Proverbs chapter 7, verse 24. Hearken unto me now therefore, O ye children, and attend to the words of my mouth. Let not thine heart decline to her ways. Go not astray in her paths, for she hath cast down many wounded, yea, many strong men have been slain by her. Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death. Of course, in the context in this passage, we're speaking about the seduction of sin, which Solomon personifies as a crafty harlot, a seductress. And he sees a young man, a young man whom he calls simple, a fool, going down to her path and to her door, knowing not that it was the way of death. As Christians, we were created in Christ Jesus unto good works. As Paul tells us, that we should walk in them. We were redeemed and purchased body and soul in order to belong to Jesus Christ. And the goal of our life is to be conformed to the image of God's Son. Think about that. Our goal in life is not two cars in the garage, 2.5 kids, or whatever it is that people dream about today. It's not even necessarily a happy, contented, peaceful life. The goal of the life of the Christian is to be conformed to the image of God's Son. It is true that we will always struggle with sin in this life. It is true that we will never reach the goal of perfection until after this life. It is true that every day we increase our guilt. But it is also true that we've been washed by the blood of Christ and that we, if we are believers, are being sanctified by the Holy Spirit through the Word of God. If we separate the struggle against sin from the gospel of Jesus Christ, we become legalists and modern day Pharisees. What I mean by that is if we think that our success in our struggle against sin somehow has to do with our relationship before God, we've misunderstood the entire scripture. The fact of the matter is that our standing before God is completely finished in Jesus Christ. His righteousness is ours and we can in no way add to it or take away from it. And that God accepts us as his dearly loved children apart from works. However, if we are members of Christ by faith, then we have the Holy Spirit. And He's called holy for a reason. For it is not possible for those who have the Holy Spirit to not struggle against sin. When we have the Holy Spirit, we are locked into a life and death struggle against sin and the power of the devil. And we are called to fight the good fight, to always make progress in this fight against sin. We are called to put to death the old man. We're called to make alive the new man. But how often in our lives does it appear as if we're losing the battle? How often in our lives have we repented from a sin only to find ourselves ensnared by it again? We all know many who began following Christ according to all outward signs. who eventually became entranced by the riches of the world, by the deceitfulness of sin, by the allurements around them, and who are now enemies of Christ, for they did not count the cost. The fact is this, God hates sin. It is not true that God hates sin and loves the sinner. That's not true. God despises sin. God despises the sinner and will punish both in hell or in Jesus Christ. But God hates sin, cannot deny His holiness. Paul writes in Ephesians 5, Know ye this, no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of God and of Christ. Let no man deceive you with vain words, for because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the children of disobedience. Be not ye therefore partakers with them. We need to let those words sink down into our souls. We need to understand what God thinks. Of a culture where fornication, homosexuality, adultery, pornography, and other abominations have become the norm. Where there is an all out media assault to try and make it acceptable and okay. What does God think of it? The fact is no fornicator will inherit the kingdom of God. This whole way of thinking about sexuality, about perversion, fornication, adultery, pornography, all those things that so easily ensnare us, Solomon personifies as this crafty woman. and this woman with the attire of a harlot and with a crafty heart. We have seen how easily she ensnares the simple-minded. We see how deceptive she is, how she allures and how she entices that her house is the house to hell. We have gone through all of that in the last several sermons in Proverbs 7. If you have missed those sermons, they are available on our website. But for this reason, at the beginning of this chapter, Solomon, speaking the words of God, urges us to get wisdom. And as I said several weeks ago, the wisdom of God became flesh to deliver us from the bondage of sin and death. If we do not have Christ, we are fools and in bondage. We are without hope and without God in the world, aliens from the promises of the covenant, destined for hell. It is possible that through a great deal of willpower we may turn from one addiction and idolatry and sin and turn right into another one. But it is not possible to do anything pleasing to God, nor is it possible to free ourselves from the bondage of sin and death. But when we have Christ, we have all. So Solomon's urging is to get wisdom. In the next section of chapter 7, he alerts us to the deception of sin. Sin masquerades as life. She pretends to offer us what can only come from God. Just like Satan did in the Garden of Eden. She says, God is withholding something from you. If you just reach out and take it, you can have pleasure, you can have life. You can have whatever it is you long for. If you long for significance. She says, you're significant to me. I came out looking for you. Do you long for power to be as God? Well, you