Enjoy the Wife of Your Youth

[0:00] Now, I will also say today we're going to be looking at the topic of marital love. And so I like to, in talking on that subject matter, keep things pretty discreet.

[0:14] But just kind of parents beware. Everything that I'll talk about are things that I'll be comfortable speaking and saying in front of my own children.

[0:25] You know, some churches tend to like to be a little salacious and edgy. And when it comes to those kinds of things, it gets more clicks and views and those kinds of things.

[0:41] But, you know, the Bible tends to be mostly G-rated, at times PG-rated. And occasionally the Bible gets into PG-13, but not very often.

[0:56] Right? And so I think as believers we should try to do the same thing, at least in a public setting. Right? And so that's what we'll do today.

[1:07] But there might be a little bit of blushing, maybe some giggles from the back. But we should be good. All right, Proverbs chapter 5.

[1:21] Proverbs chapter 5. Let's see if I can find it. It's right in the middle of your Bible. All right, Proverbs chapter 5.

[1:44] Proverbs 5. This is a chapter that is going to speak to the topic of sexual immorality. And it's a warning specifically to a young man from a father about the dangers of sexual immorality and the deceptive allure that comes with that.

[2:06] And it also gets into what is the cost of succumbing to its temptations. And then towards the end, talks about God's design.

[2:18] What God intended when it comes to romantic love. I'm just going to go ahead. At times we've read through the entire passage and then gone back verse by verse.

[2:32] For the sake of time, I'm just going to go through this verse by verse. We'll read a section and then we'll go through it. But we'll start here and we'll try to get through the entire chapter in Proverbs 5 here.

[2:46] So it says this. It says, So the first thing I want to point out here is this is a father speaking to his son.

[3:08] Wisdom from a father to his son. And this is how not just this chapter starts, but actually many chapters, especially in the early parts of Proverbs. The first, I think it's the first nine or ten chapters of Proverbs are a lot of this kind of thing.

[3:26] My son or sometimes my children. These are the words of a father to his son or his children. And as we go through here, the most direct instruction or implication is for a son.

[3:41] But of course, anytime we read scriptures, we can find and look for. And I think there's very direct application here to daughters as well, both to men and to women.

[3:56] But he says here, My son, pay attention. He wants to arrest the attention of his son before he starts into this warning and wisdom.

[4:12] And what Solomon is about to tell his son is very important. Important enough that he's going to start off saying, Listen to me.

[4:24] Listen up. And so this is what I'm going to say to all of you today. Pay close attention to what we're talking about today. You know, there is a tendency when it comes to the topic of sexual morality, which, by the way, is a huge topic in the Bible.

[4:41] Is that something that is, you know, barely mentioned in the Bible? Or does it happen to be something that is brought up a lot, that there's constant stories about people getting into trouble with sexual morality and warnings about them, both in the Old Testament and New Testament?

[4:56] But I think there is a tendency among maybe some of us to think, Well, that's not something that I really have to be concerned about. Maybe it's because you grew up in a Christian family.

[5:08] And you might think, Well, that's not something that will really impact me. Or maybe you're just young and you haven't experienced the strength of the temptation that can come when it comes to sexual morality.

[5:27] Or maybe you're happily married and you think, Oh, that will never be a temptation in my life. My wife, my husband, and I were doing really well. And that's something that I'll never really have to deal with any kind of serious way.

[5:41] One of the things that Paul said to the Corinthians, this is in 1 Corinthians 10, verse 12. He said this as a warning. Let him who thinks he stands take heed.

[5:51] Listen, pay attention, lest he falls. So we need to take heed. We need to pay attention. This is in the Bible many, many times over for a reason.

[6:02] And there is a huge problem with sexual immorality in our culture. It surrounds us. And it's not just here in America, not just in Ohio.

[6:13] This is all over the world. It's not new. It's not something unique to this century, this generation. It's been around from the beginning of time.

[6:24] And it's one of the most pervasive and destructive sins that we find in all of the world. And why is that? Well, as the Bible also says, there is a way between a man and a maid or a man and a young woman that is very interesting.

[6:45] I've told my kids this, but men and women are like magnets. There is an attraction between men and women.

[6:56] And it's not like those cheap refrigerator magnets that you get from your realtor. The magnetism, the attraction between men and women is more like those, what do you call those, those rare earth magnets.

[7:08] And you take them and you start to put them together and then bam! They just suck, you know, right together. And that is the way that God designed it to be between men and women.

