PROVERBS 6: [24] 25-35
LIFE OR LUST
[ Matthew 5:17-30]
THE SONG OF THE SIRENS- carried by the wind, skimming the surface of the sea, captured in the sails of the ship-lured many a captain and his sailors to change their charted course. Powerless to resist the sirens' mesmerizing song, the bewitched men set their sails for the sirens' shore, unaware that beneath the surface of the sparkling waters that danced along the coast, jagged rocks awaited. Blinded by lust, some didn't wait for the inevitable shipwreck but flung themselves into the waters and swam towards shore, only to be devoured by the sirens. The sirens' seductive attire cloaked a cannibal appetite that savagely consumed their victims' flesh.
In Homer's Odyssey, we read of the mythical hero Odysseus (Ulysses) and his adventures as he returned home from war, including an encounter with the sirens. Circe, the enchantress, warned Odysseus of the lure of the sirens' song. As his ship neared the island, he ordered his sailors to fill their ears with wax to prevent their being seduced by the sirens. But Odysseus, his curiosity aroused, longed to hear their glorious voices. He instructed his crew to lash him to the ship's mast and warned that no matter how fervently he begged, they were not to untie him until they were far from the shores of the sirens' island. How wise Odysseus was to listen and so act. The sirens' song was so seductive-his death would have been certain.
This tale from Greek mythology serves as a warning to those who would linger near dangerous shores. Like the sirens, the "strange women" described in the Book of Proverbs proclaim a call of caution for those who want to experience sex according to God's plan.
Proverbs is a textbook of wisdom and instruction in which Solomon urges his son to flee from the evil woman, from the smooth tongue of the adulteress. As Circe warned Odysseus, so Solomon warned his son. But the wisdom offered by Solomon was God's wisdom-truth, not myth counsel from the very throne of heaven.
Listen to the father's concern for his son, recorded in Proverbs 6:[20-29] 25-35. These are timeless words of wisdom, recorded and preserved for all generations.
These commandments are not frivolous orders tossed at their son without purpose. They are words that, if heeded, would keep him from shipwrecking his life, destroying it on the hidden reefs of ignorance and gullibility. [Sex... According to God, by Kay Arthur. Precept Ministries. Chattanooga, TN. ]
It is that second look that can be such a blessing when we are seeking God's will or such a cause for temptation when we seek to stray. When a man or a woman looks a second time at the opposite sex for the purpose desiring or lusting, they begin falling into the enemy's trap.
But if we will look into the Word of God the second time for the purpose of receiving and understanding its teaching more fully we find wisdom and life. To experience wisdom and life, we must flee the adulterer.
These truths would provide direction, give him instruction, and protect him from the consequences of ignorance. If he would listen and obey, he would avoid the snare of the sirens' song-the strong lure of temptation, the passion of his flesh-the source of destruction for young and old, small and great, naive and learned. The father knew a man's eyes cannot help but see and then beckon the mind to imagine, the flesh to touch, to taste, to feel, to know...
I. LUST FOR WEALTH AND LIFE, 25-26.
II. THE BURNED AND SCORCHED RELATIONSHIP, 27-29.
III. SELF DESTRUCTION, 30-35.
When we consider how adultery abounds, how heinous a sin it is, what evil consequence it brings, and how destructive it is to the spiritual life and even physical life (1 Cor. 6:15-20), it is no wonder that the warnings against it are repeated so often.
Verse 25 gives a warning and the following verses give reasons for the warning. "Do not desire her beauty in your heart, nor let her catch you with her eyelids,"
Solomon's instruction is like our Lord's command in Matthew 5:28. Lust or wrongful desire is to be combated at its first rising in the heart. Neither think on or desire her beauty nor be smitten by her attracting glances. Do not desire her physical attractiveness or her flirtatious promiscuousness, whether you are married or unmarried.
Learn to regard the temptation to lust as a warning sign of danger ahead. When you notice that you are attracted to a person of the opposite sex or preoccupied with thoughts of him or her, your desires may lead you to sin. Ask God to change you so that your desires are only for your spouse, before you are drawn into sin.
The wise father in verse 26 justifies what he says. "For on account of a harlot one is reduced to a loaf of bread, and an adulteress hunts for the precious life,"
Immorality is costly! Loaf of bread here is the smallest piece of bread. The idea is to be brought down to a low level of poverty (Sam. 2:6; Lk.15:13-16, 30) where only bread is available. The man who uses wealth to buy a woman he lusts after (making her a prostitute) will be reduced to poverty.
This is a woman on the hunt (instead of letting man initiate the relationship). A woman skilled at seduction, calling him to her shores, luring him into her snare, taking captive her prey and devouring all his substance. Though the prostitute hunts money, the adulteress preys for the precious life or soul. The word preys or hunts is used only of hunting wild beast. [The root word (shedeyah) means to spy out, or to seize.]
