The Path of Wisdom: Choosing Righteousness over Pleasure
PROVERBS: WISDOM THAT WORKS • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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· 2 viewsDelving into the devastating consequences of infidelity and the wisdom of Proverbs 5 in safeguarding marriages and relationships.
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THE BIG IDEA: BE KILLING SIN OR SIN WILL BE KILLING YOU.
WAR IT A TERRIBLE THING BUT IF YOU ARE GOING TO GET INTO IT; YOU’VE GOT TO GET INTO IT ALL THE WAY.
During the 1982 Falkland Islands conflict, the British Royal Navy felt that its ships were safe from attack because of a sophisticated defense system that identified enemy missiles and shot them down.
WAR IT A TERRIBLE THING BUT IF YOU ARE GOING TO GET INTO IT; YOU’VE GOT TO GET INTO IT ALL THE WAY.
Attack after attack was repelled with no damage to a British ship. Then the unexpected happened. The 3,500-ton destroyer HMS Sheffield was sunk by a single missile fired from an Argentine fighter jet.
WAR IT A TERRIBLE THING BUT IF YOU ARE GOING TO GET INTO IT; YOU’VE GOT TO GET INTO IT ALL THE WAY.
Later, an investigation revealed that the Sheffield's defenses did pick up the incoming missile, correctly identifying it as a French-made Exocet (EK-SOH-SET). But the computer was programmed to ignore Exocets as friendly. So the ship was sunk by a missile it saw coming and could have destroyed.
Christian, though sin remains in you it is not to reign over you.
The aim of Proverbs 5 is the same as
For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
THIS TEXT TEACHES US HOW TO KILL THE SIN OF ADULTERY BY KNOWING ITS AIM.
It wants to nothing more but destroy.
My son, be attentive to my wisdom; incline your ear to my understanding,
that you may keep discretion, and your lips may guard knowledge.
discretion is a guard that goes with us wherever we go to protect us from danger. It gives us the ability to make responsive decisions and judge critically what is correct and proper.
For the lips of a forbidden woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil,
Sexual sin is attractive in prospect but hideous in retrospect.
Think of the white witch in the Chronicles of Narina.
but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.
As sweet as the beginning is; the end is even more bitter.
Her feet go down to death; her steps follow the path to Sheol;
she does not ponder the path of life; her ways wander, and she does not know it.
The Proverbs emphasize the importance of looking ahead to see where your actions will lead you.
The wise person checks the destination before buying a ticket.
she does not ponder the path of life; her ways wander, and she does not know it.
wander - to and fro, to stagger {she does not know it - deceived by her own lust}
while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.
And now, O sons, listen to me, and do not depart from the words of my mouth.
Keep your way far from her, and do not go near the door of her house,
Stay away from foolishness. Don’t flirt with the foolish for you are prone to foolishness.
Temptation is by nature so powerfully tempting that one must stay as far removed as possible.
You can’t handle sexual temptation!
Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.
So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.
I will not set before my eyes anything that is worthless. I hate the work of those who fall away; it shall not cling to me.
lest you give your honor to others and your years to the merciless,
lest strangers take their fill of your strength, and your labors go to the house of a foreigner,
Satan presents the bait and hides the hook.
Sin carries a high price tag for which we don’t and want ever possess enough currency to pay its debt.
and at the end of your life you groan, when your flesh and body are consumed,
and you say, “How I hated discipline, and my heart despised reproof!
I did not listen to the voice of my teachers or incline my ear to my instructors.
I am at the brink of utter ruin in the assembled congregation.”
THIS TEXT TEACHES US HOW TO KILL THE SIN OF ADULTERY BY SHOWING US THE ALTERNATIVE.
Adultery wants to destroy. God’s alternative is to drink.
Drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own well.
Quench your desire with your spouse.
Should your springs be scattered abroad, streams of water in the streets?
Let them be for yourself alone, and not for strangers with you.
Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth,
Don’t seek strange women but rejoice in the same woman.
a lovely deer, a graceful doe. Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight; be intoxicated always in her love.
The language of this verse should not be surprising. It proves that God approves intimacy for reproduction and recreation.
When practiced it produces unity and acts as a prophylactic against unfaithfulness.
Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?
If the sinner were not stupefied he would never leave the pure fountain for the poisoned one. The more you look at temptation the better it looks.
THIS TEXT TEACHES US HOW TO KILL THE SIN OF ADULTERY BY REMEMBERING AN ADMONITION.
For a man’s ways are before the eyes of the Lord, and he ponders all his paths.
The application of this admonition is how we kill sin.
Don’t look around wondering if anyone is watching; look up and remember God sees it all.
The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him, and he is held fast in the cords of his sin.
Sins begin like cobwebs, but become iron clamps. A rooted habit becomes a governing principle.
But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
The cords of sin get stronger the more we sin, yet sin deceives us into thinking we're free and can quit sinning whenever we please. Sin has two great powers; it reigns and it ruins. Sin is not a toy, it is a tyrant.
He dies for lack of discipline, and because of his great folly he is led astray.
Adultery does not happen because one does not know better but because they do not choose better.
WE ARE ALL ADULTERERS.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’
But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
YOU CAN BE FORGIVEN FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE.
Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.”
The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’;
for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.”
Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me all that I ever did.”
YOU MUST FIGHT ADULTERY FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE.
Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality,
nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures,
idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division,
envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God.
YOU MUST FORGIVE AN ADULTERER FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE.
bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.
Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me.
And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’
And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt.
So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”