Let's pray, please. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the wonderful words of life that you have given to us in the pages of your God-breathed word, the Bible. Thank you for preserving these words for us so that we can read and study them and understand them. We pray, Holy Spirit, that you would be our guide and teacher this evening and that these words would impress upon the hearts of everyone here the importance of purity, the importance of holiness, And we pray that we would receive the truth of this great passage and the many other passages that will be quoted this evening. With faith and love, lay them up on our hearts and practice them in our lives. In Jesus' name we ask, amen. Please turn in your Bibles to Proverbs chapter 5. I'm only going to walk through the first six verses, but I wanna read the whole chapter and you're hearing it's only 23 verses. Proverbs 5. verses one through 23. This is God's word. My son, give attention to my wisdom. Incline your ear to my understanding, that you may observe discretion and your lips may reserve knowledge. For the lips of an adulteress drip honey and smoother than oil is her speech. But in the end, she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death. Her steps take hold of Sheol. She does not ponder the path of life. Her ways are unstable. She does not know it. Now then, my sons, listen to me and do not depart from the words of my mouth. Keep your way far from her and do not go near the door of her house. or you will give your vigor to others, and your years to the cruel one. And strangers will be filled with your strength, and your hard-earned goods will go to the house of an alien, and you groan at your final end when your flesh and your body are consumed. And you say, how I have hated instruction, and my heart spurned reproof. I have not listened to the voice of my teachers, nor inclined my ear to my instruction. I was almost an utter ruin in the midst of the assembly and congregation. Drink water from your own cistern and fresh water from your own well. Should your springs be dispersed abroad, streams of water in the streets? Let them be yours alone and not for strangers with you. Let your fountain be blessed and rejoice in the wife of your youth. As a loving hind and a graceful doe, let her breast satisfy you at all times. Be exhilarated always with her love. For why should you, my son, be exhilarated with an adulteress and embrace the bosom of a foreigner? For the ways of a man are before the eyes of the Lord and he watches all his paths. his own iniquities will capture the wicked, and he will be held in the cords of his sin. He will die for lack of instruction, and in the greatness of his folly, he will go astray. May God bless the reading of his infallible word. The Jewish people at the time of Christ thought that the seventh commandment, you shall not commit adultery, referred only to the physical act. And Jesus dispelled that myth in one of the most memorable and convicting messages ever uttered. He said in Matthew 5, 28 to his astonished audience, but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. Our day and age has become a time wherein violations of this commandment are so commonplace, and immodesty in clothing is so much a part of daily life, and sex and the human body are used to market and sell everything under the sun, that even in the Christian church, many have become desensitized to the fact that in God's eyes, sexual sin, all forms of adultery, are extreme evil. They are extreme evil. God's Word contains innumerable passages condemning sexual sin. But the Bible never condemns sex itself. Sex is a good thing. It's a gift from God. Exercise in the context of marriage between one man and one woman, where there is fidelity and commitment, faithfulness, good communication, affection, kindness, and love. It's one of life's most wonderful blessings. Outside of that, it is the path to the grave. The only reason people get nervous and get fidgety when this topic is brought up is the rebellious world's destruction of this precious gift for married people. Sex for most people is not a source of joy, not a source of marital bonding, not of praise to the Lord, but of shame, disgrace, past memories of soul crippling guilt. Sexual sin is a joy annihilator and a marriage destroyer. I found this past week 50 distinct passages of the Bible addressing sexual sin. There were actually more than that. But what about the blessing of sex and marriage? The Song of Solomon is a glorious book of God's word. It's a much neglected book of God's word. Many passages in it celebrate this marital love, marital intimacy. And there's many passages in Proverbs that do too. We just read one. Consider with me briefly here all the ways and situations and circumstances where sexual sin, not sex itself, but sexual sin is identified and condemned by God. Leviticus 18 and 20, those two chapters list all sorts