not in the body.

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And in that sense, you have to kill it early. And I'm speaking to my brothers. You have to kill it early.

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We talked about this maybe a couple months ago in Proverbs 5 when we were there. That lust is a battle and is a animal and is a beast that you actually can't beat.

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As men, we were born with this kind of chivalrous idea that I'm gonna fight dragons. I'm gonna fight this and that.

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I watch my son, Jackson, who's gonna be five soon. I watch him. He fights all kinds of enemies in our living room and he uses this really masculine voice like he's gonna slay some creature.

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But brothers, lust is one you can't fight because it defeats you before you even get to the body.

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It defeats you in your head and your heart. The only recourse you have is to flee.

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To kill it before it hits your eyes. To repent there.

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You see something, turn away, repent immediately. Flee from it. Do not sit like an alcoholic in a bar thinking

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I'm strong enough for this. You're not. And here's the thing, brothers.

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Almost everyone that I've met who struggles with sexual sin coddles it in some way or another.

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Sitting with it like you're trying to have tea with a serial killer. I can manage this.

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Well, when you end up in its refrigerator, you couldn't manage it. It's like trying to raise a black mamba and then thinking that, oh, it loves me.

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Danger begins when you linger. That's where the battle is lost or the battle is won.

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And in that sense, Solomon tells us, and I want us to look at this in two different levels real quick.

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Solomon tells us as parents to help prepare our children to understand what the war is.

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When you prepare someone for war and you don't actually help them understand what the war is, what it's about, why it's about, where it's about, how it's about, if you don't help them understand that, you're sending them into a war unprepared.

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So fathers and mothers, prepare your children to understand where the battle starts. The battle starts in the eyes.

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That's your Omaha Beach right there. Help them see that their eyes must be pure.

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Like Job says, I made a covenant with my eyes that I may not sin against God. He didn't say I made a covenant with my body. He understood that it started with his eyes.

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And men, understand the same thing for you, that it begins in your eyes.

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And ladies, it manifests itself in a different way, but it also begins with your eyes as well, differently, but there as well.

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And this is really important that we understand this because we live in an era of ubiquitous perversion that is at your fingertips at an instant in a way that has never been possible.

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I remember, and I'm only 41 years old, but I remember when you had to be that guy that went into the store that had the three

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Xs over the top of it, and you had to kind of physically out yourself in a community that you're the one who went in there.

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There's a kind of grace in that sort of embarrassment that kept maybe some from going in, but now it's just a stream away, a click away, a subscription away, a few seconds, and your phone can be anywhere.

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So the ubiquity of this means that within seconds, you are feet from millions of harlotries and immoralities, and it takes vigilance.

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In Solomon's day, you actually had to get up, you had to brush your hair, brush your teeth, and walk around and walk in the wrong neighborhood of the

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Israelite community in order to find the seductress. Now you can do it without even getting up out of bed.

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The idea that we must be prepared for sexual sin is a grand understatement, and the idea that we must prepare our children for it is even more so an understatement because the cost of it is fatal.

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That's point one. The price that it charges is a price that we actually cannot pay, and it's ubiquitous, which means that our aversion to it and protection from it must be at a high alert, and we must, with faithfulness, fight that battle by fleeing from it entirely.

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That's point one. Point two is we're gonna go deeper now into the cost of cheap sexual thrills, and we're gonna look at Proverbs 6 .26.

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For on a count of a harlot, one is reduced to a loaf of bread. And then he says, can a man take fire in his bosom and his clothes not be burned?

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And in that sense, we see that lust always comes with a price tag. Solomon tells it to a street.

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He's saying you don't put lipstick on the pig. That's a Southern phrase. Just means don't try to dress it up nicely because it costs, and it costs more than you actually think.

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For one night of pleasure, Solomon would tell you that you were reduced to a loaf of bread. All that makes you significant, all that makes you valuable's gone, stripped.

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For a drop of pleasure, you drink an ocean of wrath, as Thomas Brooks once said.

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You go in hungry and you come out hollow, and in that sense, the great lie of sexual temptation is one of power.

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It convinces you that you actually have the power. You're the one doing the using, and yet you go in thinking that you are powerful and you come out powerless.

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You go in thinking that you're conquering something and you end up being the one who is conquered. The Hebrew word kara means to kneel down, collapse, to faint, to fall, and to be unable to get back up.

