Proverbs 5Stay True to Your First Love

Staying True to Your First Love

Intro: If you wanted to hire someone to redo your house who would you hire? Tim the Toolman Taylor or Bob Villa My guess is you would want to hire Bob Villa because he was given a home improvement show partly because he was awarded the Better Homes and Gardens Heritage Home of 1979 for the work he did completing a Victorian Italianate House. His father passed on the wisdom how to build houses and he proved he learned it by completing his own projects. Veronica and I like to watch home renovation shows, especially the one where the people are have no idea what they are doing and so you get to watch the train wreck happen as they tear apart their house and hope to upgrade their kitchen or bathroom. But many times they don't have people to rely on. Someone like an expert or they not even watch a Bob Villa.

Solomon wants to be the Bob Villa or his sons, explaining how to live a Godly life is making to his son’s when he writes these proverbs. While Solomon did not win any awards, he learned the hard way what means to be unfaithful. The Biblical wisdom applies to our lives as well. If you are at all familiar even a little bit you may have heard that Solomon had a lot of wives. says he had 700 wives and three hundred concubines.

I will read 1 kings 11 to set up the context and show where Solomon’s experience produces.

gives a synopsis of Solomon’s life and perhaps what motivated him to write this proverb. 1-5 says King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh’s daughter—Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites. 2 They were from nations about which the Lord had told the Israelites, “You must not intermarry with them, because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods.” Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love. 3 He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray. 4 As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father had been. 5 He followed Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and Molek the detestable god of the Ammonites. 6 So Solomon did evil in the eyes of the Lord; he did not follow the Lord completely, as David his father had done.

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You see, Solomon is not just warning his son to stay faithful to his wife, but more importantly he is also encouraging him to stay faithful to God. This proverb works on two levels, the immediate practical and physical level for your relationship with your spouse and marriage and the Spirtual level with your relationship with God

Main Point: A Biblical Marriage reflects God’s Covenant Relationship to Mankind

I. God Warns You to Avoid the Stranger (1-14)

After giving the standard introduction about listening and heeding his words, Solomon warns to avoid the forbidden woman, or the adulterous woman, or the strange woman as the King James puts it. Solomon want his son to avoid the woman who is not his wife. This does not mean he can’t talk to a woman at the market when he buys his olives or bread. But he needs to be aware of the interactions before it becomes something more because she is trying to entice him.

I want to be clear that this situation does not apply only to husbands. This can apply to wives being seduced or brought down by a forbidden man as well. Listen again to how Solomon describes the Woman’s words in verse 3-6:

3 Though the lips of the forbidden woman drip honey

and her words are smoother than oil,

4 in the end she is as bitter as wormwood

and as sharp as a double-edged sword.

5 Her feet go down to death;

her steps head straight for Sheol.

6 She doesn’t consider the path of life;

she doesn’t know that her ways are unstable.

Honey is sweet and it tastes great but you can get stuck in it. It gets all over the place and makes a mess.

Her words are smoother than oil. Oil is a lubricant and helps in cooking, but it can be slick and dangerous if you walk on it or drive on it. When you area smooth talker, it is usually a bad thing, like you can sell sand to people who live in the Sahara. The words she is saying maybe exactly what you think you want to hear. To stroke your ego and maybe say things that are opposite to what your wife

Solomon explains that if you follow her on her path, the consequences of giving into Temptation, is that she will lead you to Sheol, the underworld.

In verse 14 he seems to verbalize what would happen if you walked this pathway with her, by saying, I am on the verge of complete ruin before the entire community.

verses 7 and 8 stand in contrast to the forbidden woman’s words and path, by saying listen to my words and make your path way around her. Go around her or any place you might go near the same road she is on. A good example of this is the what is now known as the Billy Graham Rule. Vice President Pence came under fire for living by this idea as well.

“A man like Billy Graham will always have critics. There were some who didn’t like Billy Graham’s evangelical theology. He was criticized for some of his friendships with presidents. But he avoided any hint of scandal over his marriage and his personal life.

In the early days of Graham’s ministry, his team took steps to avoid some of the traps that had ensnared other evangelists. He wanted to ensure that he stayed faithful to Ruth, so the team instituted what some today call the “Billy Graham Rule.” As Graham explained it in Just As I Am:

We all knew of evangelists who had fallen into immorality while separated from their families by travel. We pledged among ourselves to avoid any situation that would have even the appearance of compromise or suspicion. From that day on, I did not travel, meet, or eat alone with a woman other than my wife. We determined that the Apostle Paul’s mandate to the young pastor Timothy would be ours as well: ‘Flee … youthful lusts’ (, KJV).”

Application Point: You must remain vigilant against anyone or anything who seeks to take you away from your spouse or God

In Jesus says if your eye cause you to sin then cut it out or if your hand cause you to sin, cut it off. This may sound extreme ad he is not being literal. But he did use language to make it clear of the type of action you would take to avoid sin. Not just because it is bad or wrong, but because the sin puts you farther from God.