[7:24] When young men and young women come to a certain age, there is a longing among young ladies to be embraced by a man.

[7:34] And there is a longing from young men to embrace a woman. And you know what? That attraction is good.

[7:46] It's God designed. He created it. And he created it for a reason, right? And he created it to be a strong attraction for a reason. Right?

[7:57] Because what did God design in the very beginning when he created men and women? That men and women would fill the earth with children, right? And that requires men and women to come together in what the Bible calls marriage.

[8:13] If he had made that attraction weak, then, you know, men and women might decide, eh, it's not worth it. I mean, marriage is kind of tough, you know.

[8:23] You know, you've got these guys, they always leave the toilet seat up. And these women are constantly clogging the drains, you know, in the shower with all their hair. It's just like, you know, lots of things that you have to deal with.

[8:37] And so, but God created this strong attraction between men and women because he wanted to see people come together, men and women to come together to form families, to fill the earth.

[8:49] But sexual morality is taking something good that God designed and using it outside of its intended purpose.

[9:02] And the original design that God had for men and women is that when it comes to romantic love, is that you have one woman and one man who come together for a lifetime.

[9:14] And that is his design. That is the boundaries that he put around sexuality. And much sin, right, is the same thing.

[9:26] Much sin is taking something good and using it or abusing it outside of the boundaries that God has set in place. And there is a need in our day, especially in the church, for there to be clarity around this topic.

[9:43] People tend to, I think, avoid or generalize. And why is that? I think it's because so many Christians have been swept up into sexual morality because of our culture. And a lot of times you'll find churches today where it's not just, you know, there is temptation, of course, and sometimes people succumb to temptation.

[10:03] But then there is just people who are not living the kind of life that they ought to be living. For different reasons. Maybe it's because they just don't know.

[10:14] And I've talked to people before who go to church. I remember talking to a guy years ago. And he was going to a church and seemed to love the Lord. And I found out he was living with his girlfriend.

[10:27] And I was, you know, kind of taken aback. I'm something that's not, I'm not used to. But in just talking to him, I found out he had no idea that this was something that the Bible forbids.

[10:38] He had no idea. So I took the opportunity to tell him. And I thought, well, maybe he's just going to get mad at me. I actually ended up emailing him a whole Bible study on the topic. And I didn't hear from him.

[10:49] I thought, well, well, I guess it's a lot easier when it's just an acquaintance, you know, not somebody that you are really close to. But a year later, I actually saw him in person. And he told me, and he came up to me, he says, you know, I never responded to you, but I want to thank you for sending that to me.

[11:04] After you sent that to me, I looked at what the Bible said. And I talked to my girlfriend, and I told her, you know what, we need to either move out or get married. And she said, she told me, what?

[11:17] No, I'm not interested in that. And she left. And so, you know, he was trying to do the right thing, and she wasn't interested. The other reason I think sometimes just even Christians just don't care enough about sexual morality.

[11:33] And that's unfortunate. And then the other thing that I've found, and this is something I've kind of really realized more recently, is that I think for many Christians, and I don't know what the number is, but they believe that sin is just a normal part of life.

[11:49] And that, well, you know, everybody sins, and so I'm just going to, you know, do these things, and, well, I just can't help it because, you know, I'm just only human. And that's certainly not the kind of attitude that we as Christians should have when it comes to this topic.

[12:03] And as we read here in Proverbs chapter 5, this is not the attitude of Solomon or the Lord when it comes to immorality and specifically sexual morality.

[12:13] But let's move on to verse 3, and here comes the warning. For the lips of an immoral woman drip honey, and her mouth is smoother than oil. But in the end, she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.

[12:32] Now Solomon here is giving a warning about a specific woman or a specific type of woman. This is an immoral woman. I think some translations say a wayward woman.

[12:42] This is a woman who is not interested in integrity. She is looking for love in all the wrong places. And he uses some descriptive language here to describe her, and it's to describe a deceptive allure.

[12:58] She is attractive. She's not ugly. She's not something that you're repulsed by. She's something that looks so nice and beautiful.

[13:09] He mentions that her lips drip like honey. There's a sweetness there. Everybody likes honey, don't they? The softness and the smoothness of oil.

[13:23] And you know, those are the kinds of things that men are attracted to. The sweetness of a woman. The smoothness, the softness of a woman. And you know what? Those things are wonderful in marriage.