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This is like the 1980s commercial. I've fallen and I can't get up. But like seriously, this is the kind of word that you would use when you're talking about someone who has cardiac arrest, where they've fallen and collapsed and they cannot get on their feet again.

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And in that sense, men, lust does not invigorate you, lust does not ignite some sort of hidden potential or hidden masculinity within you.

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It actually suffocates you, it withers you, and it destroys you. It doesn't inflate you, it shrinks you.

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It cuts your spinal cord, the spinal cord of your soul, and it turns you into soggy bread.

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In the moment that you think lust is gonna make you feel alive, it actually mangles you into something pathetic.

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And it makes you less than a man, and it makes less of a man out of you.

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It sells your dignity for pocket change, it robs your manhood with whispers, and we're now starting to understand this even in the scientific world.

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The Bible's been saying this for thousands of years. Wouldn't you know it, right? But science is finally starting to catch up to scripture.

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Habitual pornography use actually shrinks your brain. Did you know that? It actually withers you, just as Solomon said.

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Your prefrontal cortex is the main area that it attacks, which is the seat of your will and of your reason.

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So it turns you from a man able to reason into someone who cannot even reason rightly anymore.

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It withers you physiologically and spiritually. It depletes your dopamine reserves and makes you emotionally numb.

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It lowers your testosterone, your energy, your drive, and your confidence, and it makes you unable to perform.

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It actually, there's a new dysfunction called porn -induced erectile dysfunction in 20 -year -olds who can no longer use their bodies in the way that God intended because they have zapped their own virility by watching these things.

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Brothers, it makes you feeble. It makes you soft spiritually, emotionally, physically.

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It kills your masculinity. And in that sense, it's a great enemy from, or a great weapon from the enemy's hand.

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If there's something we need now more than ever, it's men, to be men, masculine men, strong men.

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Do you know how you do that? Restrain yourself. Have a wife. Fight for her in your family and pour out your affection on one woman.

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That's what increases your testosterone. That's what makes you a hard man. Cheap, quick, easy thrills makes you into a woman.

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It robs your strength. And not even a good kind of woman, the strong kind of woman, it makes you a pathetic kind of person.

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You think I'm being hard, but this is serious. We live in an age right now that this is destroying people.

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I'm not speaking hard enough. And it even says in this passage that it doesn't just destroy you, it will destroy everything around you because it spreads and it infects everything.

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There was a study that was once done, I don't remember where, New York or London or one of those places, the location's not important.

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They put up signs in the bathroom. This was an experiment of sorts. They put up signs in the bathroom that said, wash your hands or you'll get sick.

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It was the men's bathroom. None of the men actually washed their hands. They were just like,

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I'm tough enough because that's our default mode, right? Then they changed the message after a couple months and they put, wash your hands because you don't want to get someone else sick.

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And hand washing increased by like 400 % because we may doubt and have a delusion about our own strength, but when it comes to harming others, most of us don't want to harm others, so we'll wash our hands.

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Washing hands is a good thing. I don't know who these men were who didn't wash their hands. I'm just citing a report. But my point is is that if they doubted their own strength, they actually cared enough for the other person to do it.

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Men, this sin will not only destroy you, maybe you don't care about yourself, but do you care about the people around you because it actually spreads into their life as well and will kill them.

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For instance, it kills your leadership. You can't lead a wife if you're rotting away in lust.

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You can't disciple your children if you're kneeling at the altar of sin. You can't walk in any kind of power in order to affect anything in this life if you are nimping with this kind of shame.

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And in this sense, it spreads like mold on the walls and like gangrene in the legs, and it is a price that we ought not pay.

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Brothers, the enemy is thrilled with you to have cheap, perverted ecstasy so that he can strip you and your family of its vigor and its vitality.

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Lust is what turns kings into slaves, ask David. Lust is what turns warriors into weaklings, preachers into punchlines, and fathers into frauds.

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The man who once roared in righteousness will stammer in guilt because of this sin.

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The man who once led his home now has a hole that is left with a family who's been hollowed out by his sin.

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The man who once stood boldly in prayer will become a coward in silence. This sin will reduce you physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually, and it leaves you defenseless for the battle.

