Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Achilles.
[00:00:02] He was a greek mythological hero. He didn't really. He was mythological, but Achilles was said to be the strongest of the greek warriors in the trojan war.
[00:00:20] I don't know if you guys have heard of him. You've probably heard at least of a body part named after him. The legend said that he was invincible over his entire body, except for one part.
[00:00:32] For when he was a baby, his mother dipped him into a river to make him invincible or something like that. I'm not an expert, so if you're, like an expert and you're going to fact check me, just save it. I don't know that much, but the way I understand is that she dipped him to a river to make him invincible. But she was holding him by his heel, so his heel was not dipped, and therefore his heel was his only vulnerable point. It was not invincible.
[00:00:59] And thus we have named the tendon of our heel the Achilles. And the Achilles heel is a saying that means our weakness, our weak point, our vulnerable point.
[00:01:11] Well, tonight, as we read these three chapters, we have, or are going to face a battle with the adulteress.
[00:01:22] She is dangerous.
[00:01:24] She has a strategy to seduce you, and she bears horrible fruit.
[00:01:31] However, she has an Achilles heel. She has weaknesses and ways to be defeated.
[00:01:39] The adulteress represents folly or foolishness, but in these chapters, she most represents a version of folly, which is sexual sin.
[00:01:53] The main idea of these chapters is that sexual sin.
[00:02:00] Let's see. Yeah. Sexual sin seduces us away from wisdom. So that's that first blanken and I'll write it in. Sexual sin seduces us away from wisdom. Therefore, christians must know the danger, strategy, fruit and vulnerabilities of the tempter or the adulteress. We must know the strategies, dangers, fruit and vulnerabilities of her, and we should walk away wanting to choose wisdom.
[00:02:41] And that's exactly what we would expect in proverbs. Does anybody want to share? What is the theme of proverbs? Can anybody say it? You can shout it out or raise your hand.
[00:02:53] Wisdom.
[00:02:55] Wisdom. What's the phrase we've been using? Choose the path of wisdom, which is the path of Christ. I heard a lot of people say, that's great. Choose the path of wisdom, which is the path of Christ. And so we will study tonight the adulteress danger strategy, fruit, and her vulnerability, her achilles heel.
[00:03:18] Let's begin by reading. Let's start chapter five, verse one. We'll read the first 14 verses.
[00:03:27] My son, be attentive to my wisdom. Incline your ear to my understanding that you may keep discretion, and your lips may guard knowledge.
[00:03:37] For the lips of a forbidden woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil. But in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two edged sword. 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. And now, o sons, listen to me and do not depart from the words of my mouth.
[00:04:05] Keep your way far from her and do not go near the door of her house, lest you give your honor to others and your ears to the merciless, lest strangers take their fill of your strength and your labors. Go to the house of a foreigner, 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.
[00:04:38] I am at the brink of utter ruin in the assembled congregation.
[00:04:45] So here we see really just a taste of this first point. The adulteresses danger.
[00:04:52] That's our first point, the adulteresses danger.
[00:04:57] Now, we have encountered the adulteress before, if you recall, at least the first week. We started out by meeting a lot of different characters, so to speak, in the book of Proverbs. And one that we have met along the way is the adulteress, Lady Folly. She is the exact opposite of lady wisdom. She is the epitome of foolishness and sin.
[00:05:25] And I think this is because sexual sin is the epitome of all follies, of all the follies we encounter in this book and in the BIble, this is the peak. This is the pinnacle. Adultery is the sin which most closely depicts all the sins we commit.
[00:05:46] I mean, what is worse than this? Listen to what Paul says about this. He tells us, flee from sexual immorality, going on to say, every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.
[00:06:04] First Corinthians 618.
[00:06:07] And adultery epitomizes sin more broadly as well. Frequently, God identifies Israel's faithlessness by calling their sin adultery or some form of that word.
[00:06:20] And so I want to be frank and honest as we study these chapters, the adulteress is active today, not just then, and she boasts of many great successes, from the corruption of societies at large to the takedown of apparent men of faith.
[00:06:42] She represents many things in our world. She represents many things in your own life, even. She represents most clearly the adultery a man commits by having sex outside of marriage, however, and that's the example we see here, throughout these chapters and elsewhere, even that was just the most clear and present danger to the son. So the son in the story, this is his most likely opponent, the temptation he is most likely to face.