of sexual sin, including adultery, incest, homosexuality, bestiality, and says these are all detestable to God. Exodus 20, 14, the commandment, you shall not commit adultery. That's one of the 10 commandments. Proverbs 5, half of Proverbs 6, and all of Proverbs 7, warning against adultery and sexual immorality, emphasizing its destructive consequences. Genesis 19, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is linked to sexual sin. Deuteronomy 22 addresses issues of premarital and extramarital sex. 1 Corinthians 6, 9-10 lists sexual immorality, soft effeminacy, homosexuality as sins that prevent people from going to heaven. Galatians 5, 19-21 describes sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery as works of the flesh. Ephesians 5, 3 says sexual immorality should not even be named among believers. Hebrews 13.4 says that the marriage bed is honorable because God will judge the sexually immoral. Genesis 39, Joseph resists the aggressive advances of an adulteress, a Potiphar's wife, and says, how could I do this thing and sin against God? Deuteronomy 23 prohibits prostitution and temple prostitution. Judges 19, the wicked men of Gibeah commit sexual violence leading to judgment. 2 Samuel 11, 2-27, David sinned with Bathsheba and its severe multi-generational consequences. 2 Samuel 13, the account of Amnon's rape of his sister Tamar, which is condemned and leads to turmoil. Proverbs 6.32, a man who commits adultery has no sense. Whoever does so destroys his own life, it says. Jesus said in Matthew 19.9, Jesus says that adultery is the only acceptable reason for divorce. Mark 7.21, Jesus includes sexual immorality among the sins that defile a person and come out of their heart. Romans 1.24-27 describes how people who reject God fall into all forms of sexual depravity, including homosexuality, the desires and the actions. 1 Corinthians 5, that whole chapter, Paul says, that man who's been committing this sexual incest in your church, throw him out, expel him. 1 Corinthians 6, 13, and then 18 to 20, flee sexual immorality. Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. 2 Corinthians 12, 21, Paul fears that some in the church have not repented of impurity, sexual immorality, and debauchery. Colossians, he told the church in Colossae, put to death sexual immorality, impurity, and lust. 1 Thessalonians 4, he told the church in Thessalonica, that you need to abstain from sexual immorality. Revelation 21.8, the sexually immoral are among those thrown into the lake of fire. Numbers 25, the Israelites engaged in sexual immorality with Moabite women and God killed thousands of them for it. Deuteronomy 22, 22 to 24, adultery is condemned not only as a sin, but a crime and is punishable by death. Deuteronomy 27, curses those who engage in incest, bestiality. Judges 16, Samson's downfall. I mean, if the first recorded words you said in the Bible are, I've seen a woman, that's a problem. Romans 13 warns against orgies and drunkenness. Remember, Augustine read that passage, it's not an orgies, not in drunkenness, not in lust, not in impurity, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh. 1 Corinthians 7, I actually deleted a bunch of, I thought this introduction is way too long. There's even more. Revelation 2.20, the church of Thyatira. The church of Thyatira, Jesus had a letter dictated to them and condemned them for tolerating sexual immorality. You would think that's a lot of stuff from the beginning to the end of the Bible. There's a lot of condemnations of sexual sin, but sex is a wonderful thing. Within the context of committed, faithful, godly marriage, read the Song of Solomon. It's a great book of God's Word. It's a wonderful, much neglected book of God's Word. It's truly sad and evil how this wonderful gift has been so corrupted, so debased, so dishonored by our sinful world. But that brings us to our passage here, and I want to give you some words of introduction here. Please remember this. Who wrote this? Who wrote Proverbs 5? Solomon did. 1 Kings 11.1 Solomon's downfall is attributed to his many foreign wives who led him into idolatry. Amazingly enough. He's the guy that wrote this passage. We're gonna look at here the first six verses But listen to this about King Solomon first Kings 11 1 now King Solomon loved many foreign women You know the King James translates that as many strange women What that means is foreigners, a stranger was someone who was outside of Israel, outside of the covenant people of God. Many unbelieving women, is what that's really saying, along with the daughter of Pharaoh, Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the sons of Israel, you shall not associate with them, nor shall they associate with you, for they will surely turn your heart away after other gods. Solomon held fast to these women. He had 700 wives, princesses, and 300 concubines, and his wives turned his heart away. So the man who wrote