can decide for yourself what is right and what is wrong. Do you long for security and peace? You can find it in the return to Eden in her bedroom. And you'll never get caught. Do you long for riches? Why should my husband have everything? But it's all a lie. This is how the con man always works. He plays upon our fallen desire to be his god. Con men of every stripe are completely unsuccessful with contented people. Why is it that over the last 20 years the con, the Nigerian prince, is still so successful and still being done? You know it. You get the email that says, Dear Beloved in Jesus Christ, I've inherited two million dollars and I want to just give them to you out of the goodness of my heart. And people still do it. So I was driving through Nevada. I was thinking, you have a long time to think when you drive through Nevada. And I was thinking to myself, what if I was in a restaurant and a man walked up to me with shifty eyes, shabbily dressed, And he whispered to me, in a sincere way, give me a dollar, and I may or may not give you a hundred dollars back. Would I fall for that? I'd say, okay, here, have a dollar now. Where's the hundred? Oh, you didn't get it this time. Give me another one. Maybe you'll get it this time. Of course it wouldn't work with any man whose senses were working. And yet, let's take that man and take away the shabbily dressed man and the shifty eyes and Instead have a bunch of flashing lights, fancy casinos, scantily dressed women, allurements of glamour and success, and how many will come and drop their dollars in? The promise is the same. It's the promise of sin that comes from pornography that comes from all sorts of evil from every conman. Pornography says give me your life and your dignity and I will give you a moment of pleasure and you never have to give of yourself. You never have to take the risk of exposure to a spouse. You can be whomever you want to be. Gambling says give me all your money and maybe I'll make you rich. It's crept into the churches. The churches say, come on in here, sit in the back, give me your money and I will make you feel holy. You don't ever have to repent. You don't ever have to give of yourself. You don't ever have to give of your time. You don't have to belong body and soul to Jesus Christ. Just give me your money and you'll feel holy and close to God. Just like this seductress woman. I've offered my peace offerings. Just reach out and take it. They're all conmen, it's all a lie. The living water is offered to all who are thirsty, without money, without price, and it calls us to humble ourselves. And by nature we are prone to hate God and our neighbor, so that we will seek that water from anywhere else, except by repentance and faith. For the fact of the matter is this, God will not give his glory to another. We can seek salvation from the things of this earth, or we can seek salvation from God, but we cannot do both. The first commandment says, I am the Lord your God, which brought you out of the house of Egypt. You will have no other gods before me. That's exactly why we were redeemed. We were redeemed from the bondage of sin so that we might belong, body and soul, to Jesus Christ. The way of the conman, the way of the seductress, the way of the world is the way of death and hell. And so God pleads with us in verse 24, listen to me, hear me. How much pain, how much death, how much damnation could be avoided? If we would only listen. But we all know better, don't we? We say to ourselves, it won't happen to me. I can dabble around a little bit with sin and be just fine. My situation is different. I have a better way. I have an easier way. Or now what's popular is, well, God told me something else. But there is only one God. And He's commanded us to hear Him. So in verse 25, which I would like to focus on today, God gives us two conclusions to this section. He's very practical, very direct, very blunt. If you wish to avoid the way of sin, two things you must do. One, Don't let your heart decline to her paths. And two, don't let your feet decline to her paths. Guard your heart and guard your feet. For this sermon I will focus on the first phrase, and the next one you will have to get next week. What does it mean to guard your heart? What does it mean to not let your heart decline to her ways? First, we'll look at the grammar. In Hebrew, the word heart means your inner man. It means everything you think, everything you feel, what you will to do. It has to do with the driving force within a man. It has to do with who you are. The heart is the center of our thoughts, the center of our meditation, the center of our feelings, the center of what we love and what we hate. It has to do with what drives us. From the heart proceed all the issues of life. From the heart proceed all manners of sin. Solomon says, don't let your heart decline. That word decline means to turn. If you are turning one way, you've got your back on something else. When you turn your back on this, then you're facing somewhere else. Solomon is saying is don't turn towards her ways, the seduction of sin. So what does he mean by that? In all of our lives, we find ourselves in one of two situations. We are either in adversity or we are in prosperity. There are many times in our lives that we are in trouble. We are in a cursed world. There are times in our lives when things appear desperate. When we feel as if there's a distance between us and our spouse. When we feel as if our kids and our home are out of control. There are times when we're lonely. Times when we have no money, have no job, have no prospects. Times that we're just