All right, Proverbs chapter 2 is where we're going to be today as we continue our series in the book of Proverbs and wisdom literature. Now if you didn't get one of these last week, we have a little guide if you want to grab this just for notes or whatever for your community group. It's going to be in the lobby of all of our campuses today, okay, but the reason that I want to bring this up is I thought our artists on staff did a really good job here because it's actually a design. Like if you see it right here, you see it looks like you're trying to put together a piece of furniture or some kind of piece of equipment, the screws, where they go, all that stuff. There is a design and that's the idea of this series that y'all God has designed life to be lived in a way.
He has a vision for human flourishing, for your thriving, you're living in his world not the other way around, and so he has created plans for you to live by. Now one of the ways I want to illustrate this today, okay, so the Ridge campus hopefully launching sometime this fall. The regional campus, regional north, and regional regular, okay, we're all going to move over to the Ridge together and it's been awesome, right, years in the making. It's really good, triple our seating capacity.
We won't have to, and I'll say hi to the overflow people here in this service at regional right now, but you know we're going to be able to get in. Okay, I want to get you the magnitude of this thing, all right, 20 different people over one year working on what ended up being 250 pages of a master plan. That's what it takes to pull off a building like the Ridge.
I want you guys to see this today. Y'all, these are the mass, this is the master plan for the Ridge campus. It weighs 25 pounds, okay. Every bolt, every wire, every single thing about that 80,000 square foot building is in these plans right here. Then after you got the 20 people that spend a year, 250 pages, 25 pounds, okay, then what do you do? You submit it to endless government agencies for them to look through, which don't get me started, okay, but then they revise it and come back.
Here's my point. If you got a vision to create that type of building, you follow these type of plans. There's two ways to do it, right. The one way is you follow what's here.
The second way is I know two or three good old boys in a bubble truck that'll just show up and start shoveling things and nailing things together and then we'll see where it goes. Now which one of those two do you think actually gets us to the vision that we have? See, God gives a vision for your life and the way that we get there is by executing on the plans that he has given us. Now I gave you the warning, okay, PG-13 sermon. We get it. We need it in our culture. Here's the big idea, guys. Following God's design, his plans, his blueprint, following God's design for sex leads to flourishing. Rejecting his plans leads to destruction. Y'all, there is a plan.
There is a schematic. There is a way that God views sexual interaction, the place for it, exactly how he wants this stuff to go down in terms of the covenant relationship of marriage to be the boundaries, all of that, and it's in the book. God wrote a book.
He didn't have to do that for us, but he did. He gave us this book so that we could thrive and flourish in so many ways, and that's what we're going to get into today. Y'all, I don't know if you realize this, in every area of your life, and I'll just use my own life as a testimony, okay, whether you're talking about sexuality or whatever, health, financial health, relational health, whatever it is, I don't know about you, but when I decide to do Bubba Truck and let's just get out there and start nailing it together rather than following the plan, it leads to pain in my life. It leads to sorrow, man, it leads to frustration.
It can lead to anger, right? When you decide to go off script and make your own plan, it leads to those things, and some of us are living the consequences of that right now. Some of us are right on a step, the doorstep of something going from a problem to an addiction.
Some of us are right on the doorstep of, I think I'm playing around, versus I just got trapped. And I hope today stands as a big warning for us. Man, we're going to see a lot of forgiveness, and we're going to see the grace of Christ on the back end of this, but we've got to deal with the fact that Proverbs 5 is first and foremost a warning.
That's what we're going to get into, so let's dive in, all right? Proverbs chapter 5, here's what he says, my son, be attentive to my wisdom. Incline your ear to my understanding, that you may keep discretion, your lips may guard knowledge for the lips of a forbidden woman, or some translations say a strange woman, okay? A forbidden, a strange woman.
Drip honey and her speech is smoother than oil. Now this woman, this strange woman, forbidden woman, that has honey, you know, lips that drip and smooth speech, she's going to lead to destruction, and we're going to see that, but the first thing I want to do is I want to go back to verse one. I just want us to start walking. Let's start making our way through this, all right? Verse one, be attentive to my wisdom and incline your ear to my understanding. I know not everybody was here last week, but if you were, I think it's very important that we understand this again. Wisdom and knowledge, understanding, discretion, discernibility, understanding, discretion, discernment, there's two parts to it. One is I got to know the thing, and second is I got to want to follow the thing, all right? It's not just knowing it, it's also having a desire. That's what he says here. Last week we said you have understanding and you treasure it, okay? Today what we see is you're attentive and you incline your ear, you incline your heart.