this passage in Proverbs 5, he knew something about what he was talking about here. Look at verse one. My son, give attention to my wisdom, he says. Incline your ear to my understanding. Now let's talk a little bit more about Solomon. Who was Solomon? He was a man who had some experience with women. I think his experiences were almost uniformly negative. This is the only place in the entire book of Proverbs where Solomon actually uses the phrase, my wisdom. Every other place he says, my son, my son. He says my son 23 times in the book of Proverbs. And it's usually, hear the instruction of a father, hear the instruction of a father. Here it's, listen to my wisdom. He's telling his son, I know some things about women. Incline your ear to my understanding, to my wisdom. I have some things that you would do well to listen to. 700 wives, princesses, and 300 concubines. And these women turn Solomon's heart away from the Lord. Who was Solomon's dad? Who was Solomon's father? David. Solomon's father, David, committed the most infamous act of adultery in all the Bible. Solomon's own father, David, murdered Solomon's biological mothers, Bathsheba's first husband. Imagine sitting down and having that conversation. So what did you do now, dad? Yeah, your mom's first husband, I had him killed. How do you recover from that? Imagine David sitting down with his son from that woman Bathsheba and explaining the whole historical narrative. Solomon is also, we know from scripture, the wisest man who ever walked the face of the earth. We all know the narrative. We know what happened in history. It's an amazing thing. God comes down, Solomon, what can I do for you? What do you want? He says, I want wisdom. 1 Kings 3.12, and behold, God says to Solomon, I have done according to your words. Behold, I have given you a wise and a discerning heart, so that there has been no one like you before you, nor shall one like you arise after you. That's the wisest man ever. We should listen to what he says here. Fathers and sons, Please lay hold of the blessing that it is to have a God-breathed, infallible record of that wisdom for us in the Proverbs, especially concerning such monumental things as sex and marriage and women. Solomon was very wise indeed, but as we know, there is evidently a large gap between possessing wisdom in your heart and translating it into your actions. The wisdom Solomon was given by God, sadly, was not lived out in his life. But he was very wise, nonetheless. It's incredible to consider. The first four chapters of Proverbs. I wanna encourage you, when you go home tonight, don't veg out doing something, do me a favor. Read the first four chapters of Proverbs. It's basically four chapters of advertisement. Please listen, please listen, please listen. If you listen to what I say, you'll have long life and peace. If you listen to what I say, you'll sleep better at night. If you listen to what I say, you'll be safe. I mean, over and over again for four chapters. And then almost the next three chapters are about avoiding sexual sin, avoiding immorality, avoiding the adulterous. It's a huge blessing to have these chapters, to be able to read them as families. Listen to the word. Don't just listen. Don't be a fool. Be teachable. Value wisdom. Let it guard your heart. Let it be something you wear as a necklace. Let it guide the path of your feet. Let it guard your eyes from what you look at. 23 times, my son, he says, 23 times, Fathers in particular, we've got to talk about sex with our children. We have to do this. We want sex to be a blessing to them. Don't you want it to be a blessing to your children and not a curse to them as it is for most people? 15 of the 23 occurrences of my son, my son, 15 out of 23 happened in the first seven chapters. Primarily in the area where he's talking about sexual sin. It's essential that we teach our children, that we teach our sons and our daughters, not just to hate sexual sin. We want them to hate that, but to love purity, to love purity in this area. You know, I grew up in a church and in a time in the 1980s when evangelical churches in general, there was a huge emphasis on what's known as purity culture. Y'all ever heard of purity culture? We went to conferences, we went to talks, special sermons, had guest speakers come in, workshops, seminars, special meetings, listening to adults talk about sexual purity and how important it is. And as a youngster, I will admit, it was a little much. Being 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, and hearing the same stuff over and over and over again. But you know something? It actually made me think. And that was not easy to do when I was that age. What all those speakers said and all those messages and all those special meetings taught us actually made me hesitate and think. And as I've reflected back on all those talks and all those sermons and all those seminars and conferences, I want to