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Lemuel's mother, this is Proverbs 31, before the great passage of biblical femininity, says this,

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Proverbs 31 .3, do not give your strength to women or your ways to which destroys kings.

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You may look at that and you say, well, that's a really, that's a really messed up verse. Don't give your strength to women.

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What, are they not good enough for strength? That's not what it's saying. It's saying don't give your masculine strength to the adulterous.

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Don't give your vitality sexually to the one who is robbing you. Don't give your vigor to the screen.

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That's what it's saying, because these are the sins that destroy kings.

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There's two roads, brothers. There's the road of godliness and there's the road of ungodliness. One builds life, one builds the world.

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If you actually have to please a woman and care for her, you're gonna work hard. You're gonna be responsible.

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You're not gonna oversleep. You're gonna get to work and you're gonna work hard and you're gonna work harder than everyone else because you want the promotion.

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That is gonna drive you because when you get home and you see that woman who is totally dependent upon your strength, you're gonna be strong and you're gonna work hard and you're gonna live in such a way that glorifies

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God. That is a good thing. Having a wife drives you, let it drive you. But lust, lust destroys you and your family and your legacy.

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It takes you from being the one who is supposed to conquer and supposed to subdue to the one who is subdued.

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And in this way, your armor can't actually outlast the fire. That's why Solomon says, hey, if I take this into my chest, will it not burn me?

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Yes. It's not rhetorical. I mean, it is rhetorical, but it is also true.

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The fire will burn you if you play with it. And brothers, here's a question that we must face.

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Are you feeling weak in your life right now because you've let this kryptonite in? Have you been compromised in your sin?

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Such that you have given your strength and your vigor and your vitality away? And then if you would say yes to that,

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I would ask you a follow up question. Do you want your strength back? Do you want to walk with a clean conscience again?

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Do you want to be a man of conviction instead of a man of compromise? Remember when Jesus walked up to the man who'd been sick for 38 years and he says, do you want to get well?

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It's a really important question. Because sometimes we get so sick in our sickness that we don't even know what it means anymore to get well.

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Do you want to get well? Stop feeding on hell's crumbs and start feasting on the living bread.

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Stop eating the maggot infested bread that is baked in hell's ovens that is pornography and lust and adultery and everything else and start feasting on the bread of life.

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Trade in your lust for lordship, for the Lord of glory. Because he's the only one who can restore our soul.

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And this would be a great time to end the sermon but we're gonna smack the runway and go right back up because the consequences actually escalate before Solomon is finished.

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Proverbs 6, 27 through 29 says, can a man take fire in his bosom and his clothes not be burned?

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Or can a man walk on hot coals and his feet not be scorched? So is the one who goes into his neighbor's wife.

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Whoever touches her will not go unpunished. He asks us two questions and there's only one answer.

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Can a man actually do this and not be burned? The answer is no. Can he walk on hot coals and not be scorched?

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No. And he's saying in this, you can't handle it.

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You shall not touch it. It will burn you. It will destroy you. And again, we talked about this earlier but I wanna make it even more clear.

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It touches everyone in your home. It scalds your marriage. It scorches your wife. It melts your children's confidence and it incinerates your vigor so that you're no longer leading with confidence if you have anyone left to lead at all.

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In this sense, Solomon is saying that you may not lose your house but if you do not repent of this sin, you will lose your home.

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He's saying you may not lose your marriage certificate but if you do not repent, you will lose your marriage.

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He's saying that the paycheck may continue. You may not lose your job but you are gonna lose your purpose. He's saying you may survive in some kind of limping, pathetic survival, but you will not walk away unscarred.

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And in this sense, brothers, God is patient with you, but God is not mocked. God is not mocked with half -hearted, cheap grace and cheap repentance.

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We have to make a decision. Are we gonna be God's men, or are we gonna be men who fall into every kind of sludge and perversion?

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We have to choose this day who we're gonna serve. Are we gonna serve Christ, or are we gonna serve this?

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Sometimes we take the sweetness of the gospel and we use it like honey until it sours the belly, and we become diabetic from it.

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Sometimes we use the sweetness of the gospel as a crutch, and we say, God forgives,

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He forgives me. Yes, that's true. But what does

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Paul say about that? Shall we sin so that grace may abound? Let me put it to you in another way.

