If you would please turn with me this morning to Proverbs chapter 6. We're going to pick up the chapter we began last week at verse 20.
We're going to try to cover a whole lot of ground today. Proverbs 6.20 all the way through the end of chapter 7. But before we look to the text today, I want to just take a moment to share some thoughts with you just by way of exhortation. Thoughts about how we approach Scripture. What our posture to the Word of God is. And ought to be. I recognize as many of you have that the book of Proverbs is a very law heavy book.
It contains a whole lot of rules and commands. Exhortations to go and do this or abstain from doing that. Other portions of Scripture are often not so heavily weighted with imperative. But the book of Proverbs is a rather long lecture demanding morality and virtue.
Or prohibiting immorality and vice. And if our posture in coming to a book like Proverbs is not correct, we run the risk of coming away from it feeling kind of hopeless. Or despairing of any possibility of ever achieving the rewards of wise living. But before we jump out to Belshazzar in the book of Daniel, we've been weighed in the balance and found wanting. And so before we jump into yet another chapter of warnings and instructions and rules, I want to just pause and ask you what is your posture to the Word of God? To Scripture? Is your posture, your stance, your attitude to Scripture one of eagerly putting yourself in subjection to it? Or is it one of shying away and wanting to go and hide, perhaps avoiding it?
Maybe out of fear, maybe out of downright disdain. There are those here today who are in Christ, whose sins are covered by Christ. And because of that status, they are able to hear the law of God and not be threatened by it, but be gladly instructed by it.
It isn't a burden to them. It may very well have a saddening effect on them from time to time as they realize how far short they've fallen from their Savior's will, but they aren't driven to despair even by their shortcomings because they know that God's mercy to them in Christ has no end. The law to the Christian is a delight, not a burden. But there's another kind of person, the kind of person who is not in Christ but is still in his sin, when that person, the one who does not possess the consoling, reassuring peace that faith in Christ brings, when that person hears the law of God, it only condemns and accuses and discourages. And I wonder if some of you maybe in this group see a group of Christians delighting in the wisdom and the instruction of an amazing God-inspired book like Proverbs, and you say to yourself, I want that kind of life. I would love to have that kind of purity and joy in my life. I'll always be running and hiding whenever scripture gives a command because of how badly I've failed.
I want to be a part of that group of wise people, but I just don't think I belong. When I was about five years old, our family moved to Latin America to be missionaries. We had just left behind everything familiar and comfortable, our furniture, our friends, our traditions, our language, and in the very first few days in this foreign land, all of the missionary families were gathering for, I guess it was their annual conference at a retreat center. It was our first time meeting the fellow Americans that we were going to be serving with on the mission field.
Many of them, though, had already been on the mission field for years. They knew each other, and it was obvious that these families already knew each other. Couples were eating together, kids were playing with each other, but we were the new family. You ever felt like the outsider? I wanted to be in the group. I wanted to make new friends. They all seemed to be having such a good time, but I didn't know my place. I didn't feel like I fit in because it was just all too new and unknown.
I longed to enjoy what they were enjoying, but I didn't belong. But you know, by the end of that missions conference in Latin America, I had met Ronnie and Michael, the boys who would become my best friends overseas. I had met Uncle Art and that other lady whose name I can't remember, but we bonded in the infirmary as she bandaged the finger that I had injured on the water slide. That week, we made candlesticks out of bottles and melted crayons.
We learned how to play homemade kazoos out of wax paper and a comb. And rather quickly, these strangers became our family, our people. And the delights they were enjoying, delights that at first made me feel like an outsider became the very delights that made me a part of the group.
I had become one of them. And my awkward fear turned into peace and eventually joy. If you have never come to terms with your own sinfulness and found the forgiveness and the peace that can only be found in Jesus Christ and Him crucified, you will not be comfortable reading or hearing about or witnessing in the lives of others the high and holy standard of the law of God.
You just won't. You will forever be an outsider. You will never be an outsider to that joy until you enter through the narrow gate, the gate of giving up on your own efforts and trusting the sufficiency of Christ. You see, the life of wisdom, the life of living virtuously and the incredible happiness that comes with that begins with fearing God so much that you run to Him in terror and desperation and beg for mercy.
People who come to Him like that will receive mercy and much, much more. They'll be welcomed into the group, into the family of God and have spread before them all the delicacies and the delights that come with redemption. If God's law fills you with dread, come to Christ, friend, and He will give rest to your soul.
You've forgotten that you're in the group but through negligence and disregard of God's instruction, you've forgotten that you belong to this great company. Of the redeemed and you've forfeited the joy that is yours in Christ. And I want to just remind you that the way back to that place of joy and peace and hope is not some long drawn out journey of penance.