[00:07:15] But we would expect that if Solomon wrote this book today, the father would warn his son about things like pornography and fantasies, lustful thoughts, inappropriate use of movies and mediaev. Likewise, if the father, or even a mother, was lecturing her daughter, we would expect her to warn the daughter, really, about the exact same things.
[00:07:39] Our world has changed.
[00:07:41] Pornography and fantasies. Yes, girls struggle with this, too.
[00:07:47] And so I want to point this out for no other reason other than to say that shame shouldn't cause you to hide more.
[00:07:56] You are not alone if you're struggling with this as well. We would expect, again, books, movies, media.
[00:08:04] We would expect looking to a woman or a man for support and meaning and value, to be something that the father or mother would point out to their child if this was written today. And so we must remember the context. This is why the father points out this specific sin. But I think we can broaden this out. So when we read and study the dangers, the strategies, the fruits, the vulnerabilities of the adulterous, and we talk about these sins, I want you all to think of those sins which are most closely tied to you, which are the most ever present danger to you. Don't think of a sin that's easy for you to avoid. Think of the one that is hard to avoid, or even seems impossible to avoid. A we must remember that the adulteress is still active. She is dangerous. And those sins are threats to you. They're threats to your well being, to your life, and even to your friends and family.
[00:09:04] Remember, Paul says it's sinning against your own body. But we know that the effects of this affect people outside of us. Even this is a dangerous type of sin.
[00:09:16] We want to look in this, and we can see how she works, see how she lures the man in with sweet lips and smooth words.
[00:09:25] Sexual sin is beautiful on the outside and attractive. And the more you ponder committing it, and the closer you get to it, the better and better it tends to look.
[00:09:37] But it's really like a mirage in the desert.
[00:09:41] You think you will find satisfaction, but the closer you get, the closer to death you get, and you ultimately find nothing of value.
[00:09:50] You were closer to sheol, the place of the dead, as we read in verse five, and pay close attention to the end result that we saw in verse 14, he says, I am at the brink of utter ruin.
[00:10:06] This sin, sexual sin, will ruin you.
[00:10:11] Only faith in Christ and complete transparency with other christians can save you. That's right. Waiting it out won't save you. So time won't save you. Growing up won't save you. Not even marriage will save you from these sins. It will catch up to you. It is dangerous.
[00:10:32] Look what else we see. A flip to chapter six, verse 27.
[00:10:40] Can a man carry fire next to his chest and his clothes not be burned? Or can one walk on hot coals and his feet not be scorched? So is he who goes into his neighbor's wife. None who touches her will go unpunished. And then maybe flip the page again. Chapter seven, verse 24.
[00:11:03] And now, o sons, listen to me and be attentive to the words of my mouth. Let not your heart turn aside to her ways. Do not stray into her paths. For many a victim has she laid low, and all her slain are a mighty throng. Her house is the way to sheol, going down to the chambers of death. So you cannot need. You will not get away with it forever. And even if you do for a long time, it won't be forever.
[00:11:36] Look around you at the bodies and corpses of others that have lived their lives enslaved to such sin.
[00:11:44] Don't play with fire.
[00:11:47] It'll burn.
[00:11:50] The adulteress is dangerous.
[00:11:53] But now let's go to our second point. The adulteress strategy.
[00:11:58] You'll see on there we have two main strategies that we encounter in this context. So, a couple of ways that she seduces the son. The first, we can see in chapter six, verse 25, he says, do not desire her beauty in your heart. And do not let her capture you with her eyelashes.
[00:12:21] So, first, she seduces the son with her beauty. With her looks, she attacks the eyes.
[00:12:31] The lust of the eyes is the weakness she senses in this young man. And so that's what she targets. Now, recall last week, we read in chapter four. Let your eyes look directly forward and your gaze be straight before you. And we learned also that the discipline of your eyes and the rest of your body flows from the discipline of your heart.
[00:12:56] The adulteress, or the devil, knows this. He plays on your weaknesses.
[00:13:03] He knows where you're weak in the heart, where you're weak in body. And he attacks those areas. That's what the adulteress does here.
[00:13:14] And we should be warned. In proverbs 27 20, we see Sheol and Abaddon are never satisfied. And never satisfied are the eyes of man eyes always want more. You look once, one time, lustfully, one time at pornography, and your eyes will want more and more and more and more.
[00:13:40] Sexual sin is empty calories, like chips. You eat and eat and you gain calories. And you don't get full. You will always want more. It's not satisfying.
[00:13:55] Now look back at chapter seven, verse six. We'll see her second strategy.