[13:36] But as we learned from the very beginning of the Bible, there is something that is good, like fruit, the fruit of a tree. But when you take that fruit from the forbidden tree, destruction comes your way.

[13:52] And so as he describes here, in the end, when you take of that forbidden fruit, something that does not belong to you, the end is, he says, she is bitter as wormwood.

[14:03] Wormwood is a poison. It's a poison. And that she is like a two-edged sword. And not in a good sense, right?

[14:14] Not in a way to protect yourself. You're on the other end of that two-edged sword. But how could it be that this sometimes frail, delightful, seemingly innocent, tender, sweet, and soft creature could be so dangerous?

[14:40] Yet, that woman, who looks so innocent and fair, if you go into her, will grab you by the throat and squeeze the life out of you if you allow for that temptation.

[15:02] Verse 5 says this, her feet go down to death. Her steps lay hold of hell. A couple chapters later in verse 7, because this is a common thing, a repeated warning throughout, especially the early part of Proverbs, this is a warning to, again, about the immoral woman.

[15:23] Proverbs 7.22 says this, immediately he went after her. This is the fool going after the immoral woman. And it describes it as this, as an ox goes to the slaughter, or as a fool to the correction of the stocks, till an arrow struck his liver, as a bird hastens to the snare, he did not know it would cost his life.

[15:52] You know, there's a description here of a frail little bird and also a picture of a big, bulking ox. And the end of both of them is the same.

[16:05] It doesn't matter whether you are weak or strong, whether you work out, whether you're poor, or whether you're wealthy and powerful and rich. The end result is the same when you go in to that immoral woman.

[16:21] She will wreck your life. Verse 6 says this, lest you ponder her path of life. Her ways are unstable. And you do not know them.

[16:33] He's saying here, take some time to consider this woman and her way of life. You know, a seductress, a woman who would try to seduce a man, or vice versa, right, works the same both ways, is an unstable person.

[16:51] And if you want an unstable life, go for it. It's amazing to me, I've seen this many times, that you will have, let's say, a man who is seduced by a woman.

[17:10] And she says to him, you need to leave your wife and come be with me. And eventually, this homewrecker, this hussy, who becomes romantic with a married man, convinces him to do so.

[17:28] And then, she has the audacity to be shocked and surprised when some other woman grabs his attention. Or vice versa, he is shocked and surprised when she goes out and finds another man to seduce.

[17:47] those who would seduce, those who would not just fall, but pursue these kinds, you know, sexual immorality, is an unstable person.

[18:00] We shouldn't be surprised when instability ensues in our lives. Verse 7, Therefore, hear me now, my children, and do not depart from the words of my mouth.

[18:12] Remove your way far from her and do not go near the door of her house. He's saying again, listen up. Hear me, and he's saying, my children, don't go near her.

[18:27] Don't hang out at her doorstep. Get far away from where she is at. But she looks, so nice. She's so beautiful and dressed up or maybe dressed down, showing off her form.

[18:46] And she smiles at me and she winks. She gives me so much wonderful attention. What's wrong with just walking by every once in a while?

[18:57] I'm not doing anything. I'm not partaking. I'm just enjoying the experience. Solomon says to his son, to his children, flee, get as far away as you can.

[19:13] And he says here, my children, he's talking to sons, not only sons, but also daughters as well, because this applies in the same way. This isn't just a warning about, you know, the prostitute on the corner of the city street.

[19:27] You know, while the language here is about a seductress, about a woman, about an immoral woman, I think the bigger picture is that this is a warning about the seduction of the temptation of sexual immorality in general.

[19:43] And this applies both to men and women. Two young people who are not trying to seduce anyone specifically can end up seducing themselves and getting themselves into trouble because they do not treat, they do not treat sexuality with the kind of care and heed and warning that they ought to.

[20:10] So stay away from sexual temptation. This is something that Paul speaks of in two different places very specifically. 1 Corinthians 6.18 he says, flee from sexual immorality.

[20:22] Stay away from it. He tells Timothy in 2 Timothy 2.22 flee also youthful lusts. That attraction is especially powerful when you are young.

[20:36] He says this, every sin that a man does is outside the body but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. Excuse me, that was from Corinthians.

[20:47] 2 Timothy he says, but pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace with those who call on the Lord. out of a pure heart. So it's not just that we need to stay away from that seductress or seducer, whether it's a man or a woman, but we need to flee from any kind of situation that might compromise our sexual integrity.