tell you something. Everything they said was true. As annoying as it often was, it was true. Everything they warned us about was right on the money. While there are rebellious and foolish young people today actually trying to say that being taught to be sexually pure was a form of abuse, which is pure nonsense, and only another manifestation of how rebellious they are, I'm thankful to God for all those adults, my parents, my pastors, my elders, my mentors, who actually cared enough about me and my peers to warn us and to tell us the truth. I'm glad I had a father that told me this stuff. They taught us to love purity and to hate sexual sin. God blessed them for it. Look at verse one again, and remember who it is who's saying this, his backstory, his family's backstory, the role that sexual sin played in his life for generations. My son, give attention to my wisdom, incline your ear to my understanding, says Solomon. Verse two, that you may observe discretion and your lips may reserve knowledge. Now what is that word discretion? What is that? What does that mean? That Hebrew word mezema, discretion, means thoughtfulness, discernment, wisdom. Son, give me your ear. Give me your attention. I've got some things you need to know. If you do that, if you give me your attention, if you'll listen and treasure in your heart and just do as I say, you will be thoughtful. You will be wise. Your steps will be guarded. You will have discernment. You will not fall into the trap of sexual sin and adultery in all of its forms. Son, I want your lips to have wisdom coming from them so that they're not taken in by the smooth talk of the lips of an adulteress. Son, if you will listen, I will prepare you for her. And when she comes along, so that you're not destroyed by her. But son, you have to listen. Son, give attention to my wisdom. Son, you don't see it yet, you're too young, but please believe me, you need to value what I say. Sons, here, don't be irritated when your fathers talk to you about stuff like this. I was, I'd be like, Dad, believe you me, I don't wanna hear this from you. You'd be like, I don't care. You're gonna hear it anyway. Dads, we gotta talk to them when they're young. It's hard to talk to them when they're full grown men. You can't talk to an 18 year old like they're 10 or 12. Son, let your lips be wise so you're not seduced by the speech of the adulterous. The level of wisdom contained in Proverbs five and half of Proverbs six and all of Proverbs seven about this issue is profound, it's deep. So we're gonna go through it in detail. Look at verse three. For the lips of an adulterous drip honey and smoother than oil is her speech. Are there women like that in churches sometimes? Yeah, sure, certainly, there can be. Her speech is something to watch out for. Proverbs 7.21 says, with her enticing speech, she caused him to yield. With her flattering lips, she seduced him. You ever been flattered by someone? They're complimenting you, but you know they're trying to get something else from you. Young men and young women who are wicked at heart can sometimes be very good at religious talk. If they know it's important to you, they'll find a way to do it to get close to you. The fact is, what you're looking for is integrity. You're looking for integrity in a spouse, integrity in doctrine, integrity in theology. Titus 2.6 says, exhort the young men to be sober minded in all things, showing yourself to be a pattern of good works in doctrine, showing integrity, reverence, and corruptibility. You want someone whose theology is biblical, someone who loves the truth, someone who's a Christian. So we need to have a spouse who has integrity, reverence, incorruptibility in their doctrine. You do not want to end up married to someone who does not understand or believe the biblical gospel What verse three says here is true of an adulteress, but I also wanna say by extension, it's also true of wicked and phony young men. Almost everything in here can be translated to the other gender too. Proverbs 30, verse 18 and 19. Ladies, you might wanna mark that down and put an asterisk by it in your Bible. Proverbs 30, 18 and 19. Listen, there are three things which are too wonderful. Now, the word wonderful there does not mean wonderful in a good sense, but wonderful in the sense of being beyond comprehension. There are three things that are too wonderful for me, yes, for which I don't understand, the way of an eagle in the air, the way of a serpent on a rock, the way of a ship in the midst of the sea, and the way of a man with a virgin. What does that mean? It means a guy will be whatever he thinks you want him to be. He'll smooth talk you, he'll play the role and do whatever's necessary to get near you. It's too wonderful, it's beyond comprehension, the way of a man with a woman he wants to get close to. Too wonderful to be understood is the way of a man with a virgin. Men will become chameleons