[00:14:02] For at the window of my house I have looked out through my lattice, and I have seen among the simple. I have perceived among the youths a young man, lacking sense, passing along the street near her corner, taking the road to her house in the twilight in the evening, at the time of night and darkness. And behold, the woman meets him dressed as a prostitute. Wily of heart, she is loud and wayward. Her feet do not stay at home. Now in the street, now in the market, and at every corner she lies in wait.
[00:14:37] She seizes him and kisses him, and with bold face she says to him, I had to offer sacrifices, and today I have paid my vows. So now I have come out to meet you, to seek you eagerly, and I have found you. I have spread my couch with coverings, colored linens from egyptian linen. I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes and cinnamon. Come, let us take our fill of love till morning. Let us delight ourselves with love. For my husband is not at home. He has gone on a long journey. He took a bag of money with him.
[00:15:13] With much seductive speech, she persuades him with her smooth talk, she compels him. All at once he follows her as an ox goes to the slaughter, or as a stag is caught fast, till an arrow pierces its liver, as a bird rushes into his snare. He does not know what it will cost him. It'll cost him his life.
[00:15:37] Second, she seduces with her words. So first her looks, and now her words.
[00:15:43] She's a smooth talker. She can convince you to do the dumbest thing in the world.
[00:15:52] One of my seminary professors, he would tell us all the time, sin makes you stupid.
[00:16:01] Remember that. It seems simple.
[00:16:05] Maybe it doesn't seem helpful on face value, but it is. Sin makes you stupid. The more you do it, the stupider and stupider you get. That's why, inevitably, people that go down this path get found out. They make a mistake. You've seen it. Your conscience is eroded. Your ability to say no gets weaker and weaker and weaker, and you make worse and worse decisions.
[00:16:31] Sin makes you stupid.
[00:16:35] Though she's dressed as a prostitute in this little passage we just read, thus she's promising something with her body. We see it written that she's wily of heart. Now, Wily is probably not a term you use very often. It's not a term I use very often, but here's what it means. It means that she is cunning or guarding the true intent of her heart.
[00:17:01] She is guarding her true intentions. She tells the young man, let's have our fill of love till morning. But she doesn't care.
[00:17:08] She does not love him. She has her own lustful intentions hidden, that he doesn't see them.
[00:17:16] And look how she tries to convince him to come to her house. She prepared her bed and couch. Her husband will be gone. You might ask, how does he not see this trap? How is this not so obvious to him? It's so heavy handed and in everyone's face.
[00:17:36] But here's the issue.
[00:17:38] He is seduced by her words, ultimately, because his heart wants that.
[00:17:45] That's the hard thing about this. His heart wants it. The young man, the son, was looking for her.
[00:17:53] He was passing along the street near her corner, taking the road to her house.
[00:18:00] And when did he go there?
[00:18:03] In the twilight, in the evening. At the time of night and darkness.
[00:18:10] This is what he wants.
[00:18:14] His heart is corrupted. This man does not know wisdom.
[00:18:20] His heart wants this. And so let this be, at least in part. This can warn us in many ways. But let this at least be, in part, a warning to you against isolation and seclusion.
[00:18:36] Because isolation, seclusion and darkness covers for sexual sin. The adulteress wants you to be alone. These temptations uniquely come when you are alone at night, in the dark even.
[00:18:54] And so beware. This aspect hasn't really changed through time. This is the same enduring generation after generation. So if you are enslaved to such sin, if you are battling this, get out of your room, get some fresh air. It's simple. Leave your phone somewhere else. Don't spend time on your computer by yourself.
[00:19:19] When temptation lurks, don't go to the darkness.
[00:19:24] Bring it to light.
[00:19:27] Bringing it to light should not bring you shame. Because bringing a temptation to light is actually not weakness. It does not mean that you have failed. You are doing the right thing. When you cover it up and fall for the temptation, that's when you have failed. So bringing it up to other believers for your own sake is good.
[00:19:49] Don't go to the darkness. Now, look back at the text, chapter five, verse 21.
[00:19:58] For man's ways are before the eyes of the Lord, and he ponders all his paths. The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him, and he is held fast in the cords of his sin. He dies for lack of discipline, and because of his great folly, he is led astray.
[00:20:18] So here we're in our third point. The adulteress fruit. This is the fruit of going with the adulteress.
[00:20:27] It does two things.
[00:20:30] One, going to the adulteress, it traps you. And two, it kills you. You'll be caught at once, and you'll become a slave to her once you choose to go. And then her chains get stronger each time you return. And eventually you'll die for lacking the discipline necessary to avoid her seductions, because your heart will have been given wholly over to her.