It's as quick as, Lord, I reckon myself to be dead to sin and alive unto God through Jesus Christ my Lord. I'm intended for our good. And so when we come to a book like Proverbs, when we come to a chapter like chapter six or chapter seven that warns us now for the second and the third time of the destructive ease with which we fall into a sin like the sin of adultery, our posture needs to be one of looking to the joys that Christ is offering. We need to be saying, Lord, this might be hard, this might be painful, but the way that leads to my greatest joy and deepest peace is always gonna be the pathway that leads me to you. And so thank you, Lord, for this instruction.
Now help me to understand it and love it and obey it because it truly is a demonstration of your love for me. That needs to be our posture to the word of God. And I hope that is your posture. I hope it's my posture as we approach God's word this morning.
In fact, let's just stop right now and pray that God would make that our posture, that God would give us the grace to hear and heed and love what he says in his word. Lord, thank you for your word today. Thank you for all of it because you have given all of it to us for our ultimate and everlasting good. Without your word, we would be lost and even unaware of our lostness. But your word, Lord, is a lamp to our feet, a light to our path. Its proofs are life, its commands are right, its promises are sure. So once again, Lord, we ask that you would open our eyes to behold wonderful things, instructive things, corrective things in your word, that we who have broken your holy law might find forgiveness and peace and even joy. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
God will indulge me. I'm going to intersperse the reading of our text today throughout the sermon rather than reading it all up front like we usually do. Our text is comprised of two back-to-back speeches that are strikingly similar to each other, almost as if one is an echo of the other. And we might ask, why does Scripture repeat itself like this? Why would God repeat himself? If God's word is perfect, inspired by God himself without error, why would anything ever need to be said twice? Well, I think we would have to conclude that repetition in Scripture is not necessary because of some flaw in God's ability to communicate.
No, it's because of our inability to listen well. We are spiritually dense and often hardened to the truth. And so God has inspired certain recurring themes in his word to ensure that we don't miss them. In Proverbs 6 and 7, God brings up, now for the second and third times, the danger of the sin of adultery. We've mentioned before that this sin is often used in Scripture to depict spiritual idolatry. And so while Solomon is preaching against specifically the sin of physical adultery, it is prudent and it's appropriate for us to apply these lessons more broadly to the sin that lies at the root of all of our sins.
Adultery, theft, murder, lying, in fact any sin we commit has at its root the sin of idolatry, of elevating ourselves and our desires to a place higher than God. What Solomon says by way of warning against adultery will apply then to any and all sins that we may be tempted to commit. And the lesson that's emphasized over and over again in Proverbs 6 and 7 is this, the battle for moral purity begins well before the first step down the path of impurity has ever been taken. Well the speech begins by describing first the preserving power of wisdom in verses 20 through 24. My son, keep your father's commandment and forsake not your mother's teaching, 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 wake 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 adulterous. Let me draw your attention to verse 23. If the commandment is a lamp and the teaching is a light it implies that we are in the dark, doesn't it? It implies that without the enlightenment of wisdom's instruction we are unaware of the moral dangers lurking about. We're in the dark and so we desperately need the light of wisdom that originates from somewhere outside of us.
Verse 23 continues, the reproofs of discipline are the way of life. If life is in the reproofs that we receive it implies that we need frequent reproofs, our life depends on wisdom's correction. Which implies that we are not merely unaware of the dangers lurking about, we're actually drawn to those dangers.
Our problem is not just ignorance, it is willful ignorance. Children of Adam if left to themselves don't get better and better. Without a corrective force put upon us we get worse and worse, we run further and further into the dark.
And so one of wisdom's great benefits is that it acts as a preservative to keep us from ruining our lives by doing what we would naturally do if left to ourselves. But there's a specific sort of preservation that Solomon has in mind, wisdom preserves from all sorts of dangers, but especially wisdom preserves from the dangers of adultery. Verses 25 through 35 describe some of those dangers. First we observe the cost of adultery in verses 25 and 26. Do not desire her beauty in your heart and do not let her capture you with her eyelashes.
Why? Verse 26, for the price of a prostitute is only a loaf of bread, but a married woman hunts down a precious life. In material terms sin may seem cheap, a loaf of bread, but the real cost is one's precious life, one's very life. Wisdom preserves us by warning us of the cost of sin.
The next danger we observe is the risk that accompanies adultery, we see this risk described in verses 27 through 29. Can a man carry fire next to his chest and his clothes not be burned? It's a rhetorical question, the obvious answer is no. Or can one walk on hot coals and his feet not be scorched?
