Burning Ring of Fire

Let's take our copies of God's word and turn to Proverbs 5. You know, the Bible is a lot of things. One thing it's not is irrelevant. God created us. He created this world and this life. He knows how it works best. And he really loves you and he loves me. And he wants us to live an abundant life that he designed us for. But that means we've got to listen to him speak into every part of our lives. We don't want to compartmentalize the Lord and his word into Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights to tell us how to sing or how to read the Bible, but not speak into how we do business, how we discipline our speech, or how we conduct ourselves sexually in this world. And that's what the Lord wants to talk to us about today in Proverbs 5.

Like I said, we're in a series in Proverbs. I didn't just wake up this morning and decide that we're gonna hit some of these direct and intimate issues. When we work through books of the Bible, we're just asking the Lord to set the agenda. We're saying, "Lord, we don't really know what we need to hear about, but you do, so you just tell us what we need to hear and we're gonna do our best to listen." That's our attitude as we turn to Proverbs 5.

And I want to make a pledge to you. I want to preach this like a Christian gentleman. Paul says in Ephesians 5, let there be no crude talking, foolish speech, coarse jesting. That's out of place among the saints. Instead, let there be thanksgiving. And I want to speak and talk to you about these important things as someone who's under the lordship of Jesus Christ. We want to honor him.

We also don't have to be embarrassed before him. And that's what's so wonderful about this. We want the Lord to teach us about everything in life, including this. And we've got nothing to fear when we open up to him. I love that we're so safe under the lordship of Jesus. Whatever your starting point is for this message, if you've had this poured into you all your life, or if this is brand new to you, if you're someone whose adult life and mature years are out in front of you, or you're just getting started like this son who's in the text, that's wonderful. We're going to try to get out in front of some things. But if you're on the other side of some of this and maybe you've made some mistakes, or maybe you haven't just made mistakes, but you knew what God said and you chose not to do it and you've suffered for it, I want you to know that this is right where you need to be. The Lord has a word for you. It's a word of truth and it's a word of grace. And we can open up to him as he speaks to us. So with that in mind, would you take your bible and stand with me as we honor the reading of God's word?

Several weeks ago, my family was on vacation doing a lot of driving into East Tennessee and across Georgia and into South Carolina. And we kept coming across these billboards of a familiar character from my childhood who I hadn't seen in a long time, Smokey the Bear. He's making a comeback. He was all over the place. Is anybody familiar with Smokey The Bear? It's this big national campaign that says, "only you can prevent forest fires." And all these billboards had the silhouette of Smokey on it with these families having fun out in the woods, camping and building fires. And we all understand what this campaign is about. We all know how good it is to have a fire when you're out in the cold. A fire can cook your food. A fire can give you light so that you see what's going on around you.

I once heard a short story by Jack London called, "To Build a Fire." His life depended on his ability to start a fire out in the snow and in the ice, in this Arctic kind of a region. A fire is so good when it's contained inside that little circle of bricks or stones. When it's in its right place, a fire is one of the greatest gifts of God to man. But if you get that fire out of its context, a fire is really powerful, and you better respect it. You better not play with matches kid. You better not mess around and get reckless with the power of fire, because you can set the forest ablaze. You can set yourself on fire. You can do all kinds of damage you never intended to do just because you didn't understand the power and the purpose of fire.

You know, that's exactly how the father in Proverbs talks to his son about sex and sexuality. What he tells us in Proverbs 5, he's also gonna bring it up in Proverbs 6 and 7, and some other places too. He wants his son to understand that sex is a good gift from God, He want his son to understand that if we let God the creator, the designer, teach us about its purpose and its right context, then we can enjoy sex and sexuality to the max. It can be one of the greatest blessings of our lives. It can be one of the best and happiest parts of our lives.

