Too close to temptation, too far from Wisdom
Proverbs 2:1-11; 5:1-23
Intro
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Good evening/morning
We are finishing up a short series today called stressed out and stretched thin.
The last couple of weeks we have talked about the stresses caused in our schedules and with our finances.
If you have noticed the problems and stresses we face are most often caused by trying to live a life that the world says you should be able to live.
We have overly busy schedules because the world says you should be able to do it all!
Work, have a family, have your kids involved in an activity every season, have a clean house, and dinner every night!
We have financial stresses caused by debt because we believe what society teaches that if we just had more stuff, we would be happy, so we charge and borrow to get more!
But instead of bringing the joy and happiness we thought, it has brought stress into our lives as we find those things don’t deliver what they promised, but only added stress to our lives.
That is not to say that we don’t enjoy some of the things we are involved in or the stuff that we have purchased, even if it was with money we did not have, but it is often a bait and switch. We aren’t told about some of the consequences or stress that comes along with it.
Transition
Well, this can be true not just with our schedules and our finances, but with moral choices that affect our life as well.
Now for some moral choices, society and God are in agreement.
For example, the Bible says stealing is wrong and society generally agrees that stealing is wrong. So we don’t face the stress of being lead into a lifestyle of stealing from society in general.
But there are some areas that what society says and what God says in his word are in near complete disagreement.
And this is nowhere more true than in the area of sexual intimacy.
The world says that your body is yours to do what you want with and that sex is fun so you should be able to do whatever you want, with whoever you want, whenever you want.
If you want to have sex with someone before you are married, society says that is ok, while God says – sex is something that has been designed for marriage (1 Corinthians 7:1-5)
We see other areas that in society are gray areas, like adultery.
I don’t know of anyone who sets out to commit adultery, but as I researched this week, it seems that anywhere from 20 to 50% of wives and 30 to 60% of husbands will have an affair over the course of their marriage. While it is not encouraged, it seems almost accepted.
But even though it may be accepted in some ways and not looked down on, leading a life of lying and cheating can certainly bring about more stress in your life.
Compound that with some of the other possible effects of sexual immorality like unintended pregnancies, especially for those who are unmarried, sexual diseases, and even death through the possibility of AIDS, and the stresses that a sexually active life like the world says is ok, certainly can cause problems for us.
So how do we overcome the temptations that draw us to this and live a life free from the stresses and worries that this type of lifestyle can bring?
Today we are going to look into the proverbs for some godly wisdom and we are going to begin in Proverbs 2:1-11.
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Proverbs was written largely by Solomon to teach his sons some practical aspects of living a wise and fulfilling life, and it is filled with some great advice for all of us in living wisely.
When we think of proverbs, we tend to think of the short pithy sayings that are found in most of the book of proverbs, but the first 9 chapters are a call to wisdom
And while we start today in chapter 2 and we are also going to be reading in chapter 5, but let’s begin and see what the Lord says through Solomon regarding living a life of wisdom
Proverbs 2:1-11
2 My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you, 2 turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding, 3 and if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, 4 and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, 5 then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.
6 For the Lord gives wisdom, and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.
7 He holds victory in store for the upright, he is a shield to those whose walk is blameless,
8 for he guards the course of the just and protects the way of his faithful ones.
9 Then you will understand what is right and just and fair — every good path.
10 For wisdom will enter your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul.
11 Discretion will protect you, and understanding will guard you.
Pray
Ok, these last couple verses of this passage are an encouragement to seek out the Lord’s wisdom and it says that when we live in it, it will be “pleasant to your soul” and will “protect you” and “guard you.”
This pleasantness to our soul is really the opposite of stress and worry, which are not pleasant to our soul and which can lead us astray rather than protect us.
But here is the thing. For us to walk in wisdom and stay away from temptation, we need to continually realize that
God is Good
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(Psalm 119:68 - You are good, and what you do is good; teach me your decrees.)
Do you agree with the psalmist that God is Good and that what he does is good and do you want him to teach you his ways?
Do you believe, as James says, that everything good is from God?
(James 1:17 - Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights)
Of course we say we believe God is good, but the reason we act apart from what God says is because we believe what God wants for us is not as good as what we want to do.
I want you to think about that as we continue. Do you really believe God is Good?
I believe another thing we need to realize if we are going to be able to battle temptation is that the problem is not sex.
The Bible teaches that
Sex is Good
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Now, I am sure that most of us believe this, but for those who believe that sex is a dirty thing, you are going to feel guilty for enjoying this within the bounds that God has prescribed and you should not.
We are going to read in Proverbs 5 in a few minutes that it tells us to rejoice in the sexual relationship between a husband and wife.
Read through the Song of Solomon and see how in God’s word Solomon and his wife enjoy their sexual relationship together.
Sex is not bad or dirty. It is beautiful and holy and good.
Ok, so God is Good and sex is good.
Now here is what we really need to believe to help us avoid the temptations that come our way.
The limits God places on Sex is Good
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God has placed limits on expressing ourselves sexually and it is imperative that we believe that this is a good thing.
What are the limits?
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God has given us the gift of sex to be expressed exclusively within marriage between a man and a woman.
Listen to what Paul says in
1 Corinthians 6:18-7:5
18 Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. 19 Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20 you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.
7 Now for the matters you wrote about: It is good for a man not to marry.
Slide
2 But since there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband. 3 The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. 4 The wife's body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband's body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife. 5 Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer.
He is saying that sex outside of the covenant of marriage is not what God wants, but it is ok and good and right to express yourselves sexually within the covenant of marriage between a man and woman.
Sex outside of that covenant relationship does not glorify the Lord and is sin.
Why does God place these limits?
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He has placed these limits because of the purpose of sex
Sex is for building the family – procreation
Right from the very beginning, God told Adam and Eve to fill the earth, to have kids together.
The family unit is the basic building block of all of society. Raising kids has been designed to take place within a family with a father and mother together.
One of the reasons that sex before marriage is not what God intends is because of the possibility of becoming pregnant outside of the covenant of marriage.
Single parenthood is not what God designed
Now there are a lot of great kids that have been brought up in single parent households. I praise God for the great single moms and single dads that have worked so hard to give their kids a good upbringing, but the reality is and statistics prove out that the majority of kids raised in a single parent household have more struggles generally speaking than kids raised in a 2 parent home.
That is because God did not design us to raise kids on our own, but in homes with both a mother and father living together and united in raising their kids.
So that is one reason that God has intended sex to be only in the bonds of marriage, so that kids would be born into the family unit which God designed as the basic building block of society.
And maybe you are saying, well with today’s birth control options, I won’t get pregnant or get my girlfriend pregnant.
Well that is not for sure, but there is another reason that God has purposed sex to be only within the covenant of marriage.
And that is because
Sex is for building the bonds of intimacy
Slide
1 Corinthians 6:13-17
The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. 14 By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also. 15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself?
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Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! 16 Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said,