to get near the girl they want. The way of a man with a virgin, he will study her, figure her out, say the right things, do the right things. But young ladies, you're looking for a Christian man, one who loves and understands the truth, who has doctrinal integrity. He believes and loves the biblical gospel. He loves Jesus's church in this world. He is immovable in his love for the truth, for true doctrine, for sound theology. And he's faithful over the long haul. to the Lord. You see, anyone can look for a short time like they're godly, like they're good. Young men and young women both can do it. But remember this frightening passage of God's Word, 1 Timothy 5, 24. Some men's sins are clearly evident preceding them to judgment, but those of some men follow later. They'll fake you out. They'll trick you for a while, and then you see what they really are. Some men can look like they're godly. Some can even be elders in churches. but their sins eventually find them out. Paul said that, 1 Timothy 5 is about elders. The sins of some guys are clearly evident. It's obvious they're bad guys. The sins of some follow a lot later. The sins of some men follow later. Pray for God's discernment to distinguish between good men and good women from their wicked counterparts. Your heart ought to be hard to win over. It ought to take some effort, some time, faithfulness to the Lord over the long haul to win you over. I say that to both young men and young women. Look at verse three there again of Proverbs 5. For the lips of an adulteress drip honey, and smoother than oil is her speech. To the ancient Hebrew, there was nothing sweeter than honey and nothing smoother than oil. She may look good from the outside, but she may very well be just a pig with a gold ring in her nose. Remember Proverbs 11.22? As a ring of gold and a swine's snout, so is a beautiful woman who lacks discretion. Don't marry someone just because they're a hunk or a babe. When time does its work on them outwardly, what are you left with? The pig. You want a Christian. You want a true believer. You want someone whose first love is the Lord. Because only then will they be able to love you without making you into an idol. You see, the Lord has to be to them what you never could be. God is to me what my wife never could be. She is to me what, God is to me what she never could be. Marry someone who knows what the gospel is. that sinners are justified by faith alone and Christ alone. And they define all those words correctly. Not by baptism, not good works, not by faithfulness, not by anything that we do or anything the Spirit does in us, but Christ's imputed righteousness alone. Make sure they know that and believe that. She may look beautiful and attractive on the outside. Her words are smoother than oil. But what is she really? What is her character like? You know, in Proverbs 7, the young man is described as a dumb ox, led to the slaughter. I mean, it doesn't take much to lure an ox or a chicken for that matter. If you run outside, they all think you got something for them to eat. They all come right over to you. Like, well, if I ever wanted to kill one, I know what I need to do is just go outside. They come over and think I'm gonna feed them. It's just like an ox, he goes, he walks into the slaughter, walks into her slaughterhouse. Be wise. Listen to Solomon. An adulteress is a woman who wants to be sexually immoral, but knows how to use words to entice young men. She's aggressive. She's smooth with her words. She can even sound religious. And guys can even sound religious. She looks great from the outside. She's alluring. She's sweet, smooth, flattering. She builds up your ego. Listen, look at verse four. See verse four? But in the end, she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Okay, stop there. In the end, she'll destroy you. She's bitter as wormwood. Now, I looked up that Hebrew term, the Hebrew term la'ana. Wormwood refers to a bitter, toxic plant in the Middle East. It is the most unpleasant thing that the Hebrew mind could possibly have thought of. You think you're about to taste honey and it's wormwood. It's extremely unpleasant to the taste. As an illustration, long ago we were at a beach. I took a walk early in the morning on the beach and it was beautiful, breezy, the sun playing on the clouds. It was gloriously beautiful and it was a wonderful thing to see. But as the sun came out, I got really thirsty and Came back to the house and one of the things that the kids have done over the years is they leave full glasses of water all over the house. And there was a full glass of water sitting there on the counter. I thought, isn't that a wonderful providence? I'm so thirsty. Went over there and grabbed it. You know, when you're real thirsty, you don't breathe through your nose. So I downed that whole glass and then felt the aftertaste of hydrogen peroxide. And asked what in the world was in