But if you decide that you know better than God, that you don't need to listen to him, that you've kind of got this area of your life under control, that you can just kind of do what you see everybody else doing, if you're reckless and careless with this powerful, sophisticated gift that God's given to us, well, you can fall into a burning ring of fire. You can set yourself on fire. You can cause all kinds of destruction to other people that you never intended to do. And sex can become the greatest curse of your life. Now, there are lots of good people who would say this has become the greatest curse of my life.

And the father speaking to this young man or young woman before they leave the home and start making independent decisions out on the road of life (that's the original setting), he wants to save them from that if he can. What he's telling them is what God is telling to all of us. We walk through a world of sexual foolishness, but God wants to help you walk through that world with sexual wisdom to lead you on that path of light and life like Proverbs 4:18 was talking about last week. You will either live in this world sexually wise or sexually foolish. And the decision you make by God's grace will make a tremendous difference in your life. So the stakes are high and God wants to help us today. Are you ready? Ready or not, here we come.

Notice verse 1, "My son, be attentive to my wisdom. Incline your ear to my understanding." He says, "I need you to lean in and I need you to focus. We've been talking about wisdom in kind of this general sense, but we're honing in on an important topic here. I need you to understand some things about sex that the world doesn't understand, things that the world's not gonna teach you, that the world can't teach you."

Here's what you need to know. God created sex. He doesn't blush when we bring it up. He's not embarrassed about it. It's his idea. He doesn't want us to keep that part of our lives separate from him. He designed it. Every generation of young people thinks that they discovered sex. "Nobody else understands it, nobody else has ever heard of this thing before. Nobody else knows what this is all about." Yeah, keep telling yourself that kid. How do you think that you got here? No, God created sex. It's his design. It's his idea. And he designed it to be such a good gift in your life! God put in you those strong desires and interest about sex that you either have right now or will have as you get older. That was his idea. That's a good thing. That's not something to be ashamed of or feel backward about. God put that there because he designed sexual intimacy in its right context to bring oneness and fulfillment and joy to your marriage. It's a beautiful expression of love and commitment and fidelity and honor. In this context, it's nothing to be ashamed of. It brings glory to God.

But this gift of God, this gift of sex, it is so powerful that it can be dangerous. Some of y'all work with electricity. You know how amazing electricity is, how powerful it is, how helpful it is to all of us. But you better know what you're doing and you better respect how powerful it all is. You would never unleash our two-year-old preschool class to rewire a house or to work at the powerhouse at the dam. They'd kill themselves, and they'd kill a bunch of other people too. No, you have to respect this. You've got to understand how it works. The world treats sex like a toddler would treat electricity. But they understand that it's fun and exciting, and it kind of draws the world and they know that it's good and so they're drawn to it but they don't know what they're dealing with. They don't understand how powerful it is.

You can hear it in the conversations around you, on the TV, shows that you watch, in the music that's popular. It's just in the air. It's everywhere. The world is obsessed with sex, but it doesn't know what it's for. It doesn't understand it. I mean, I remember my first day of middle school. I was in seventh grade because I was 12 years old. But something changed from Dyersburg intermediate school to Dyersburg middle school. Because the second I set foot in the seventh grade, everybody was talking in an incredibly vulgar and uninformed way about sex. And nothing changed for the next six years. I was swimming in that until I graduated from high school.

That's what everyone is talking about it. Everyone has opinions about it. Everyone thinks that they're an expert on it, but nobody's listening to God, the one who created it. And so they're inflicting massive damage. It's like this image in verse 6, which is so powerful. It's someone who's wandering off a path, not thinking about where they're going, not realizing that they're even on a path wandering down to death. And if you don't have your mind right, you're gonna follow the world. You're gonna let the world lead you to pain and to destruction and to regret if you don't listen to the Lord. You can be somebody who loves God, somebody who loves the Bible, you can be a sweet little church kid, but if you don't have your mind right and get some wisdom from the Lord and pay attention to what he says, this area of your life is going to lead you to a bad place. Is that true? That is true. That's what the father tells his son.