[00:20:55] The Lord sees it all.
[00:20:58] He's not blind to it. So even if you die and leave the world without being exposed, God saw all of it, and he judges every single act that we do on this earth.
[00:21:09] So the fruit of committing adultery against the Lord goes even beyond sexual sin. And we see this especially in chapter six, verses one through 19.
[00:21:23] But this is because when this is occurring, when this is a feature of your life, your heart is not given to the Lord. There is an issue there.
[00:21:36] You sin in your mind and your heart all the time. Your heart is messed up. And so other areas of your life are likely to be messed up. Here are just a few examples. We won't read I six, one through 19 for the sake of time. But here's just there are three types of ways that people go into sin in these passages. The first is that you might be what is known as a surety. This basically just means you take responsibility for the debts of others in the sense in which it is used. It's not generosity. This is a condemnation of gambling. You become a gambler.
[00:22:17] The second way that people fall into sin in this passage is they become lazy. They become sluggards instead. If you look at verse six, the son is told to go to the ant. O sluggard.
[00:22:32] Even the ant provides a wonderful example of diligence from creation. And then third, you can become a troublemaker. Being faithless leads to causing issues and discourse. And this leads Solomon to list at the end of that little passage in verses 16, he says, there are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him. Have you ever wondered? I think that this is just telling us that there's a specific number, but it's not exhaustive. There are other things, but this ultimately will make us troublemakers if our hearts are given over to faithlessness.
[00:23:12] This is the life of an adulterer of the Lord.
[00:23:17] But there are, in these chapters, not just dangers and strategies and horrible fruit.
[00:23:25] There is vulnerabilities that we can see.
[00:23:30] So we'll go to our fourth point now. Vulnerabilities of the adulteress.
[00:23:36] There are two ways in these chapters. To avoid the seduction of the adulteress. To avoid sexual sin. So we should pay attention if you've been in and out all throughout. Let's listen to this right here. First, love, where you're at.
[00:23:57] Love, the state in which you are, is another way to say that.
[00:24:03] Proverbs 515.
[00:24:08] Drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own well. 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. A lovely deer, a graceful doe. Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight. Be intoxicated always in her love.
[00:24:34] Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?
[00:24:42] So the son is told here to be satisfied with his wife, his own wife, and he doesn't.
[00:24:50] If he doesn't have one, he should go find one and love her. That is the solution given. Drink in the love of your own wife or husband.
[00:25:00] I know that most of the people in this room are not married. All of the students, none of you guys are married. And then the adults, a lot of us are married.
[00:25:12] Anticipate such marriage.
[00:25:15] Anticipate it.
[00:25:17] Though it's not guaranteed you. You should live your life anticipating marriage. Don't drink water from other cisterns, as the father says.
[00:25:28] Know that the sins, especially the sexual sins that you commit now, do have an effect on your marriage later.
[00:25:37] They do love your future spouse well.
[00:25:42] And even if not, you will be avoiding sinning against your own body and against the Lord.
[00:25:50] And we point this out, and I think the father needs to tell his son this because it's so easy for us to covet what we don't have and to try to seek it in a counterfeit, illegitimate way. I mean, this is why it's one of the ten Commandments. The 10th commandment says, you shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's.
[00:26:19] You covet, long for and idolize the sexual gratification that you receive through whatever it is, whether it's pornography or fantasies, movies, books, or the actual physical gratification from a boyfriend or girlfriend, whatever it is, this is what our hearts are geared toward. This is why we need Christ to intervene.
[00:26:42] Now, if you're not married, and again, that's most of us, if you're not married, there is no form. Let me just lay it out there. There is no form of sexual gratification that is not sinful.
[00:26:54] We like to twist things and find loopholes in different ways, but there is no version of it that is okay for someone that's not married. And even in marriage, a lot of the things I've listed are still sinful. They still dishonor the Lord, ourselves and others.
[00:27:12] So we must be content in the state we're in and seek the Lord. So if that's singleness, it means seeking the Lord in that. And if it's married, it means seeking the Lord and loving your spouse. That's what we must do. And Paul is a great model for this. He says in Philippians four, I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.
[00:27:35] Now, he's speaking of much more than marriage or singleness in that context, but he's not saying less.
[00:27:42] I want you guys to think of the words of psalm 63 as I read it. I want you to evaluate yourself as you hear these words. Psalm 63. My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food. And my mouth will praise you with joyful lips when I remember you in the watches of the night. For you have been my help. And in the shadow of our wings, I will sing for joy. My soul clings to you. Your right hand upholds me.
