Avoid the Deceptive Ways of Sexual Temptation

Introduction:

“The most expensive thing in the world is sin.” This is what Warren Wiersbe writes when discussing this section of Proverbs 5, and who can argue when we realize that sin separates us from God? The path of sexual wisdom as designed by God is set forth in the first two chapters of the Bible. As the very first element of human society revealed by God, it is absolutely foundational for the successful operation of our world. The fact that man has forsaken this foundation has tragically impacted the entire history of man, and the repercussions of our rebellion continue to further society’s headlong rush toward ultimate destruction. In order for us, as God’s children, to avoid being swept up in this tsunami of God’s judgment, we must avoid the deceptive ways of sexual temptation. To avoid the deceptive ways of sexual temptation, the Sage encourages us to make right decisions in two key areas of our lives.

I. Rightly Decide Between Your Two Possible Responses to Biblical Truth (Pr 5:7, 12-13)

A. Appreciate and listen (Pr 5:7)

Explanation: The message here is universal. The most loving thing that a parent can do is to seek to instruct their child in the way of wisdom. This is literally a battle for the eternal well-being of the child. The wisest thing that a child can do is to value the message and listen carefully so as to obey the truth being taught.

B. Despise and ignore (Pr 5:12-13)

Quotation: For the one who chooses to not value wise instruction, but to despise and ignore it instead, our passage does an excellent job of showing their ultimate regret: “And thou mourn at the last, When thy flesh and thy body are consumed, And say, How have I hated instruction, And my heart despised reproof; And have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, Nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me!” (Pr 5:11–13).

II. Rightly Decide Between Your Two Possible Uses of Human Sexuality (Pr 5:8-11, 14-19)

A. Avoid partaking of sex outside of biblical marriage (Pr 5:8-11, 14)

1. Illicit sexual relationships lead to loss of reputation (Pr 5:9, 14)

Explanation: Perhaps this does not sound like such a severe loss, but this is not an insignificant truth. As Solomon writes further on, “A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, And loving favour rather than silver and gold” (Pr 22:1). Imagine the impact on your business if your public reputation indicates that you cannot be trusted. Imagine the damage to existing relationships when people who thought you could be trusted find out that you have betrayed their trust.

2. Illicit sexual relationships lead to loss of physical/mental resources (Pr 5:9–11)

Illustration: I really enjoy researching my genealogy. It is fascinating to piece together knowledge about the lives of relatives who lived before me through census records, newspaper articles, birth certificates, death certificates, and obituaries. Often what you learn is positive and makes you happy. Sometimes what you learn is negative and makes you sad. I had a second great grandfather who was born in the Netherlands in 1851 and emigrated to America in 1854 when he was a few months shy of his third birthday. In 1879, he married a young lady of Dutch ancestry who had been born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA. During my research, I learned that 21 years later in the year 1900, Great great Grandma was forced to divorce him over his drinking, cruelty, and promiscuity. Great great Grandpa died 15 years later in the state mental hospital in Kalamazoo, Michigan, the town in which Emmy and I have resided for all of our married lives. I was able to electronically find and see his death certificate, which listed his cause of death as general paralysis. That was a gentle way of indicating that he had GPI. General paresis of the insane (GPI) is a brain disease that causes paralysis and death. It's also known as dementia paralytica. GPI is a type of neurosyphilis, which occurs when the syphilis bacteria attack the brain and nervous system. GPI usually begins 10 to 30 years after an untreated syphilis infection. Of course, syphilis is a sexually transmitted disease (STD).

Explanation: I realize that not all sexual folly results in physical disease, but the emotional and mental impacts can also impact you physically, even if you don’t get an organic illness.

Quotation: Ray Ortlund writes, “Do you think you can play with sin and keep it under your control? Do you think you can compartmentalize God? Sexual folly complicates everything, as these verses say. When we disobey God, our hearts harden. The other people we violate become hardened and embittered toward us, because sooner or later they find out too. That is the point of verses 9–11—the wider impact of sexual folly. It depletes a man financially in cover-ups and alimony and lawsuits, socially in his reputation, emotionally in his conscience, and of course in his marriage. Jealousy, hurt, loneliness, regret—the cost is high. Satan shows the bait, but he hides the hook. Verse 9 says we men can end up giving our years to ‘the merciless.’ When Proverbs was written, the author probably had in mind the husband offended by an adulterous affair, with his relatives and friends taking his side against the offender. That can happen today too. But in addition the porn industry is merciless. It wants to enslave us. Verse 11 says, ‘And at the end of your life you groan.’ It doesn’t take long for the pain and the groaning to begin. Lord Byron was the bad boy of the nineteenth century whom everyone secretly envied. He was in Greece on his thirty-sixth birthday, all alone. Here is what he wrote: My days are in the yellow leaf, / The flowers and fruits of love are gone; / The worm, the canker, and the grief / Are mine alone!”

3. Illicit sexual relationships lead to loss of material resources (Pr 5:10)

Explanation: Alimony, child support, loss of employment: all of these can have a financially devastating impact on those who refuse to enjoy sex within the wholesome, freedom giving, edifying boundaries specified by God in his word.