that? Oh, we're bleaching our hair. Okay, so you put a couple drops. No, it's more like a third. It may look like a cool refreshing glass of water, but it's got hydrogen peroxide in it. I smell everything now. I don't drink anything without knowing what's in it now. She may look as sweet as honey and her speech may puff up your heart. Make you think that you're something special, but in the end, she's bitter. She's not sweet. She's not smooth. She'll kill you and ruin you and destroy you. You know who knew that? You knew who understood that? The guy that wrote this, Solomon. He understood it. Look at verse five. Her feet go down to death. Her steps take hold of Sheol or the grave. Stop there. Where her feet go, you will go with her if you don't stay away from her. She is headed to the grave, to death, to destruction, to embarrassment, to pain, to heartache, to ruin relationships, to ruin reputations. Son, give attention to my wisdom, says the wisest man ever, whose life had been led badly astray by women. Listen to me, incline your ear to my understanding that you may observe discretion and your lips may reserve knowledge. The adulterous woman's lips will drip honey right in front of you, but it's like bait with a rusted, dirty, barbed hook underneath it. When a young woman flatters you, teases you, flirts with you, throws herself at you, tries to get into your good graces, that's not a woman you want anything to do with. If a girl addresses provocatively, is aggressive towards you, is flirtatious with you, I say, run for your life. Why? Look at verse six, here's why. She does not ponder the path of life. Her ways are unstable. She does not know it. Okay, stop there. Even she doesn't understand how unstable she is. Hers is the path of death, not life. She doesn't ponder the path of life. Death, misery, destruction are the unholy trinity that she wants to introduce you to if you step into that snare. So my son, take my advice. Look at verses seven through 14. Listen to God's word here. Listen to the wisest man who ever addressed this topic. Look at verse seven. Now then my sons, listen to me and do not depart from the words of my mouth. Keep your way far from her and do not go near the door of her house. Or you will give your vigor to others and your years to the cruel one. And strangers will be filled with your strength and your hard earned goods will go to the house of an alien. And you groan at your final end when your flesh and your body are consumed and you say, how I have hated instruction and my heart spurned reproof. I have not listened to the voice of my teachers nor inclined my ear to my instructors. I was almost in utter ruin in the midst of the assembly and congregation. Stop there. There's much more here that we're going to unpack as I speak to you on the Sunday evenings when I speak on Sunday nights. But I want you to notice another passage. Look at Proverbs 6.20. Turn over one chapter there to Proverbs 6.20. Listen carefully to Solomon here. Proverbs 6.20, my son, observe the commandment of your father and do not forsake the teaching of your mother. Bind them continually on your heart, tie them around your neck. When you walk about, they will guide you. When you sleep, they will watch over you. And when you awake, they will talk to you. For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching a light and reproofs of discipline are the way of life to keep you from the evil woman, from the smooth tongue of the adulterous. Do not desire her beauty in your heart. Do you hear that? Don't think about her. Don't sit and mull it over in your mind. Fight against that. Look at the rest of verse 25. Nor let her capture you with her eyelids. Verse 26, for on account of a harlot, one is reduced to a loaf of bread, and an adulteress hunts for the precious life. Can a man take fire in his bosom and his clothes not be burned? You see the peril here? You see the danger of adultery? I wanna encourage y'all something here. Don't look up people on the internet that you used to be involved with. Don't look up exes from the past. Just don't. I've read too many stories, heard too many stories. Don't do it. Don't do that. And I wanna encourage the men here especially, pray every day for two things. Number one, that God would give you a hatred of sexual sin. And if you're married, that God would give you a single-minded devotion to your wife. In every way, thought, imagination, physically, a single-minded devotion to your wife. That's what we promised when we got married, a single-minded devotion to our wife. So young man, I ask you, what kind of a young man are you? There's one more passage I want us to read. We're gonna unpack these in more detail, but just gotta read this passage. Look at Proverbs 7, 6. Look at Proverbs 7, verse 6. Proverbs 7, verse 6. Listen carefully, follow along here, verse 6. For at the window of my house, I looked out through my lattice and I saw among