So he says, "listen, I am begging you. Just let God teach you. Let God teach you how to discern between the real and the counterfeit, between sex that is life-giving and sex that is life-taking. Because when you get out on the road of life, young man, young woman, middle-aged man, middle-aged woman, old man, old woman, you will fill the pull of verse 3. You will feel the pull to follow these strong God-given sexual desires into places that God has marked "forbidden," off-limits, restricted. Don't go there. It's not good for you. That's what verse 3 is talking about, "for the lips of a forbidden woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil." The world thinks there are no forbidden areas, but a forbidden sexual situation according to God the designer is any time we try to gain the pleasures and the benefits of sex outside of its God designed context. So this dad seems to be warning his son about adultery. That's having a sexual encounter with someone else's spouse, someone else's husband or wife. But it could just as easily be talking about premarital sex, which is trying to get the benefits of a sexual relationship without the covenant commitment that's meant to protect it, or any of the responsibility that comes along with marriage. You could be talking about same-sex activity. You could be talking about pornography: the ability to extract the thrill and the excitement of a sexual encounter without any of the required self-giving and love to another person that God meant for it.

And what the dad tells his son is, "listen, the pull is gonna be strong. The pull is not strong for dirty people or perverted people or godless people, it's strong for people, because God made you with these desires. That's not wrong. It's right. But if you don't understand it, it's gonna pull you into some bad places because sexual temptation is going to tap into those desires and it's going to present itself like honey. That's the image he uses in verse 3. It's going to seem in that moment sweet, delicious, satisfying. It's going to look good to you. It's going to sound good to you. The words of this other person are gonna flatter you. They're gonna make you feel noticed and wanted. And let's get real, that is an electrifying feeling. Someone outside of you affirming you: "I see you. I notice you. I like you. I want you. I find you attractive." That is an electrifying feeling, and it's gonna electrify you, and you're gonna forget everything else you've ever been taught in that moment if you don't have wisdom. These words are gonna make you think that this person sees something in you they don't see in anyone else. You're gonna think that this person listens to you and cares about you like other people don't. It's gonna sound right to you. You are going to want to forget everything in the passion of the moment. This is when thought goes out the window.

This is what every pop song is about. I can only think of old songs like, Dierks Bentley, "What Was I thinking?" Right? I mean, you pretty much get the thesis of all the songs, in that right? I wasn't thinking. Some other things took over, passion took over, hormones took over, a surge of desire took over. And look, those things aren't wrong. God has a place for that. See the end of chapter 5. But it's got to be regulated by the wisdom of God, because don't be fooled: The reality of forbidden sex is nothing like the appearance of forbidden sex.

Verse 4: "But in the end." Right? None of us wants to think about the end of the story in the passion of the moment. But the wise person knows there is always an end to the story, and it's on the way. It's inevitable and it's gonna hurt. And it won't be anything like that presentation. That appearance of honey, in the end, she is bitter as wormwood. You could say, "He is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two edged sword. Her feet go down to death." What happened to the honey? You've been pulled into the shell game. You thought you were getting one thing. You ended up with something else. You're left with only sharp and bitter consequences. And what the dad says is, "Look, I love you so much, but this will be your story if you don't pay attention to what God's word says, what God's wisdom says about how to skillfully navigate this area of your life. You've got to understand that the pull is strong and you are susceptible to the pull.

This may be a good time for self reflection. Do you think of yourself as susceptible to this pull? That would be the first step in wisdom. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10, "let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall." You are susceptible to the pull. A really well known preacher who I've had dinner with and been influenced by, 73 years old, had to step down from a massive global ministry because of sexual foolishness this week. So I wish there was a time limit on this deal, but apparently there's not one. And I'm certainly not speaking from a position of self-righteousness or self-security or self-assuredness. I got a long way to go. And I need the Lord's help. We all need to see that we need the Lord's help. There is a pull that wisdom understands.