[21:11] and there are plenty of seductresses out there today. Prostitution is just one that might be in view here. But we have, it seems, gone to great lengths to streamline the business of prostitution today.

[21:28] There are streamlined websites today where women can prostitute themselves. and we know that pornography is such a horrendous problem in our culture.

[21:43] Some examples of just general temptation. Things to look out for. Oh, you know what, I'm going to go, you know, I just went out on a date with my girlfriend.

[21:55] Let's just go up to her apartment just for a little bit and have a drink or watch a movie together alone in her apartment. Or maybe you are at work and you like to have, maybe a lady at work likes to have lunch with a man at work who is easy to talk to and she can talk to about anything and he's just so understanding of all of your problems.

[22:26] Or maybe it's connecting with that old boyfriend or old girlfriend on Facebook. Or maybe it's surfing the internet alone late at night.

[22:38] These are all examples of temptation that we need to flee from. We need to stay away from these types of things. When it comes to dating, here's just some examples of fleeing, of avoiding the temptation.

[22:51] If you're dating, you know, date in public places. There's no reason to be alone together. When you're not married. Bring along a chaperone. That's a good idea.

[23:02] If you're young, you can bring along a friend, a sister, a brother. If you're at work, make sure you set boundaries in your relationships when it comes to men and women.

[23:14] Billy Graham was famous for having his, did they just call it the Billy Graham rule? I can't remember what they called it. But he had a rule. He wasn't going to be alone with a woman. And he would always either have somebody with him, another person with him, in private counseling or whatever it might be, or just speak in public.

[23:36] And the same thing is important in a work setting. You know, I actually brought this up in a work setting that this was something that I was concerned about and somebody got really, really mad at me. And you know what? Fine, you can be mad.

[23:48] My marriage and my integrity is much more important than whatever it is that you're concerned about. when it comes to marriage, transparency in marriage, having access to each other's phones and computers and internet accounts, Facebook accounts.

[24:08] Sometimes I've seen couples, they share a Facebook account. That's a wise idea. You know, some old girlfriend decides to private message you. Guess who sees it? Yeah.

[24:23] And then one of the things I always recommend, especially to parents, but I think it's good for any family when it comes to the internet. You know, we have access to the whole internet here on these things.

[24:38] And there are lots of great things and lots of horrific things. And there's software that you can install that can help keep people accountable, block certain things, specifically pornography.

[24:52] Let's go on to verse 9. And here, he's getting into this is the cost of what will happen if you give in to this temptation. Verse 9, lest you give your honor, excuse me, to others, and your years to the cruel one.

[25:08] You'll lose your honor. You know, it takes years to build respect and a name for yourself, among your own family, among your church, among your community.

[25:21] And all it takes is one event, one falling to temptation, and that respect, that name that you've built for yourself can be soiled.

[25:37] Verse 10, lest aliens be filled with your wealth and your labors go to the house of a foreigner. He's talking here about loss of wealth. you lose money.

[25:49] And your money will go not to your family, not even to your friends, it'll go to strangers. You know, we have gone house shopping over the years, so the last 20 years, you know, we've gone house shopping at different points in our lives, and I remember at least two times, finding a house and finding out, I think we actually put an offer on a house once, house, and, you know, we tried to, we put an offer below the asking price, and we found out there was this dispute, because what had happened?

[26:23] A man and a woman, they were going through divorce, and I don't know why, you know, maybe it wasn't sexual immorality, but it's very common that that is the reason, very common, and so, you know, they're selling a house, and they're having a fight about, you know, resell it for this, or whatever, and a lot of times you lose money in those types of deals, losing homes, having to pay alimony, child support, garnishing of wages, sometimes even medical treatments are involved, and that I think gets to verse 11, verse 11 says this, and you mourn at last when your flesh and your body are consumed, your flesh and your body are consumed, in what way?

[27:08] well, I think one of the most obvious ways, and we see this today, is we have venereal diseases, we have diseases that you can really only get if you commit sexual immorality, in fact, I just read that at, I can't remember exactly the statistics, but it's pretty shocking, that at any point in time, about 20% of our, the populace of our country have, at that time, some kind of STD, sexually transmitted disease, and then of course, the stress that comes from the shame, or maybe the heartache of sexual immorality, those have impacts, not just on your mental state, but on your body as well, and then sometimes, and this is in more rare occasions, but I think about the times where sexual immorality leads to fits of rage, and sometimes leads even to murder,

[28:19] I think about the famous O.J. Simpson trial, where that seemed to be the situation, O.J. Simpson, his wife, seemingly having some kind of trist with somebody else, and then sometimes it leads to not just our own death, but sometimes the death of others, especially when it comes to trying to hide the sin, trying to hide the infidelity.