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Shall we premeditate our sin so that we can lean on the Lord's forgiveness? May it never be.

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You fight, don't give up. You fight for purity, fight for holiness, and run from this sin because it will not just destroy you, it will destroy everyone around you.

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And it will take your mind and give you anxiety. It will take your hearts that should be filled with the thoughts of God, and it will give you a kind of awful silence.

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You'll pay for it with late night tears when no one's watching. You'll pay for it when you lift your hands in worship and they feel like lead because you know what your hands have done.

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You'll pay for it when you pray and you feel like heaven is made of brass and your prayers won't pierce it.

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And in that moment, I want you to know that God has not left you, but you've taken the fire that should have been reserved for him and you've poured it out in something else.

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And in the fireplace, it would have been great. The fireplace is marriage. But in the living room, it set the whole thing on fire.

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That leads us to our final verses, verses 30 through 35, which takes it even another level deeper.

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Men do not despise a thief if he steals to satisfy himself when he is hungry. But when he is found, he must repay sevenfold.

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He must give all the substance of his house. The one who commits adultery with a woman is lacking sense.

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He who would destroy himself does it. Wounds and disgrace he will find and his reproach will not be blotted out for jealousy enrages a man and he will not spare in the day of vengeance and he will not accept any ransom nor will he be satisfied though you give him many gifts.

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Solomon starts with a kind of analogy. Many people, and I remember this, many people in,

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I worked in a jail for seven and a half years many of the inmates would hate the one who came in who stole because there's this kind of innate thing inside of all of us that no one likes a thief.

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No one can trust a thief. And yet he says that you'll excuse a thief for stealing to feed their family.

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But the point he's making here is that there is no reason. There is no excuse for sexual sin.

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There is a situation in which a man can rob and be righteous because his family is starving to death and he'll repay sevenfold later.

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But there isn't a moment. There isn't an excuse. There isn't a situation. There is not a scenario where sexual immorality is ever excusable, ever.

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There's all sorts of examples of like the two women who told the

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Pharaoh a lie and said, well, when we get there, the Hebrew babies are already born because the

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Hebrew women are vigorous. They lied to Pharaoh. God called them righteous. There's reports of Christians in World War II hiding

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Jews, the people who came to find them. They said, they're not here. They lied. And I think the

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Lord counted them as righteous for doing such a thing. So there is a way to lie and there's a way to steal that's righteous.

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There's not a way to have sexual immorality that's righteous. Not a single scenario.

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If you do that, it's because you're arrogant. If you do that, it's because you're entitled.

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If you do that, it's because you're foolish. If you do that, it's because you think the rules do not apply to you. In that sense, this sin is a sin of pride.

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It's a sin of I want that, I need that. That is for me. No, it's not. Because he who does that lacks fear.

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And Solomon says lacks sense. Because as Solomon says, the one who does that is committing a kind of spiritual suicide.

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He says, he who commits adultery with a woman is lacking sense and he would destroy himself. It is a kind of potent self -destruction that is on the level of spiritual suicide.

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And he gives a threefold curse here, that you'll be wounded, that you'll be disgraced, and that you'll be left as a reproach.

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In this sense, this sin will take you behind the spiritual woodshed and beat you. And you're not strong enough, you're a baby.

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I don't mean that to insult you, but you're a baby. And it is a 25 -year -old

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MMA champion. And you're getting beat. That's what Solomon says. He doesn't say that there's a kind of man who has enough bravado and vitality that he can win.

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No, you can't. You can't. You're getting beat if you go down this road.

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You must avoid it. The second curse, he says, is you'll be disgraced. You'll be in public shame.

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You'll be the laughingstock. Think about this. There are so many sins that, let's just go with pastors for a second.

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There's so many sins that pastors can commit and be forgiven for, but how many, how many pastors who engage in this are known forever for it?

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They might get heaven. They might be forgiven by God, but this one, Solomon tells us, is a lasting public shame that follows them forever.

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It is different. This sin is different. And it gives you a reproach.

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And it says his reproach will not be blotted out. A reproach is when people look at you and are disgusted by you.

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Even in a culture that is as sexually profligate as ours, this is still true. Solomon is saying that it will be like a tapeworm that Ivermectin won't get rid of.

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That will stick with you till you die. Again, God forgives, but this sin sticks with you.