Those that involve themselves in adulterous behavior may not lose all their wealth but certainly lose freedom of will, purity, dignity of soul and yes perhaps their own personhood. The devouring huntress will consume all that is precious from the life and then hunt for another to consume.
If the adultery results in scandal, a lawsuit, and a divorce, the price will not be cheap. In this day of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, the adulterer is also taking chances with his health and his physical life.
II. THE BURNED AND SCORCHED RELATIONSHIP, 27-29.
The ruinous consequences which the sin of adultery pulls along with it are well illustrated in the next three verses. Verse 27 reveals that the blazing ovens of illicit intercourse sears one's sexually for a lifetime. "Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned?"
Prideful self-assurance sees and fears no danger. But the nature of this type of relationship will bring about harm because of the laws God built into creation.
Fire is a good thing if it is confined and controlled. It can keep us warm, cook our food, drive our turbines, and manufacture our electricity. Sex is a good gift from God but, like fire, if it gets our of control, it becomes destructive. Even the world knows that he who plays with fire gets burned.. Illicit sex is like playing with fire.
[A DEADLY PET] It was a shocking tragedy. A 15-year-old boy was strangled by the family's pet in Florida. The slender youth had gone to an upstairs bedroom to play with an 11 foot Burmese python. Nobody is sure how it happened, but the supposedly tame snake turned into a killer that took the boy's life.
Why play with a powerful snake that can turn into a horrifying agent of death? Why even bring such a potentially dangerous creature into the house? This news story changes the old adage "Don't play with fire!" Into a flashing warning signal.
This warning applies even more to the hazard of playing with sin-some "small" thing that seems merely to give pleasure without hurting anyone. At first it seems harmless, but feed it, let it grow, take pride in it, and a trifling sin can become a terrible tragedy that "brings forth death" (Jas. 1:15). The writer of the Proverbs applied this truth to the area of sexual purity.
As believers in Jesus Christ, we must check even the smallest evil the moment it springs up in our heart by confessing it to the Lord and asking Him to help us overcome it. Toying with a pet sin is like playing with a deadly pet. Sooner or later it will turn on you.
A second example of the destructive consequences that naturally follow a certain course of behavior is introduced by a double question in verse 28. "Or can a man walk on hot coals, and his feet not be scorched?"
What begins as a "warm" experience soon becomes a burning (it means to burn so that a brand-mark remains) experience, like holding a torch in your lap or walking on burning coals, and it will mark you.
"But sex is a normal desire, an appetite given to us by God," some people argue. "Therefore, we have every right to use it, even if we're not married. It's like eating: if you're hungry, God gave you food to eat; if you're lonely, God gave you sex to enjoy." Some of the people in the Corinthian church used this argument to defend their sinful ways: "Foods for the stomach and the stomach for foods" (1 Cor. 6:13). But Paul made it clear that the believer's body belonged to God and that the presence of a desire wasn't the same as the privilege to satisfy that desire (vv.12-20).
There can be nothing right or innocent about such an act or those who indulge in sex out side of marriage. Verse 29 reminds us those who indulge in it are guilty as sin and will bear its repercussions. "So is the one who goes in to his neighbor's wife; Whoever touches her will not go unpunished."
"Goes" carries the idea of rushes in, for they have let their desire burn through their matrimonial bonds that should be controlling them. Adultery always has a starting place where it begins to get out of proper boundaries. Physical touch is that boundary.
The word touch denotes close physical nearness and fleshly contact that is brought about by desire and is an invitation to temptation. Too familiar touching of someone you have lustful desires for is where the last wholesome moral barriers of matrimony are broken down. Touching that is suspiciously too familiar needs to be avoided.
III. SELF DESTRUCTION, 30-35.
Verses 30 & 31 remind us that though it is understandable (mitigating circumstances) if a man steals because he's starving, he is nonetheless required to make satisfactory restitution. "Men do not despise a thief if he steals to satisfy himself when he is hungry. (31) But when he is found, he must repay sevenfold; he must give all the substance of his house."
Hunger is a strong drive and physical need. The only way hunger can be satisfied is to eat. Men understand when a man steals because he is hungry. They understand, yet restitution must be made because he has broken the law. Let him fulfill his natural desire lawfully by working or by the benevolence of others. Yet in whatever case the thief that steals because of poverty is not scorned and if caught can satisfy the injured party.
The adulterer is stamps as ignorant in verse 32 for committing an act that can destroys his life. "The one who commits adultery with a woman in lacking sense (judgment). Whoever does so destroys himself."