[28:51] We think about King David, right? This is something that happened with King David. Today, I think the most common scenario is we use abortion violence as a way to hide infidelity.

[29:06] In fact, maybe 10 years ago, we were living in Augusta, Georgia, and I had, on the, I can't remember if it was on the weekends or whatever, would go to the local abortion clinic and try to minister, try to stand out and plead for the lives of little baby boys and girls, and there was a woman, she was sitting in her car and I was pleading with her for, she was on the phone with somebody for maybe 10 or 15 minutes and finally she got out and she stood right in front of me and she said to me, you know what, you don't understand.

[29:44] And I expected to hear, oh, I don't have enough money or I don't know who the father is or whatever, something like that, but here's what she told me, she said, you don't understand. I am engaged to be married to a man and this is not his baby.

[30:02] That's what she told me and she turned around and she walked in there to try to get rid of the evidence so that she could live the rest of her life as a lie, pretending to be faithful, but in reality not being so.

[30:21] And do we think that those things will never be found out? We tend to, don't we, think that our sin will never be found out. Of course, God knows. Verse 12, and say, how have I hated instruction and my heart despised correction?

[30:37] I have not obeyed the voice of my teachers nor inclined my ear to those who instructed me. You know, when we neglect wisdom, when we neglect the wisdom of our fathers, there are a thousand voices out in our culture who will lead us astray towards the lust of our flesh.

[30:54] Hollywood, television, the music industry, they all glorify sexual immorality and pursuing your passions at any expense. And they typically don't in their songs or at the end of their movies display the final outcome of the sexual immorality, the pain, the suffering, the anguish.

[31:16] Those things they try to hide, but you know what? We typically, they're finally exposed. Usually, it's in the aisle at the grocery aisle, right? When you see the gossip magazines about the Hollywood stars and how their lives are broken and a complete mess.

[31:31] Eventually, these things come to bear. They can't be hidden. Those broken lives are betrayed in the gossip columns at the grocery store.

[31:43] Verse 14, I was on the verge of total ruin in the midst of the assembly and the congregation. And this is just, I think what he's saying here is, I'm being ruined and everybody knows about it.

[31:58] Because like I said, this is something you think, maybe we can keep secret, keep it in the dark. But things that happen in the dark tend to come out into the light and especially sin.

[32:09] Sometimes we can keep it secret for a while, but eventually the brokenness just spills out into our public life. love. The next few verses are going to kind of, we're going to make a little turn here and talk about God's design for romantic love.

[32:32] What is, not what's forbidden, but what is allowed. And not just allowed, but in fact encouraged. Something to be enjoyed and celebrated. Because that is God's original design for the affection and romantic love between a husband and a wife.

[32:48] And he says this in verse 15. Drink water from your own cistern and running water from your own well. Here a wife is pictured as a fountain, as a well.

[33:00] I think of an oasis in a desert. And that's what a wife is to her husband. Every husband has his own oasis that he can come home to.

[33:13] Life can be challenging, life can be difficult, it can be filled with toil, both physical and mental, be filled with conflict. And at the end of a daily grind, there's nothing better for especially a man, and I'm thinking here specifically of men, to come home and take comfort in the arms of a woman.

[33:36] Not just any woman, but your woman. Sweet and soft and gentle and tender. there's nothing like it. And as a thirsty man craves for water in a dry desert, so he craves for the love of his own wife.

[33:58] And when you have found your own wife, as the Bible says, you found a good thing, you can drink from her love as often and as deeply as you would like.

[34:11] Not only can you, but you should, you ought to, and that is what Solomon is getting into here. This is not true for just men, right? It's true for women as well.

[34:22] For a woman, a man is also an oasis. Women deal with challenges and difficulties in life, and also in different ways, a lot of different ways, right?

[34:33] Fears, insecurities, regarding safety and other things. love. And what a tremendous blessing it is to have your own man, your own strong man, to embrace you and to comfort you, to make you feel safe and loved.

[34:49] And so God designed for men and women in the sanctity of marriage to love one another, not in just a general way, but also romantically, to enjoy one another just as God designed.