tired. Times that we've worked hard for no reward. times when we're sick, or times when we're attacked from without. We have enemies, and they've spread gossip about us, or they've sought to do us harm. Those are the times that we call times of adversity. And during those times, the seduction of sin is strong. Sin says you can get relief from the bottle, from the drug, from the strange woman, Turning your mind off just a little bit. Just take it. Your boss doesn't treat you right anyway. You can take that extra bottle from him. You can take that extra money from him. You can cheat on your books a little bit. The IRS is unjust anyway. You can fudge your report just a little. You've had a hard year. The Bible instead says to guard your heart means to practice patience. Because we are in a cursed world. Because we're in a cursed world, we know isolation and loneliness and even depression. And the temptation is to turn to bitterness, to reach out for comfort wherever we are. Some reach for comfort in drugs, some reach for it in alcohol, some reach for it in pornography, or fornication, or having an affair. because this woman made them feel so good, and their life is so hard, or this man really makes them feel protected, and my husband is such a rat. Or we turn to tearing one another apart through bitterness, or gossip, or slander, or scoffing, or hatred, for when things are not going very well for us, we think to ourselves, if we can tear down our neighbor to my level, then I can feel better about myself. This is not as uncommon as you think. Politicians thrive on it. A man is rich, we are poor. Why is he rich? That's not right. We need to pass laws where he can pay my bills. So politics today is driven by greed and envy, instead of by righteousness. Instead of that, as Christians, the Bible calls us to remember that God is our Almighty Father. As an Almighty Father, He is both willing and able to do us good. Because He's willing and able, we must understand that even in times of our greatest adversity, He has a good purpose. We just read about that in Hebrews chapter 12. Don't get impatient. If you're being chastened, it means you're a child of God, greatly loved by your Father. Oftentimes we see no purpose for our chastening or for our trials here on this earth. It's just to remind us that this earth is not our home. We're citizens of another country. We're going to another world. It's in times of difficulty that we are called not to seek. our treasure on this earth, but to set our affections on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. In Matthew chapter 6, Jesus put it like this, lay up not for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, where thieves break through and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. To guard your heart means to keep your eye on the prize of the high calling of Jesus Christ. Or in adversity, be patient. This earth is not our home. What we long for, we will only receive at the marriage supper of the Lamb. And that day is certainly coming, for not one of Christ's sheep will perish. So wait for it. Be patient. Call upon the Lord in the day of trouble. Don't be like Demas, who forsook Paul because he loved the present world. Too often we seek our comfort here and now and throw away our only comfort in life and in death. We decide that it's better to belong to ourselves and just reach out and take the fruit. We just go to the harlot's house. Just turn on the computer and just spend a little time with pornography. And crack open another bottle. Because after all, things have been tough, aren't they? And we throw away our inheritance for a mess of stew, like Esau did. Be patient in adversity. But it's also true that this earth isn't always a veil of tears. We also know times of prosperity. Times of prosperity when things are going so well. Everyone speaks well of you. You're influential, you're popular, you pay all your bills and you've got money left over. You've got the money to go buy those new nice things. You're the envy now of your neighbors. In times of prosperity, sin changes tactics. It starts to tell us that our corn and our wine came from Baal and not from God. We start to think in times of prosperity that it was our own hand, our own strength, our own moral goodness that provides for us. We start to say, well, of course I'm wealthier than my neighbor. I live a lot more holy life than he does. God has to bless me, I deserve it. And we start to lose the sense of our desperate need for our Father's hand every moment of our lives. We begin to look that all that God has given us instead of thankfulness, we start to make ourselves at home on this earth. We start to seek our comfort in things of this earth. And we forget that we're citizens of another country. As you know, I've spent many years in the food and beverage industry, and the most discontented, unhappy, miserable people to serve in a restaurant are those who are immensely wealthy. For they discovered that they had everything their body could desire, and they were still empty inside. They still were not happy, they still were not content. Because the fact is, an overflowing bank account will never provide security. Things break in. Economies collapse. Mutual funds lose their value. Banks go bankrupt. The fact is, your wife will never provide you the intimacy and position and power that you think she will. Because your wife can never be God. Your husband can never be your God. Once you start to view your husband or your wife as something different than human and being your God, that's when you fail. This is why so many marriages hit rough and rocky places