Lacking sense or judgment here indicates a going to ruin with willful perversity. He is bent on self destruction who commits adultery. (Remember we have a father talking to his son here). Adultery is a kind of suicide.
Adultery and sexual immorality are probably the most highly touted sins in our generation. "If there is one sin that you could commit and get away with, it's adultery," our generation says. Television, movies, literature-all promote a life of guilt-free sexual indulgence.
But like cigarette advertising, it doesn't tell the whole story. It doesn't show the lifelong smoker gasping for breath as he dies from emphysema. It doesn't show the pain and nausea from chemotherapy and radiation following disfiguring cancer surgery.
And so the promise of guilt-free sex does not show the pain of broken homes, the debilitating loneliness and humiliation of venereal or the agony of AIDS. Three thousand years ago Solomon warned us to shun immorality.
Verse 33 reminds us of the wounds and disgrace that adultery causes to reputation and character. "Wounds and disgrace he will find, and his reproach will not be blotted out (33).
A thief s damage is temporary and has solution. It is not so with the adulterer. His crime has no physical needs to invoke sympathy. He wounds his good name and disgraces his family. Though the guilt can be cleansed through repentance the reproach of it never will. Just like David's reputation bares a perpetual blemish in spite of all his good character and fame.
The unleashed fury of the husband's jealousy on the adulterer is presented in verse 34. "For jealousy enrages a man, and he will not spare in the day of vengeance."
Jealousy here is literally glow of anger. The angry husband will use any means possible to avenge himself for a loving husband would rather his neighbor steal his money than steal his wife. "For love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave. It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame" (Song 8:6).
The day of vengeance is the day when the adulterous affair is no longer a suspicion but revealed by God. And one day it will be for there is nothing of this magnitude hidden that will not be disclosed, sooner or later.
Adulterers are losers not winners no matter how sweet their stolen hours may have seemed at the time. Verse 35, "He will not accept any ransom, nor will he be content though you give many gifts."
There is nothing that can be done that will satisfy the wound of adultery. The offense is so great nothing can be done to appease and the husband will rightfully desire to inflict the punishment for what has been done.
Let us watch and pray continually and find divine strength and protection that we do not "think we stand but take heed lest we fall" (1 Cor. 10:12).
CONCLUSION
The eyes of God test the heart of man. You say you could not help it. The sirens' song was irresistible and you yielded. "It was too much for you. Surely You cannot punish me, God. I'm a sexual being; we're built this way. Surely You'll not punish me."
Joseph was separated from his parents, brothers, land, and the people who worshiped his God-so why resist? As a slave, he had little hope of marrying. Surely God would understand.
Isn't that the way we often rationalize our response to temptation? My needs, my desires, my appetites-I've got to look after myself.
Salvation brings the power to say no...not because you might get caught, contract a sexually transmitted disease, or conceive a child, but because it is a sin against God.
Saying no to sin is not necessarily an easy choice. Joseph's refusal to sleep with Mrs. Potiphar involved great personal risk. Day after day she pursued him with the same offer. Day after day Joseph refused, even when she trapped him alone in the house. Joseph determined not to have sex outside of marriage-and suffered for his obedience.
It seems unfair, doesn't it, that a sovereign God wouldn't reward Joseph's virtue? Does it make you wonder if it pays to be moral, to do what is right, no matter the cost? Rest assured God always rewards goodness and virtue-in His time, in His way.
Joseph stayed in prison for 10 years, but at the end of those years Almighty God moved Joseph from the prison to the palace, where he ruled under Pharaoh over the entire country of Egypt for the rest of his life. [Kay Arthur, Ibid.]
In today's promiscuous society, if a person has enough money and "clout," he or she might be able to survive an adulterous scandal, but life is still never quite the same. Whether in this life or the next, sinners can be sure that their sins will find them out. Indulging in sexual sin is always a losing proposition.
Some people may argue that it is all right to break God's law against sexual sin if nobody gets hurt. In truth, somebody always gets hurt. Spouses are devastated. Children are scarred. The partners themselves, even if they escape disease and unwanted pregnancy, lose ability to fulfill commitments, to feel healthy sexual desire, to trust, and to be entirely open with another person. God's laws are not arbitrary. They do not forbid good, clean fun; rather, they warn us against destroying ourselves through unwise actions or running ahead of God's timetable.
[Your mind like mine has conjured up a dozen memories of talented, dedicated, charming persons who committed emotional suicide and revoked their own credentials as Christian leaders by seeking gratification with persons off-limits to them. [Hubbard, David. The Preacher's Commentary Series, Vol 15: Proverbs. Nashville, TN : Thomas Nelson Inc, 1989, S. 108.]