[35:02] Verse 16 says this, should your fountains be dispersed abroad, streams of water in the streets? Let them be only your own and not your strangers, not for strangers with you.

[35:15] You see, this is a type of love that's different from other kinds of love, right? You know, it's interesting that in the English language, we really only have one word for love.

[35:27] Sometimes we use, we talk about lust, but that usually has a negative connotation. In Greek, they actually, in many languages, actually, there are multiple words for love. And the two, you know, the three we'll talk about is, well, one is phileo.

[35:41] That's a brotherly love. It's really a family type of love. A love you have for family can be for friends as well. But that's a love that is meant to be shared with really as many people as you would like.

[35:57] You have the, what's the other type of love? I can't remember. Agape, right? That's the other Greek word. Agape love. And again, that's a love that is related to really commitment and care for just other people.

[36:10] And you can have that for many, many people. But then there's another type of love. In the Greek, it's eros. We get the word erotic from it. And that's really talking about the kind of romantic love that is between a husband and a wife.

[36:24] And that is a type of love that is different from the other kinds. It's not meant to be shared with others. It's meant only to be shared between a husband and his wife.

[36:35] When you share it with others, things break, people break, families break, and death and destruction ensue.

[36:47] Verse 18. Here he's saying, listen, you have your own wife.

[37:14] Enjoy her. She's yours to enjoy. She's the wife of your youth, whether you're still young now or whether you've grown old together. She is yours to enjoy and vice versa.

[37:29] You are to enjoy each other. You're not just roommates. You're not just business partners. You're not just parents. You're meant to be lovers all the days of your life.

[37:44] And so we need to make sure that we protect that love. Don't let it go cold. Don't let it grow frigid. Don't let your marriage become purely transactional.

[37:57] We need to regularly kindle the romance. Dance in the moonlight. Be enraptured with every aspect of marital love. You know, in Hebrews, it talks about the honorableness of marriage and specifically the marriage bed.

[38:17] It says this, Hebrews 13, 4, Marriage is honorable among all and the bed undefiled, but fornicators and adulterers God will judge.

[38:28] You know, I've seen among Christians that because of all the sexual perversion that happens in our culture, people, especially maybe if you've grown up being warned about these things over and over, and you tend to get this view that these things are ugly, that romantic love is ugly.

[38:49] And that should never be the case. when it comes to romantic love in marriage, it's meant to be enjoyed to the full.

[39:01] It shouldn't be ruined or tainted because of the perversions that are in the world. And if you're not married, and you are experiencing those strong cravings that are perfectly natural, the arms of a man or the arms of a woman, then there's an answer for you.

[39:21] You know what it is? To find a husband or a wife. To find a spouse. Now, it's not always as easy as just saying it, right? There's some things that go into that.

[39:32] You've got to find somebody who's willing, right? And also use wisdom to find somebody who's a good match. You don't want to just get hitched up to just any person.

[39:44] Though, a lot of times, and this is for the young people, our hormones don't care what their character is like, right? But, we can use our own wisdom and use the wisdom of our parents or family, other family or friends to help us in making those kinds of wise decisions.

[40:04] 1 Corinthians 7, 8, Paul says this, But I say to you, excuse me, but I say to the unmarried and to the widows, it is good for them if they remain even as I am. So, if you're unmarried, if you're a widow, you know, hey, you can get more stuff done, you know, if you just stay single like I am.

[40:22] But, if they cannot exercise self-control, if the desire is overwhelming, let them marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.

[40:34] God designed for us to have an outlet for those kinds of passions in marriage. Verse 21, For the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord, and he ponders all his paths.

[40:46] You know, God's not dumb. He understands. He's not ignorant. He understands what's going on between men and women. He knows the temptations. He knows the joys. He knows all of it. You know why?

[40:56] He's the one that designed it. And that's why he is here giving us instruction. Because he knows. He understands. So he's giving warning and also instruction to have a full life, a healthy life when it comes to romantic love.

[41:14] Verse 22, His own iniquities entrap the wicked man, and he is caught in the cords of his sin. He shall die for lack of instruction, and in the greatness of his folly, he shall go astray.

[41:27] You know, there are plenty of traps in the world. People who will rob you, who will steal from you, who will cheat you. Lots of traps to look out for. You know what the worst traps are? It's the ones we set for ourselves.