[00:28:17] Is this your heart toward God? Does your soul cling to him?
[00:28:24] Do you want to sing for joy when you think of him?
[00:28:28] Do you trust him to satisfy all of your needs and to bring you joy and pleasure for all eternity?
[00:28:38] We must love the state God has us in.
[00:28:42] Second, we must love wisdom.
[00:28:47] Love wisdom or love Christ.
[00:28:51] Chapter six, verse 20. Now, my son, keep your father's commandment and forsake not your mother's teaching.
[00:29:01] Bind them on your heart. Always tie them around your neck. When you walk, they will lead you. When you lie down, they will watch over you. And when you awake, they will talk with you. For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching a light. And the reproofs of discipline are the way of life to preserve you from the evil woman, from the smooth tongue of the adulteress. Do not desire her beauty in your heart, and do not let her capture you with her eyelashes for the price of a prostitute is only a loaf of bread. But a married woman hunts down a precious life. And then. Chapter seven, verse one. My son, keep my words and treasure up my commandments with you. Keep my commandments and live. Keep my teaching as the apple of your eye. Bind them on your fingers. Write them on the tablets of your heart. Say to wisdom, you are my sister. And call insight your intimate friend. To keep you from the forbidden woman, from the adulteress with her smooth words. So we must love wisdom and knowledge. We must love Christ to avoid the adulteress. This is the greatest vulnerability. This is the Achilles heel, the tempter the adulteress. The devil cannot stand up when we love Christ.
[00:30:23] When you love wisdom, you extinguish the flaming schemes of the adulteress. And knowing wisdom by listening to the teachings of his father and mother. The Son is told in verse 25. Do not desire her beauty in your heart. So he keeps seeing this language of the heart. It's a heart issue.
[00:30:46] It's a heart issue. We battle this far more than it is just a body issue. What does our heart want? The reason you want to sin sexually is because your heart is corrupted. Your heart finds that sin beautiful and attractive. Instead of finding wisdom, instead of finding Christ attractive.
[00:31:08] So when sexual sin lurks in the shadows of your heart, don't let it hide there. Don't run to the dark with it. Shine the light of Christ on it. And watch it scurry away like a cockroach.
[00:31:23] Don't let it hide in the darkness.
[00:31:28] The gospel is a spotlight.
[00:31:32] And so shine the light of Christ on your sin. Instead, be like the psalmist. Psalmist in psalm 119, verse eleven says, I have stored up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.
[00:31:48] Have you stored up his word in your heart?
[00:31:53] There's a connection between storing up his word in our hearts. And being able to fight temptation, being able to avoid sin and love wisdom.
[00:32:03] Sexual sin is fighting for oxygen in your hearts. And you can choke it out with the word. You can choke it out with the spirit. But in order for that to happen, that means you must put your whole faith in Christ for him to give you his spirit, to plant his truth in your heart.
[00:32:27] And when he does that, you can come to him without shame.
[00:32:34] You don't have to hide in shame.
[00:32:37] He is the light. He sees it all anyway.
[00:32:43] In Hebrews 810 twelve, we read, I will put my laws into their minds and write them on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall not teach each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, know the Lord, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will be merciful toward their iniquities and I will remember their sins no more.
[00:33:09] Did you catch that?
[00:33:12] Christ will be merciful.
[00:33:15] Sins will be wiped away from existence because they have been born by the savior on the cross and he will remember them no more.
[00:33:26] That is our escape from sexual sin. It ultimately is the only one you must trust that Jesus Christ really did live and die and rise again as a sacrifice for those sins. Because he did. And I promise you, faith in him is totally worth it. And total transparency is totally worth it.
[00:33:50] And I promise you, if you believe in him, your sins will be wiped clean, your heart will be made new, and you'll enjoy shame free and joy filled eternity with Christ.
[00:34:05] Let's pray.
[00:34:10] Father God, we praise you for your word and that we know that whenever there is a temptation, when there is a a sin, we battle. That you have provided the way of escape, Lord. Help us to see the way of escape, Lord, even more than that, give us a renewed love and passion, joyfulness and fervor for you that we may love Christ so much that our desire to sin sexually would be choked out by that love.
[00:34:41] Lord, we pray that as we break into our groups, we would have be able to be honest and help digest what you have written to us in your word this evening, that it can correct sin in our life and point us to a life more aligned to you. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.