their first year. Because as soon as you get married and begin to live together, you start to realize you're married to a human being. Somebody who's sinful. Somebody who doesn't provide you every single need and every single whim. That your marriage is no longer about you. But if you go into marriage understanding your only comfort and your only salvation is in Jesus Christ, then you can truly enjoy your wife or your husband. Only when you understand that your true need will only be filled with the marriage supper of the Lamb can you actually enjoy the food that God provides you now. If you approach your steak and lobster dinner thinking that's your only comfort in life and in death, it will never be right. The steak will always be overdone or underdone, the wine will never be the right year, the lobster will never be cooked correctly, the salad will never be perfect, and you will be miserable, discontent, and unhappy. Instead of this, the Bible calls us to be thankful in prosperity. True thankfulness involves two things. One, we must acknowledge that it is not by our strength, not by our works, not by our gifts, that we have any good things at all. It's by the merciful hand of God alone. For the sake of Christ, He has loved us. He has given us all that we need for body and soul, and everything in His hand is for our good. Therefore, everything that He has given us is a good gift. He didn't shackle you to your ball and chain. He gave you your spouse. And that was a tremendous gift that He's given you. He doesn't feed you the dregs of the earth. He gives you the food that's exactly perfect for you. Our Heavenly Father is like a good father slicing off the Thanksgiving turkey and portioning it out exactly what each member of His family needs. If that is true, if He is our Father willing and able to give us good things and He knows what it is we need far better than we know, then whatever we have is exactly right for us. Be thankful in prosperity. The second thing we must understand to be thankful is we must understand that every earthly gift is simply that. It's an earthly gift. It's not the new heavens and the new earth. It's not streets paved with gold. It isn't perfect fellowship with God. Not yet. The gifts that God gives us today are never intended to replace the new heavens and the new earth. They're called to give us a taste. of what awaits us. But when we understand that, when we understand that we were created to enter into marriage with the Lamb of God, we were called to sit at the feast of the marriage supper of the Lamb, we're called to fellowship with God at the new heavens and the new earth, and that's not happening here on this earth. Once we understand that, then we can truly enjoy the things of this earth. For we know what they were intended to do. They were intended to speed us along the way, to lift the heart for a moment, to give us a foretaste of the marriage supper. So to guard your heart means to be thankful in prosperity and patient in adversity. In Proverbs 30 we read, give me neither poverty nor riches. Feed me with the food convenient or perfect for me. Lest I be full and deny thee, and say, Who is the Lord? Or lest I be poor and steel, and take the name of my God in vain." That probably saying, if we're too full, if we've got too much stuff, we start to count on our own strength. We start to think we're all that. We start to believe our press reports. We start to say, it is true. I am my own God. I can do as I please. But if we're too poor, we may be tempted to not wait for God, but take His name in vain by saying, God is not ever going to take care of me. I've got to reach out and take it myself. To put it in the context of Proverbs 7, if you're too rich, you start to think that the moral laws don't apply to you. You're a step above everybody else. You are a great alpha dog, by the way, and you cannot be satisfied with simply one wife. God made you a little more special than everybody else. And if you're too poor, you start to say, man, life is tough. God's not giving me anything. I have to reach out and take some comfort wherever I can. But instead of denying God, Solomon says, don't let your heart decline into her ways. In other words, don't turn towards her way. For in order to turn your heart, To turn your affections and your desires and your thoughts to this seductress, you must turn your back on God. That's the picture that he's using here. The opposite is also true. In order to turn away from sin and the seductress of the world, you must turn your eyes to God. This is so often why we fail. We fail in the battle against sin because we say, I'm not going to do this anymore. But we don't follow scripture in what we're to turn our hearts to. And so all we do is turn to another idol. In order to truly put off sin, we must turn our backs to sin and turn our eyes to God. This is exactly what we read a moment ago in Hebrews 12. Says, let us lay aside every weight, the sin which doth so easily beset us, let us run with patience the race that is set before us. And how do we run with the race? Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. He goes on to show Jesus as our example, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despised the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Our example here is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ was never turned aside by promises of an easier way. This was what Satan tried to get him to do in the wilderness. Spout out and worship me, I'll give you all the kingdoms of the earth. You don't have to go to the cross. You can have everything you want. Just reach out and take it. But Jesus, by refusing the shame, by rejecting the shame, despising it, going to the cross, being obedient even unto death, he purchased for himself a bride, a people, a holy nation, a priesthood, a church, you and me. and is even now sitting at the right hand of God. He is our example. He is the one we are to follow. How on earth can you run the race when you are constantly looking aside, trying to find an easier way? Paul also says, let us lay aside every weight. There are so many weights that keep us from running. How do you keep your eye fixed upon the promises of God? When you're not really sure what those promises are. And you have so many questions in your mind. Is God willing to bless me? Is God able to bless me? Do the promises really apply to me? Is heaven real? Do I belong to Jesus really? Is God wise? Does God know what He's doing? And to answer any of those questions, there is only one place to go. Look unto Jesus. For He is the wisdom and the Word of God made flesh. To seek the Lord means to seek Him in the only place that He can be found, Jesus Christ, who has revealed to us the secret counsel and will of God concerning our redemption in the pages of Holy Scripture. In fact, John said of him, no man hath seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him. He has the words of eternal life, and those words are given to us through the mouths of the prophets and the apostles. The fact is, after the fall, God and man became enemies. How can a man approach the Holy God? How can you turn away from sin and face towards God when God is your enemy? We see this in the passage we read a moment ago and also throughout the Old Testament. God spoke to Israel from Mount Sinai, gave Israel his law, and Israel was terrified to death. They said, God is too holy to speak to us, too holy for us to approach. They said to Moses, please don't let Him talk to us again. Let Him talk to you when you come and talk to us. God told Moses, that's good, that's what we'll do. See, it all pointed to Jesus Christ, the Word who became flesh. The mediator between God and man who has revealed to us the will of God. And therefore, we can come to God because He's taken away our sin. We can come to God. Because the wrath of God is satisfied in Christ. Since our sins are taken away, we can now stand before God. We can now turn away from the trinkets and bottles of this world and come face to face with our Father. Because Christ has taken away our sin. And since we are His sons and daughters, is there anything He's not willing and able to give us? We have an inheritance that we can't even imagine. We have an inheritance that can never be taken away from us. It's reserved in heaven for us. We are preserved for it. Something that is so tremendous it cannot even be described adequately in the pages of scripture. And it's all ours if only we accept such benefit with a believing heart. It was also offered to Esau and he gave it all away for a pot of stew because he was hungry. How often do we turn our back on that wonderful promise for the trinkets and bottles and filth of this world? So Solomon is saying here, hear my words, don't let your heart turn to her paths. Her house is the way to hell, going down in the chambers of death. Keep your eye focused on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. And if you keep your eye and your heart focused on that, it won't turn aside to her paths. It's when you misunderstand the gospel and fill your heart with doubt that you start turning around discontentedly looking for something on this earth. But the grand promise of the gospel is this, no matter how ensnared in sin you are, no matter how entrenched in the bondage of the devil you've become, no matter how often you've become ensnared again and again and again, while there's breath, there's life. Turn to Christ and live. Once you've turned to Him, then we're to set our affections where He is. Psalm 27, Taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man that trusteth in Him. That's Psalm 34. Psalm 27, One thing have I desired of the Lord, and that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple. We're called in this life to learn more and more to hate sin. But at the same time we're called to more and more love righteousness. Has not God promised wisdom to all who ask? Has not God promised us that as our Father He will give the Holy Spirit to whoever asks? That's what it means to not let your heart decline to her ways. To turn away from her ways is to turn to God and to His promises and the full assurance of faith. Where your heart goes, there your feet go. And so Solomon goes on to say, don't allow your feet to stray into her paths. It's not simply a matter of the heart. It's also a matter of what you do with your feet. And that's next week's sermon. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we do pray that you will give us the grace and the spirit to guard our hearts, keep our eyes focused upon the promises of Jesus Christ, upon your goodness, your greatness, your strength, your beauty. Upon the promises that you have made us, the tremendous promise that the day is coming when we will be face to face with our God at the marriage supper of the Lamb, that we will be free from this curse and this body of death. We pray that you will keep our eyes focused upon that all the days of this life and keep us from the deception of sin, from the filth and the abominations in this world, so that we might more and more learn to love you and love your word, and more and more hate sin. We ask that you will bless us and be with us this week, in Jesus' name, Amen.