That's what he said last week to it. We have a lot of young professionals here, late college students, young marrieds, and it's very common. A lot of people get a dog or something at that point in their life. It's fun.
You got the time for that and all that. If you've ever been in that situation, you got the dog. One of the funniest things to me is watching people who can't get control of their dog, okay?
It's very funny. The dog is off leash. She's in a dog park and they're yelling its name over and over and over, and the dog don't hear them at all, right?
Don't listen at all. I have the same problem, but it's with children, not dogs, okay? Sometimes you're hearing... Now, we've seen that. Maybe you've been in that situation, okay?
Dog's running away. You're yelling. Now, here's the thing. Do they hear you?
Yes. They just don't care, right? They have decided to incline themselves, or last week's language, they are treasuring something else. It's not that they don't hear you. There's two parts here. We've got to hear, but we've got to have this moment of inclining, and I love this phrase that he says.
Look what he says in verse two. Your lips may guard knowledge. Do you want to know how to know if somebody is inclining and receiving and listening to wisdom and discernment and understanding?
You listen to what comes out of their mouth. What are their lips guarding? Now, that's an interesting picture, isn't it? What do your lips guard?
Think about it. I don't mean physically, like your teeth. I mean, think about what do your lips guard? Your lips guard whatever is in here and whatever is in here, right? You ever heard somebody say, it's better to be thought of as a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt?
You've heard somebody say that before? What's the idea there? It's like, hey, your lips are guarding whatever is on the inside.
I mean, Christianity 101, Humanity 101 boils down to this. What's in a man comes out of a man. What's on the inside comes out. What's in the mind comes out. What's in the heart comes out. It's guarded by the lips.
And here's what he's saying. I think, what are your lips guarding today? Let them guard understanding and wisdom and discernment and discretion. Let that be what your lips are guarding because there's two paths in the book of Proverbs.
Now, this is talking about the seductive woman or the forbidden woman or the strange woman. Well, guys, it's a book from a father to a son. Of course, it's going to be about that. But the bigger idea, my point in that is, it could be a mother to a daughter talking about a man, okay?
The idea is this. There's a path of foolishness and a path of wisdom. And the foolish path and the wise path, they play out on all different spheres of life, okay?
And one of them most notably is in sexuality. If what's in our mind and heart is wisdom, discretion, understanding, discernment, then what comes out is of our lips when they are unguarded and they speak, what comes out is wisdom in this area of life. If what's on the inside is foolishness, guess what comes out? Foolishness is what comes out.
And what he's saying is you got to make a choice. What are you going to hear? What are you going to understand? What are you going to incline yourself to? Church, what are you going to fill yourself with?
What are your lips going to guard? Because I think something, and it's not about just staying away, right? Sometimes the Christian church, sex is bad.
We don't want to talk about that. No, it's not. It's no more bad or good than fire or food or water.
It's one of those things. They're things that God has created to be used for his glory. They're good things that can be destructive when they're used in the wrong way.
When evil and foolishness is what's going on with these things. What if I said, is water good or bad? What kind of question is that?
I don't even know how to answer that. Well, it's really good when you build a dam and that dam provides power to an entire village. It's really bad when the water comes so fast, like it did in Lynch, Kentucky. We got a team there right now and wiped away houses and people and all that, right? It's powerful all the time.
Good, bad. Is that even the way to think about it? What about fire? Fire within the boundaries, just like water. The boundaries of the fireplace, fire, incredible. Fall time, man, house is getting warm, right?
Fire outside of the fireplace, burn the whole house down. My mentor, Pastor JD Greer, was using that exact example one time and started getting tripped up, started talking about fireplace, sex in the fireplace. He got way into some crazy places, okay?
It was unfortunate, all right? But the idea is, the thing is, hey, if it's in the boundary, the right boundary, and sex is that way. Here's my question.
Do you fill yourself with the right discernment, understanding, knowledge around this area? What are your lips guarding? Is it some naive notion that sex is taboo or we're not going to talk about it or is there wisdom? Well, I hope there's wisdom. I hope that's what your lips are guarding. If not, here's a warning for you or here's an opportunity for us to grow today together in this area.
Look what it says. For the lips of a forbidden woman or a strange woman drip honey and her speech is smoother than oil. But in the end, she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death and her steps follow the path of Sheol. She does not ponder the path of life and her ways wander and she does not know it. The strange woman of Proverbs chapter five, okay?
Now I learned this in the old version, all right? So the strange woman, what came to my mind? I don't know what comes to your mind, the strange woman.