Again the answer is no. Verse 29, so is he who goes into his neighbor's wife, none who touches her will go unpunished. Just as sure as touching fire results in burns, sin will result in punishment. Don't dabble in sin without consequence, it's the risk of sin. But not only is there a cost and a risk that come with sin, there's also the shame that accompanies sin, a shame that is especially potent when it comes to the sin of adultery.
Look with me at verses 30 and following. People do not despise a thief if he steals to satisfy his appetite when he's hungry, when he's caught he will pay seven fold, he will give all the goods of his house. But he who commits adultery lacks sense, he who does it destroys himself, he will get wounds and dishonor and his disgrace will not be wiped away.
You know when someone commits theft in order to stay alive, in order to eat, we get it. And to some extent we're probably inclined to excuse it. But theft merely for one's own self-gratification, which is what adultery is, is worse.
It's inexcusable. Now this paragraph that we just read assumes, doesn't it, that there are varying levels of heinousness or odiousness when it comes to sin. And while we must acknowledge that all sin is equally deserving of divine judgment, even the smallest sin is enough to condemn a sinner to hell because it is committed against an infinitely holy God, some sins by their very nature are deserving of more guilt, more judgment, more consequence than other sins. The Westminster Shorter Catechism explains this. Question 83 asks, are all transgressions of the law equally heinous?
And here's the answer. Some sins in themselves and by reason of several aggravations are more heinous in the sight of God than others. What might some of those aggravations be that elevates the wickedness of certain sins?
The larger catechism answers that question. Some of the reasons a particular sin is made worse than other sins includes these. If the one committing the sin is of riper age, greater experience or grace, eminent for profession, gifts, place, office, guides to others and whose example is likely to be followed by others. In other words, if the sinner ought to know better and still commits the sin or if the sinner has great influence on the consciences of others, his sin is worse in its effect, in its vileness. Another aggravation mentioned in the larger catechism is if a sin is committed immediately against God, his attributes and worship, against Christ and his grace or against the Holy Spirit, his witness and workings. Now, in a sense, all sins are committed against God, right? But blasphemy, for example, out of a spite and hatred for God is a much more direct assault on his glory and honor than, say, a person who gets unrighteously angry at a fellow sinner. In fact, Jesus calls out the sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit as particularly odious and incurring a greater judgment. Solomon's point is that adultery is among those sins that incur severe consequences. And while there is no such thing as a respectable sin, there are sins that bring less culpability than others. Adultery is not one of them.
It brings shame, and it brings great shame. The last danger Solomon highlights here is the retaliation that accompanies the stealing of another man's wife. Verse 34, For jealousy makes a man furious, and he will not spare when he takes revenge.
He will accept no compensation. He will refuse, though you multiply gifts. And so adultery is full of dangers lurking about, dangers that without wisdom's preserving counsel we would be unaware of and even drawn to, but take special notice of how wisdom's counsel begins its work of preserving the Son from the dangers of sin. Verse 25, Do not desire her beauty in your heart. The battle for purity begins before the first step down the road to impurity has ever been taken. The battle begins in the heart, in the realm of one's desires. This reminds me of James 1, which in describing the progression of sin says, a person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire, by what he wants in the private recesses of his heart. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death. If the path of sin began with death, we would all know not to tread that path, but that's not where sin begins. Sin begins with desire, seemingly innocent, attainable desire.
And so that's where, according to wisdom, the battle must begin. Do not desire the forbidden thing in your heart. A preacher from 200 years ago warned his congregation, beware of suspicious familiarities on the borders of sin. Beware of suspicious familiarities on the borders of sin.
Don't set up camp near the fire or you will be burned. Well, this brings us to the next speech and one that very closely parallels, as we'll see, what we just read in chapter 6. It begins in chapter 7 verse 1 by highlighting the keeping power of wisdom. Verse 1, 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 tablet 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 adulterous with her smooth words. The apple of the eye in verse 2 is the pupil, the center of one's eye. It's the seeing part.
Without wisdom, we're in the dark, as we saw in the previous speech. We cannot see. Sight is of such great importance to the proper functioning of the body, and yet it is extremely vulnerable, isn't it, to injury. The heart has a rib cage.
The brain has a skull, but the eyes are just out there. And so we take extra caution to protect our eyes because of their importance and vulnerability. Solomon is making an analogy. He's saying that in the same way that we guard our precious eyes, we ought to guard our adherence to godly counsel. How then do we guard our adherence to godly counsel? Verse 3, we bind wisdom's words on our fingers. We keep them close at hand, never far from sight.