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God gives mercy, but the memories are still there. God forgives you, but it fractures your relationships with others.

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God saves you, but maybe your trust that you broke will never return. And this is the full circle of what lust does.

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This is the price. It starts with flirtation and it ends in flames. It starts with a small seduction and it ends up with irreparable scars.

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It starts with a whisper and it ends with howls of regret. It starts with a little misplaced passion and it ends with abiding shame.

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And in this sense, you participate in your own execution if you go down this road.

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That's the awful price that Solomon is telling us that this sin demands.

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It will demand everything from you, from your family. And it's not worth it.

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It's not worth it. Parents, I hope last week and this week have convinced you, if you're still on the fence, that you are the main grace that God has given your children to prepare them for sexual faithfulness and fidelity.

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I hope that you're hearing it and seeing it and implementing it, having conversations about it, talking about it, having

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Bible studies about it, having a plan on how your children is gonna be discipled in this area because this area is so important because discipline that you give them today is going to be their defenses tomorrow.

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It says that she hunts the precious. Did you see that in there? That she hunts them.

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She's not hunting the worthless. She's hunting your precious ones.

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You have to prepare them. And I would say to everyone here, because everyone here at some level has been touched by sexual sin.

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And if you haven't, praise God. But I wanna point you to the only place that matters.

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Because this sin is going to cost you in some way or another. It's either gonna cost you temporarily. It's gonna cost you eternally.

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It's either gonna be paid by you or it's gonna be paid for by Christ. This sin will either damn you forever or it will be laid finally, fully, and furiously at the feet of Jesus.

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He's the one who took every curse, every flame, every shame, every stroke, every act, every sin, every thought, every time that you were by yourself and you were mustering secretly that no one else knew about, he died for that too.

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He is the place where the wrath of God and the love of God collided.

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And he, for his people, was the one who was stripped naked and ashamed so that you wouldn't have to be.

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He is the one who was stripped so that you'd be clothed with Christ. He is the one who was nailed so that you could walk away free.

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He is the one who was rendered dead so that you could be made alive.

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And as Charles Spurgeon said, shall we go on trifling with the sin that killed our best friend?

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If he's died for you, if he's forgiven you, and if he's purified you, do not go on with the sin that killed him.

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You kill it. You mortify it. You lay it down. And that's not legalism and that's not moralism.

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That's I love Jesus more than this, realizing that he took your place.

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Why? So that you could do the good works that he predestined for you to do. For by grace, you've been saved, brothers and sisters.

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It's not of your own doing. It's the gift of God so that no one shall boast. You've been saved by Christ. Why? To do the good works

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God has prepared for you and the good works don't mean this. Leave it, flee it, abandon it, and pray to God that he would crucify it in you.

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Because it will kill you slowly, but Christ alone can give you life. Trust in him, rest in him, cling to him.

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Let's pray. Lord Jesus, this is such a hard passage because we live in such miserable times when it comes to this sin.

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And Solomon doesn't pull punches and Lord, you don't pull punches. So Lord, I pray that you would forgive

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Solomon and that you would heal him. and that any of us who are touched by, have a history with, or maybe even a present with this sin, that Lord, I pray that conviction would enter hearts instead of compromise.

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Lord, I pray that strength would be supplied by the spirit of God and courage to leave this sin at Calvary and walk away.

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And Lord, I pray that you would heal. You would heal any heart that's overcome with shame.

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Lord, there's so much pain and guilt and shame and suffering that has entered into our world through this sin.

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When you created sex, you created it to be beautiful and life -giving and to actually be the thing that rooted and established the world.

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And yet how many times has this perversion of that most good thing turned into world -destroying tendencies?

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Lord, would you heal anyone here whose wounds are from someone else's sin, someone else's perpetrated, weaponized sexual sin against them, would you heal them,

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Father, by your gospel and by your grace? Father, would you heal any who have perpetrated this sin in this room by your kindness and by your grace, and would you make them white as snow and pure again?

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Father, would you protect our families and protect our children so that that sin would not be named here?

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And Father, would you cause even the pagans to look in and see the beauty and glory of your gospel at work in this people and for them to say the

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Lord must be in this place? And Lord, would you let that lead many to Christ? Lord, we ask these things in Jesus' name, amen.