I think it's a woman. I think the Greek actually means she owns a lot of cats, okay? So that's what it actually means. And what comes to my mind, no. So okay, the forbidden woman, what does it mean that she's forbidden or strange or foreign?
Here's what it means. She's not related to him. This is not his wife and that's the point, all right?
Anybody who ain't your spouse is the forbidden one in this situation, whether you're a man, woman, woman, man, okay? That's what we're talking about. We're talking about this is not his wife, yet she is being seductive toward him. And here's what we got to see.
She looks sweet and sounds smooth, but she leads to destruction. This guy in Proverbs five, he ain't got a chance. You know why?
Because his lips are guarding foolishness. That's what's in here and that's what's in here. Same thing with Proverbs seven. It's the idea that ain't got a chance. And what's going to happen is we're going to see poison, swords, and the path to Sheol, which means death. We're going to see a loss of honor, a loss of wealth, and eventually a loss of health. Why?
Because we're not guarding wisdom and knowledge. And so here she comes. Y'all, here comes the seductive woman and what he thinks is this. And some of you are here today. I've been there different times in my life.
You might be there right now. What you think is going on is exciting. What you think is going on, in your mind, the seductive woman comes, whatever that looks like in your situation, and what you think is the theme song playing in the background is party like a rock star. And actually it's the theme of Jaws. And you don't see it because foolishness in the heart and mind.
Maybe some of us are there today. You're about one step away from being trapped. You're one step away from stepping right off the cliff and you don't realize it. What you think is what you think is I'm playing around.
No, no, no, you're not. The seductress has a surface charm that the fool is drawn to. But here's the thing. The wise person is not drawn in by that because they understand, scripturally speaking, character is what matters. Not the surface charm. You know, Proverbs 31 is a passage of scripture that Christians refer to a lot of times. If you're new to church, which we always have people that are newer, go read it sometime. It is just the chapter of godly character. It is the chapter of a godly woman's character.
And I'm going to tell you something. The woman in Proverbs 5, the forbidden woman, the strange woman, she don't have it. She's got a lot of beauty on the outside. But you know, the book of Proverbs, our modern sensibilities don't like a metaphor like this or a little illustration like this. The book of Proverbs don't care. You know what the Proverbs would say about this woman? Proverbs 11 22. She's like a gold ring in a pig's snout. That's what it says. Now what does that mean?
It means, man, she's got the look on the outside, but she does not have the character on the inside. And in the end, what happens is wormwood, poison, and sword. What happens is loss of honor, loss of wealth, and loss of health. Look what it says in verse seven. And now all sons listen to me and do not depart the words of my mouth. Do you see the father appealing to the son here?
Keep your way from her and do not go near the door of her house. Lest you give your honor to others and your years to the merciless. Lest strangers take their fill of your strength and your labors go to the house of a foreigner and at the end of your life you groan when your flesh and body are consumed. He is pleading with his son and I'm trying to preach this text as faithfully as I can.
I'm pleading with you. You know over 12 years how many people I have seen that thought they were playing around, they got trapped. They never thought they would lose their family until they did.
They never thought they would have to be in some type of recovery issue until they were. And I've seen it from top to bottom. And so this is a warning for us all. You got to see what is coming. What is coming is being trapped. And all of a sudden it's loss of honor, loss of health, loss of, you know, loss of loss of wealth and loss of health. Why does it happen? It happens so many times because people refuse to listen to the wisdom of verse 8. Look what it says, keep your way far from her and do not go near the door of her house.
That's the problem. The problem is we got a sweet tooth yet we refuse to stay out of the candy shop. We just want to keep hanging around. We want to keep playing around with something that can absolutely turn your life inside out.
It can take, snatch your life away, take your life away, take your honor, take your wealth, take your health and we want to play around with it as if it ain't that dangerous. You know, I used to love this show called Fatal Attractions. It was a show on Discovery Channel and it was about people who were fascinated with pets that were dangerous, okay. And the show always had this every, it always ended the same way, tragically, okay.
And it always ended the same way. And here's what would happen. The people would get the pet, whatever it was, a tiger, whether it was, a lot of times it was reptiles, it was snakes, okay. These people would get poisonous poisonous snakes. I'm talking about rattlesnakes, cobras.
They get them shipped in, smuggle them in. The people got rattlesnakes and then they decide, this is what always happened, they decide that they're building a relationship with the snake. I'm serious. I'm not lying. And then they start letting the snake out for playtime every day.