[41:42] Have you ever set a trap, and then you fall into your own trap? I think about mouse traps. We've been having mice problems at our house. And you know, you set the little thing, and then you put the little thing on there, bam!

[41:57] It just smacks your finger. It's like, oh, I should have put the bait on before I set the trap. But the traps that we set for ourselves, and this is the description here of sexual immorality.

[42:11] We think, oh, I can handle it. I can handle this relationship. I can handle, you know, having this device without any accountability, whatever it might be. You know, boyfriends and girlfriends, oh, we don't need a chaperone.

[42:26] We don't need to have these boundaries in place. They just kind of get in the way. They're really annoying and get in the way of us building our relationship together. We set a trap for ourselves when we don't take heed.

[42:39] I want to finish up kind of looking at this whole topic from a grace perspective and really look at two things. As we live in, you know, as we talked about, was it two or three weeks ago, that really, we need to look at the book of Proverbs from a grace perspective.

[42:54] And the first thing is really looking at those of us, myself included, who have already failed in some way when it comes to sexual integrity. Sometimes weighs big, sometimes smaller.

[43:08] And we need to be grateful for God's grace that gives us a new life. We don't have to remain in that shame and guilt from the mistakes that we have made.

[43:20] We can put our past behind us. And that doesn't necessarily mean that we will escape all of the natural consequences that come with sexual immorality.

[43:32] many times we still have to bear those natural consequences. But we can have confidence that we will stand before God because we trust in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, his death for our sins.

[43:52] And that is the only thing that will matter when we stand before God. And we can stand before him even today confident that we are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.

[44:07] And we can come to him and commune with him regardless of anything that we have done in our past. As the Bible says, come boldly, we come boldly to the throne room of grace because of what Christ accomplished for us.

[44:22] And then the second part is really how that we can accomplish integrity when it comes to romantic love. You know, the book of Proverbs, just like the rest of the law, there's a tremendous focus on the consequence of sin, the consequence of disobeying the law.

[44:43] When you obey the law, you get life. But if you fail, look out. Here comes the consequences. And we've read here in Proverbs chapter 5 what some of the consequences are and they're scary.

[44:57] And we might, right, use those warnings, those punishments, those consequences that might come on us as a way to motivate ourselves to avoid the seductress, to avoid sexual temptation.

[45:13] And that's one reason and I think even a valid reason to avoid sin. But I think what we find out from the Apostle Paul is that it's not sufficient.

[45:28] Fear of the law is not sufficient for us to gain the strength and the motivation that we need to do what is right and what is good. What we need is God in our life.

[45:41] And we need his love shed abroad in our hearts so that the love of God welling up in us will cause us to love others and not just look out for our own skin and avoid sin and temptation because it might hurt me but because we love others just as God loved us.

[46:05] And so we love God and we want to do what is right and have a life of integrity including sexual integrity because it honors him. Because it honors his design for us.

[46:18] It's a way to love our spouse. And to make sure that the love that we share between husband and wife is exclusively for our husband, for our wife because that's what God designed.

[46:35] Also a love for our children that we would provide our children with a stable home. As we read sexual morality brings so much instability and not just for the parents, not just for those involved.

[46:52] But it impacts the whole family. Children especially. And then finally even love for that immoral woman. Or that immoral man.

[47:07] To hope for their redemption. And their reformation towards virtue. Because their sin is hurting not just others but also themselves.

[47:21] So as we seek to learn from the wisdom of Proverbs, let's try to follow God's word and do it according to the way of grace.

[47:33] We need to live by grace not just by the law. And that means learning to grow in love and loving others and really getting the power that we need from the right source.

[47:44] And that's from God himself. Let's finish up by going to the Lord and asking him to help us in that way. Father we love you not as much as we ought.

[47:57] But you first loved us and you showed us the way of love. And there are many dangers that surround us. Many temptations. We want to take heed Father. We do not want to ignore the warnings.

[48:09] Or act as if they can't impact us. We need to take heed. Take these things seriously. We ask you to help us to do that. To walk in love.

[48:21] To lean into you. To become more like you every day. By looking to you daily. For communion.

[48:32] And for the motivation to be like you. And we thank you for all these things. And for your willingness to take away that middle wall of separation. To really take away our sins and wash us clean.

[48:44] That we might commune with you freely every single day. We need you Father. We need you today. We need you tomorrow and the next day. We thank you for your willingness. To always be there for us and with us.

[48:56] In Jesus name. Amen.