We write them on our hearts. In other words, we give godly counsel the greatest place of influence. Verse 4, we view wisdom as a sister or as an intimate friend. In other words, we view wisdom's counsel with familial affection. The affection of a family is typically the purest and most lasting kind of affection in our saddest moments, in our happiest moments, in our most blah moments. We want the company of family. There's comfort and safety and acceptance within the relationships of a family that is not shared in any other relationship. For years, my oldest daughter, Meredith, longed for a sister. And when she was in her late teens, the Lord saw fit to finally give her a sister, a kindred spirit. It's been so fun to watch Meredith and Audrey relate to each other. Every Sunday afternoon, Meredith FaceTimes Audrey, and they must talk for an hour about life and joys and sad things and silly things. My wife, Laura, and her oldest sister, Roberta, enjoy the same kind of relationship.
I don't think a day hardly goes by that they don't talk to each other on the phone. With sisters, there doesn't have to be any pretense or pressure, just affection and transparency. It's a beautiful thing. That's how our relationship to wisdom is supposed to be. Wisdom is a sister, an intimate, trustworthy friend. And when we view wise counsel in that way, it keeps us from the deceptions of adultery. In fact, that's what we discover next in verses 6 through 23. Wisdom keeps us from the deceptions of adultery. And this lesson is presented in the form of a story. Verse 6, 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. Now, we've been learning in our text today that the battle for purity begins long before the first outward step into sin is taken. And here in this story, this simple youth who lacks sense has already compromised in his heart. And there's only one place this path will lead to.
Here he is walking where he shouldn't walk at a time of day that he shouldn't be out in the cover of darkness. Charles Bridges said, Was not idleness the parent of this mischief? The loitering evening walk, the unseasonable hour, the vacant mind, all bringing the youth into contact with evil company, was not this a courting of sin, tempting the tempter? We'll see in verse 21 that the prostitute will eventually persuade the young man, but this is where his compromise begins. This is where the deception of sin always begins, in the heart, in the desires that we indulge, which leads to the choices that we make, which eventually lead to sin. Well, the story continues, verse 10. 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. 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. This is religious hypocrisy. She's pretending to be holy. I've been to church. I'm a Christian. I love Jesus. It's religious hypocrisy as a cover for sin.
Next, her deception turns to an appeal to the young man's vanity and love for pleasure. Verse 15. So now I have come out to meet you, to seek you eagerly, and I have found you, as if to say, Oh, what a happy providence.
I've just finished worshiping God, and He rewards me by letting me run into you. Verse 16. I've spread my couch with coverings, colored linens from Egyptian linen. I've perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon. Come, let us take our fill of love till morning. Let us delight ourselves with love. Next, she deceives with pragmatic arguments, as sin often does. Verse 19.
For my husband is not at home. He has gone on a long journey. He took a bag of money with him.
At full moon, he will come home. But the whole thing ends badly for the young man, lacking in sense. Verse 21. With much seductive speech, she persuades him, and with her smooth talk, she compels him.
All at once, he follows her. So what began as just a meandering walk at night, close to the borders of temptation, has now become an intentional march into sin. 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 a snare, he does not know that it will cost him his life. And this is the deceptive nature of sin, something that wisdom will keep us from when we bind it to our hearts and our fingers and our eyes. Well, the conclusion of the lessons are summarized in verses 25 through 27. In fact, these verses give us four specific applications to pursue in light of what we've learned. First, we're commanded to listen to wisdom.
Verse 24. And now, O sons, listen to me. Be attentive to the words of my mouth. Read the Bible. Study the Bible. Listen attentively when it is preached. Know what God says in his words, and do all of these things with the right heart posture towards the Word of God, because these words are life, preserving and keeping you from death.
In verse 25, secondly, we're told, let not your heart turn aside to her ways, to the ways of sin. In other words, guard your heart. Keep your desires in check. Don't indulge even in a wish, an inclination towards forbidden things. Know your heart. Study your heart.
Learn what it longs for and steer its longings in the direction they should go. Thirdly, the latter half of verse 25 says, do not stray into her paths. Guard your steps, your actions, from going places and doing things that will lead to vulnerability and compromise.
If you don't want to get burned, stay away from things that burn things. And then lastly, we are exhorted to consider the consequences of sin as a deterrent to sin. Make sin as distasteful to your heart as possible by taking a long, hard look at where sin will ultimately lead you. Verse 26. 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.
You know, it's really not that complicated, is it? Listen to truth, guard your heart, guard your actions, and remember the terrible consequences of sin. Do these things and you will live.
Ignore these things and you will die. The battle for purity of heart and mind and body begins long before the temptation is raging. It begins right now as we incline our hearts to run away from that which God forbids and run towards that which God loves. Let's pray. Father, we cannot avail ourselves of wisdom without the grace of your Holy Spirit's regenerative and convicting work. So fill us with your Spirit that we might enjoy the full advantage of possessing your Word as a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen.