I'm serious, okay. And they all end the same way. Playtime is going good until the snake bites the person and they die in their trailer in Nevada and it was always in Nevada, okay. And it's like, man, that's, it's like, I got this thing that's dangerous and I'm playing around with it and I don't think it can kill me until bang, I get trapped. Look at what it says in verse 8. Keep away from the door.
Verse 8, you know, don't go near. Here's the question I have for you today. Does keep your way far, does that characterize your attitude towards sexual sin? Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.
I mean, what shows are we all willing right now to kind of keep fast forwarding through, but really when you get to the end of it, it's like, well, you fast forward it through 80% of the show. You know, I'm not making some rule. I don't know where the line is on some of this stuff. It's wisdom thing. I mean, I, you know, some of us right now, you got feeds on your phone you're looking at and the truth is between you, the only person that knows it is you and you know God knows it is you and you know God knows it, but you're on that feed because there's something on there that is attractive to you.
There might be some way to justify it, but honestly, that's what it's about. Are we keeping our way far? Are we kind of playing around with that little snake that wants to, that wants to bite and wants to hurt?
Got a tiger in the apartment you're raising up, you think you're playing around with it and it turns on us one day and kills us and this is what I'm talking about here. We got people that have dating relationships. I want you to understand this. We got young Christian couples in dating relationships that are doing it incredibly well. Man, they've got boundaries.
They've got accountability and that's awesome. We have other people right now that I have seen this weird thing in the Christian subculture where it's Christian relationships that decide to have no boundaries and yet they celebrate the fact that they're not going too far. You tell me what in the world. It's like, hey, we're not gonna have boundaries. We're gonna go on vacation together. We're gonna live together.
We're gonna do all this stuff together. We're not gonna be married but we're also not gonna go too far and they have no idea that if they were in my seat they would know this. They're setting themselves up for all type of intimacy problems later. I mean you've decided to try to train yourselves not to desire one another and then you're gonna get married and just think that all that just kind of goes away.
All these walls that you have built. Better to be ones who understand what marriage and sexuality is supposed to be. Do you understand that later in this passage he is gonna say be ravished with one another. Now if that's what God intends it'd be better to build boundaries rather than kill the desire that you have for one another. You understand? We got people playing around with this kind of stuff and what's so scary is and I think I think Solomon would have known this you know and he's and he's looking what's so scary is or even David whoever's writing this it's like I they know what it means to be trapped. Man both of them got trapped in this and I don't know if you've ever seen listen seriously I don't know if you've ever seen an animal that has been trapped but the amount of fear stress anger the the the sheer terror and I mean the look in their eyes okay it's very serious and some of us are right on the edge of that being trapped. I thought about this story you know a few years ago we had a problem with our chickens getting killed by raccoons okay and so we get I got some traps out and started catching raccoons well the traps that I have are not ones that the raccoon walks away from if you know what I mean okay so so so but we had done enough of them and we've done a bunch of them really and this one little one got caught and I was just sick of it I was like man hopefully he'll take this as a lesson I'm gonna try to let this one go and so I get my little boy out there now this trap is not made to let something go so I'm having to like pin the thing down with a rake get my foot in there and step on the the thing to release it so his hand can be released and the thing is he is biting and snarling this is the most ungrateful raccoon you have ever seen in your entire life okay I got one of my boys out there I'm not gonna tell you which one because they fight over who it was I know who it was I'm not gonna say all right now they were very young I will say that they were like five years old but he's got his BB gun just like this on the raccoon okay and I told him I'm like I'm like look man he's out there with me I said look if this thing gets loose in this trap and he comes after me you better shoot him with that pellet gun and he said dad if he gets out of that trap and comes after you I'm running back up to the house with mama I was like okay so now they were like five years old all right so he's got him and all that but I thought about that because I thought man I'm actually trying to help the thing and we got him out but I don't know if you've ever seen anything trapped but it's really kind of sad honestly because the fear and the stress do you know an animal will stress itself to death in a trap all the scenarios the constant worry what's going to happen what's going to happen what's going to happen it'll die right there no wound no no no shot nothing it could stress itself all the way to death the aggression that will come out something that's a lack of character man you got a dog that you that you've loved your whole life or whatever man I think it's in a bad situation they feel trapped you watch what they do you know and and here's my point this is my this is the thing I'm trying to get you to see some of us don't realize that we're playing around with something that one step and we're trapped and what did the bible say happens in this trap you know what happens a loss of honor verse 9 a loss of wealth verse 10 and a loss of health even life you groan as your body is being consumed in verse 11 that's the trap man we're we're there and and and these consequences are coming down on us and my prayer for many i mean loss of honor you know one of the things i