the naive and discerned among the youths, a young man lacking sense." I wanna ask you, is that you? Are you naive? Are you lacking sense? He says, I looked out the window and saw him, there he is, there's that dope. Look at verse eight. Passing through the street near her corner and he takes the way to her house and the twilight in the evening, in the middle of the night and in the darkness, And behold, a woman comes to meet him dressed as a harlot and cunning of heart. She's boisterous and rebellious. Her feet do not remain at home. She is now in the streets, now in the squares and lurks by every corner. So she seizes him and kisses him. And with a brazen face, that means a defiant look, she says to him, I was due to offer peace offerings. Today I have paid my vows. You see the religious talk there? Pious sounding. Verse 15, therefore I have come out to meet you, to seek your presence earnestly, and I have found you. You hear that flattery? Oh, you're so special. You're so handsome. You're so sweet. Verse 16, I have spread my couch with coverings, with colored linens of Egypt. I have sprinkled my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon. Come, let us drink our fill of love until morning. Let us delight ourselves with caresses. For my husband is not at home. He has gone on a long journey. He has taken a bag of money with him. At the full moon, he will come home. Verse 21, with her many persuasions, she entices him. With her flattering lips, she seduces him. Suddenly he follows her as an ox goes to the slaughter or as one in fetters to the discipline of a fool until an arrow pierces through his liver. That's a fatal wound. And as a bird hastens to the snare so he does not know that it will cost him his life. What are we? Are we naive? Are we simple? Are we just the young dope walking around the street and First time we meet someone like this, they're going to grab us and we're going to fall. You know, I was asked to speak many years ago in Ohio to a group of teenage young men on a camping trip. And I did three talks about this issue. And we read Proverbs 5, 6, and 7. Read all these same passages. Unpacked each one of them. And one of those young men came to me a few years later and said, yeah, I met her. And I failed. But thanks for trying. I can still see his face, the regret, the shame on it. It just illustrated this very thing, what this passage is teaching us. Don't be one of those rebellious, foolish young people who says or thinks, I want to learn everything on my own. Take it from Solomon. No, you don't. No, you don't. Such is the thinking of a fool. Listen to instruction and be wise instead. Be happy instead. Push misery aside, listen to wisdom. When you think about Jesus dying on the cross, there's a lot of adultery that he died for. A lot of forms of sexual sin that he bled and was punished by the Father to take away from us. And all of us can be thankful. There's not a single person in this room who is perfectly sexually chaste, not one. We've all sinned. We've all violated this commandment. But by the grace of God, we can overcome. By the grace of God, we can be more godly. By the grace of God, we can be like Joseph. And when that aggressive person comes towards you, you stiff arm them. You have nothing to do with them. You pray. If you're young and you're not married, pray that God would give you a single-minded devotion to that one person you're gonna be married to, and that you would save yourself, all of you, for them. And know also that God's the God of new beginnings. That you can put the past aside. You can ask His forgiveness. You can ask for restoration. And God will grant it. God will help us. So I want to encourage you. Learn. Learn from Solomon. Learn from these inspired chapters. And remember, Proverbs 1-4 is a giant advertisement saying, please listen to what I'm about to tell you. Please just listen to this. And then Proverbs 5, 6, and 7 is the parable of adultery. Let's be thankful Jesus died for our adultery, that he died for our sexual sins. And by the grace of God, we don't have to live that way. We can be holy. We can be godly. We can enjoy sex on our marriage the way that God intended us to. Let's pray. Father, we bless your name and praise you for your forgiveness and your mercy, for your kindness to us. We thank you for the gift that this is. And Lord, it breaks our hearts that our culture's destroyed this wonderful gift and made a mockery of it. It's used to market and sell things, but we pray that you'd help us to think biblically about these things. And we pray especially for the young people here who live in such a toxic, debauched culture. that they would be pillars of light, that they would shine brightly in their purity and their holiness, and that if it's your will for them to be married, that they would glorify and honor you with their bodies, which are the temple of your Holy Spirit. We ask in Jesus's name, amen.