Application: Let us follow the biblical examples of Moses and Joseph who rejected the call to give in to instant gratification. The trade is NEVER worth it. The pleasure we seek when we give in to sin NEVER lives up to its promise. Let us be like these great men of God, whose choices fit the description given by the writer to the Hebrews: “Choosing rather to suffer affliction…than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season;” (Heb 11:25)

B. Choose to partake of sex only within biblical marriage (Pr 5:15-19)

1. Sex is designed as a gift to couples united in their worldview (Pr 5:3)

Explanation: Notice the description of the stumblingblock in this passage. The adjective used to describe this person is very telling. They are characterized as “strange.” This indicates that they are not part of the main cultural group in Israel––i.e. they are not Jewish.

Application: This alluring person may have much that is outwardly attractive about her, but the Lord is highlighting that she is not in a covenant relationship with Him! Married couples should be united in their worldview! A Christian has no business uniting with a non-Christian in marriage. In Genesis 2:18, God describes his intention to make Eve as fit for or corresponding to Adam. If one partner in a relationship sees life through God’s eyes and seeks to follow his will, and one partner has a mind blinded by sin with no desire to glorify God or live according to his principles; such a pair does not correspond to one another. They are not fit for each other.

Quotation: Paul puts it this way in 2 Corinthians 6:14, “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?”

2. Sex is designed as a gift to heterosexual couples (Pr 5:18)

Explanation: Notice that the parental advice here is being offered from a father to a son, and the son is encouraged to “rejoice in” his wife. If that indication is not enough for you, you should read this passage in context of the founding principles of creation.

Quotation: Genesis 1:27–28 make this truth very clear. “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” (Ge 1:27–28)

Application: Since this is the first marriage, and there is only one man and one woman present at this time, there can be no confusion as to the fact that marriage is designed to be between one man and one woman––especially given the fact that one of the expected outcomes of marriage is the production of offspring.

3. Sex is designed as a gift to married couples (Pr 5:18)

Explanation: This is not just any female that the son is encouraged to enjoy the blessings of a God-sanctioned physical relationship with, this is his wife. This is the one woman that he has contracted a marriage covenant with. Not only is sex designed for a specific gender situation, i.e. it is to be between a man and a woman; but it is also designed for a specific societal situation (i.e. it is to be between a husband and his wife).

Quotation: We find some very specific instructions left by God when he created the first marriage back before sin entered the world through man’s rebellion. “And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” (Ge 2:21–24)

Argumentation: Paul summarizes this foundational teaching for the church at Corinth in his first preserved letter to them. “Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.” (1 Co 7:2)

4. Sex is designed to be monogamous (Pr 5:18)

Explanation: I know that perhaps in our day and age we take this for granted, but there are clearly cultures where they violated this foundational principle. Notice that the son is encouraged to rejoice in “the wife” of his youth. Wife is singular, and to make sure the son does not gloss over that due to the influence of polygamous cultures around, he adds “of your youth” to indicate that you are not adding more wives as you get older.

Argumentation: Once again, Genesis 2:18, 21–24 are appropriate here. Adam was complete with just Eve. Bigamy and Polygamy are sinful and rebellious perversions of God’s design for marriage.

5. Sex is designed as a delight and a duty for married couples (Pr 5:18–19)

Explanation: Solomon paints sex as a gift of delight to married couples. And there is no doubt that it is that, as long as the balancing “duty” part of this is also recognized.

Quotation: Paul lays out the duty aspect of the sexual relationship best. “Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband. The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife. Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency.” (1 Co 7:3–5)

Application: You might ask yourself how this is combined: duty and delight? A husband who delights in bringing delight to his wife will perform his duty. Likewise, a wife who delights in bringing delight to her husband. When it can be said of us what was said of our Savior, “Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.” (Mt 20:28), then our marriages will reflect that sex is designed as a delight and a duty for married couples in the way that the Bible portrays.

Conclusion:

I implore you to appreciate and listen to biblical truth! When you do that, you can choose to follow biblical teaching about human sexuality. Understand that, as one commentary says, “phrases such as ‘your own cistern’ (Prov. 5:15), ‘your own well’ (v. 15), ‘for yourself alone’ (v. 17), and ‘the wife of your youth,’ (v. 18), alongside the ‘forbidden woman’ and ‘adulteress’ (v. 20), reinforce the biblical theology of monogamy and sexual fidelity. We see the same theme throughout the Song of Solomon (e.g., ‘My beloved is mine, and I am his’; 2:16). The hookup culture of modern college campuses is one key sign of the casual attitudes toward sexual partners today. Such a loose sexual climate is not without the costs alluded to in Proverbs 5:7–14, such as sexually transmitted diseases, depression, loneliness, addiction to pornography, and sexual problems experienced in marriage. Proverbs is not contra-fun or anti-pleasure in the least. On the contrary, like the father in this passage, God constrains the pleasures of sex, food, and alcohol to the moral order of creation so that we might flourish as he fully intended. That occurs only when we desire the Lord and his wisdom above the physical pleasures he gives.”

Beloved, making the right decisions in these areas will yield blessings beyond your imagination. God has your best interests at heart. His word lays out the path to achieve those blessings. Renew your commitment to the path of wisdom today!