Billy Graham, and Vice President Pence were not thinking that every woman was trying to pick them up everywhere they went. Graham was not worried about being hyper Moral. Instead, Graham and from what I understand Pence, was honoring their wives, protecting their marriage and most importantly demonstrating to people that their marriage vow and their profession of Faith in God is not just a show.

Jesus wants us to stay focused on God, on Himself because they are one in the same. His death on the cross paid for our sins in a substitutionary atonement. His resurrection removed the last stumbling block in our path to God. His actions redeem those who believe and He sealed the new Covenant between God and man.

TS: Solomon is writing from a place of experience and perhaps regret to help his sons avoid the same types of mistakes and we see Billy Graham and others heed the advice and have productive ministries.

II. God Encourages You to Abide with your Spouse (15-23)

The tone of the Proverbs goes from one of warning about the strange woman to how you should feel about your spouse.

In verse 15 Solomon encourages his son to drink water from your own cistern. Basically you don't have to go into town to get water when you have your own well providing you with life sustaining water.

Like the spring that God provided for the Israelites in the Wilderness, your spouse is provided to you by God. He or she is given to you for a reasons. And what ever the specific reasons that you have as a character flaw, he or she is provided as part of your sanctification. This doesn’t mean single people aren’t being sanctified, that is being done in a different way with different people at the time.

Knowing that your spouse is given to you by God, When you got married, you made a covenant with your spouse. That you would be hers and she would be yours.

How do you enjoy marriage covenant?

Application: Verse 18 is the Application verse here for the whole proverb: “Let your Fountain be blessed and take pleasure in the wife of your youth”. “Wives, take pleasure in the Husband of your youth.”

Do not let anything to come between your relationship. Not kids, not families not friends or work. Their may be a time when you have to work overtime but it should be as short as possible. You have to raise Kids, but as parents you should have a united front.you should not also let the kids manipulate you into choosing sides.

We are commanded to Leave our families and cleave to our wives. , , , , , .

The second half of 19 also says to be Lost in her love forever. In part this means constantly revealing in the love she has and the love you have for her. As humans it may seem like it is unfathomable to love someone forever because it may be difficult to love them for more than a day.

God loves you forever. There is no time limit or three strikes and you're out. If that were the case, we would all be out and the game would be over.

Action: 1) Love with an unconditional love: God loved us when we were unlovable. God shows unconditional love to his children

2) Be Lovable: Exercise the The fruits of the Spirit,  But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. The law is not against such things

3) Forgiveness: When you fail at loving or being lovable, ask for forgiveness. If your spouse is being unlovable, forgive them and love them more.

That is what Being a Christian is about because that is what God is about; He is love. When you exercise faith in love the obedience to God’s word falls into place and you do not have to worry about being moralistic or legalistic.

RC Sproul says this: The Bible tells us that one thing that motivated God from all eternity to implement redemption is His love for His creation. God gave His only begotten Son because He loves the world (). But we would be mistaken if we thought that the primary object of the love of God was the world or even the people whom He redeems. It’s certainly true that God loves us, and on account of that love He sent Christ to be a propitiation for our sin. But the Father first loves the Son. It’s absolutely true that God loves us, but we must remember that He loves us in the Son.

The apostle John said in his first letter “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are” ().

The apostle John said in his first letter “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are” ().

Conclusion:

More importantly, Do you love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength?

Trying to improve our marriage by ourselves is like hiring Tim the toolman taylor. He might be funny, but he has no idea how to really remodel your house.

But if you hire Bob Villa you get the expert who has proven that they have the required knowledge and skills to perform the remodel or redemption.

Actions: 1) Love with an unconditional love: God loved us when we were unlovable. God shows unconditional love to his children

2) Be Lovable:  But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. The law is not against such things

3) Forgiveness: When you fail at loving or being lovable, ask for forgiveness. If your spouse is being unlovable, forgive them and love them more.

That is what Being a Christian is about because that is what God is about; He is love. When you exercise faith in love the obedience to God’s word falls into place and you do not have to worry about being moralistic or legalistic.

RC Sproul says why we are redeemed or remade We are We are included in the work of redemption because the Father sees us as belonging to the Son, whom He loves. “The Father loves the Son” (), and in love He chose us in the Son for adoption as sons of the Father (). The Scriptures speak of God’s love for us, an eternal love for us that is rooted and grounded in the Father’s love for the Son.

Do you love your spouse like God loves you? Unconditionally? Forever?

More importantly, Do you love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength?

2) Be Lovable: Exercise the The fruits of the Spirit, Galatians 5: 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. The law is not against such things

3) Forgiveness: When you fail at loving or being lovable, ask for forgiveness. If your spouse is being unlovable, forgive them and love them more.

That is what Being a Christian is about because that is what God is about; He is love. When you exercise faith in love the obedience to God’s word falls into place and you do not have to worry about being moralistic or legalistic.