learned a long time ago again from my one of my pastor jd greer you know he said man i asked myself you know what what would i have to say to my friends what would i say to my sons now that they're old enough you know if i was to step out on on a marriage or whatever what kind of loss of honor is that some of us have experienced that in here right now some of you have we're going to get into this in a minute how jesus can wash this away of all of our sin and make us pure than we ever were before we even started all this stuff but we got to face it before we get there the second thing i would say is loss of wealth you know some people lose their wealth because man they're so worried about all these different relationships they're in and covering up all this stuff they can't work man they can't do a good job or they're actually trying to pay things off and move things around and they're losing wealth they lose their health i mean it really is the don't go chasing waterfalls song okay you're looking at the mirror and you don't you don't even know who's looking back at you because your health has been consumed by dealing with something that is so dangerous and here's the thing here's the thing this is what's hard about this passage and i don't want to just sound like a football coach we're going to get to the grace part but here's what we got to face today at the end of our life we're going to look back and it ain't gonna be nobody else's fault and that's what he says in verse 12 how i hated discipline and my heart despised reproof i did not listen to the voice of my teachers or inclined my ear to my instructors i'm at the brink of utter ruin in the assembly of the congregation i don't know that there's anybody on the face of the earth that's laying on their deathbed says man i just wish i had a little more time for one more affair man i just wish i had a little more time to step out on this relate you know to do one more elicit in sexual encounter i don't think there's anybody who's ever done that you know and if they did it's that roman's one thing they were so twisted up with a rep with a depraved and dark mind they couldn't see what was true what we what what's going to happen as we get older we look back is we're going to say man did i hate discipline or did i love discipline now there listen there is a lot of of um there's a lot of oppression and justice and it's even it's it's it's talked about in the book of proverbs i understand that okay but most of what proverbs is about is about your responsibility and accountability the choices that you decide to make that's what it's mostly about the book of proverbs is much to do with the choices that we make in other words at the end of my life i'm gonna look back it ain't gonna be nobody else's fault no matter what we do i mean i've sat with people before listen there's a marriage situation maybe somebody steps out on their marriage you talk to the guy and this is what comes out what comes out is all this kind of stuff well you have no idea how stressful my kids are man i got laid off from my job um i got this bogus drug charge or dui charge um you know she you can you know she's not this or she's not that or she's and this woman i wasn't looking came into my life and blah blah blah and here here's the deal i'm not saying some of that's not true i'm not saying all this whatever the point is at some point you gotta face the music and say you know why i'm in this situation it's because i hated discipline it's because i didn't love it i hated it i got all the excuses in the world but at the end of the day i've got to face that now i know some of us might say okay i don't um love discipline and i i get that right like this like if discipline is getting up at six and five in the morning and being you know no maybe none of us love it in that way but don't we all love the concept of discipline and what it affords the opportunities that it brings us we all love that you know how i know that we love that because listen i'm gonna show my age a little bit here all right i'm of the generation where your parents spank first and ask later and we're all better for it is that right i mean that's pretty much true right like i remember this sound distinctly of the belt loops going through the jeans you guys remember that some of y'all okay and and honestly we look back on it and no nobody likes it in the time okay i definitely understand that all right but hebrews 12 11 says this no discipline is pleasant the time but it produces a harvest of righteousness we we didn't i didn't love it you didn't love it i think about my kids i think about my oldest daughter's 15 years old and it's so funny when she would get spanked or disciplined like every kid in the world she didn't she didn't love that cry belly ache about it all that kind of stuff now at 15 years old you see some kid acting crazy in walmart and she'll be like that kid needs to get spanked okay that's what he needs right now well now what does that mean what's the deal with that we didn't we don't love it at the time but we understand it we actually do love it we actually love the disciplines and god gives us disciplines that help us execute the vision of life that he has for us hey it's the bubble truck versus the plans these are disciplines that's what this is and we love this because it gives us the opportunity to thrive and all of that but some of us today man are we are we going to face the music of the disciplines that we either loved or hated because at the end of the day it's not going to be someone else's fault we've got to face that look what it says in verse 15 and this is where this thing turns positive here for just a moment and it really says hey there's also we've been talking about defense stay away from her house now let's talk about offense and i'm gonna be i'm gonna shoot you super straight y'all this is some of the most graphic language in all of the bible now the way the bible talks about sex many times is in illustrations and it's in kind of a metaphor type of thing which is good but you're gonna get the picture pretty fast all right look what it says drink water from your own cistern flowing water from your own well should your springs be scattered abroad and streams of water in the streets let them be for yourself alone and not