When we understand how strongly we are pulled to damaging sexual foolishness, we'll start taking it seriously. And that's what verse 8 is saying, "Keep your way far from her. Do not go near the door of his house." He's saying, look, you kinda need to be scared of this. The kids say, "dad, you're starting to scare me a little bit." "Good. You need to be scared of this. You don't need to see how close you can get to forbidden sexual scenarios. Don't assume it's always going to be somebody else who gets pulled into that. Do not think that you can play with this and stay in control. You will not. That's why Paul tells Timothy in the New Testament, "Flee from youthful passions," just like Joseph in Genesis 39. He ran out of there when Potiphar's wife approached him. Did people think he was crazy and uptight? Probably. Who cares! He lived and he kept his integrity before God.

So don't mess with this. Don't make the flirtatious remark. Don't harbor that thought, "man, this person really gets me. My wife doesn't get me like this." Don't do that. Don't send that suggestive text. Y'all don't get tipsy in mixed company. We can talk about getting tipsy all on its own at a different day. Let's just keep it right here right now. Don't take the edge off. Keep the edge on when you're around somebody else's spouse, someone who's not your spouse, because you're gonna start looking at things you shouldn't look at, thinking about things you shouldn't be thinking about, reaching out and doing things that you shouldn't reach out and do. You start getting ideas that you wouldn't get if you had that full filter on. Y'all know what I'm talking about. You better keep the edge on. You need it. You do enough dumb stuff with the filter, right? We don't need anything taking the filter down. Don't form that emotional bond with someone who's not your spouse.

Be willing to take inconvenient and costly steps to keep your purity and to keep your integrity for goodness sake. Jesus says if your right hand causes you to sin, it would be better to cut it off and go to heaven with one hand than to go into hell with you. So it's ok if it costs you something. What that means is if you have to quit your job and sell your house and live in a darn box and pick up cans to eat, do it to keep your integrity before God. I guarantee you, it won't cost you as much as the pain that verses 9-14 are talking about. So if you have to get rid of your iPhone today and get some old school flip phone or a pager or send smoke signals, I don't care! Love your life, love yourself enough to take the steps you need to take. Some of us are so urgent about so many things in life that are trifling, that make no difference to us, that we won't remember in 10 years. And we are absolutely cavalier with this. I don't get it.

We talked several weeks ago about all those different traps that Sunday school teacher brought into his sixth grade Sunday school class. He laid them out in the gym, he blindfolded the kid, and then he had to trust his dad to walk him through all that to get him safely around the traps. And there were little squirrel traps and rat traps and then there were some bear traps. Sexual sin, that's the bear trap. That's the one that takes your leg off at the hip. That's the one you don't just get over in a couple of days. And that's what he's describing in verses 9-14.

This area can damage your heart. It can damage your reputation. It can damage your relationships and your conscience. It can damage your body. That's what he's trying to warn us against. Verse 9, "Lest you give your honor to others." Y'all, there is an honorable way to pursue sex. Hebrews 13:4 says, "let marriage be held in honor by all." 1 Thessalonians 4:4, Paul says, "learn how to control your own body with honor," talking about sexual integrity and fidelity. We want to handle ourselves in this area with honor, in a way that raises the esteem of Christ and raises the esteem of other people, that raises the esteem of ourselves before God and man.

Sexual recklessness will dishonor you and dishonor others. Verse 9, "and give your years to the merciless." He's thinking about the people who are hurt by our sexual sin. It never just impacts you. You can read the story of David in the second part of 2 Samuel. There were ripple effects to his decision of one afternoon. You can make some merciless enemies that you have to deal with for life. You can squander years of trust that you spent investing in and building up. You can ruin some precious relationships. You can create tension and embarrassment where there was once freedom and joy.

Verse 10, "lest strangers take their fill of your strength and your labors go to the house of a foreigner." He says, sexual foolishness in a unique way can make a slave out of you. You feel so free. You know, you're like Tom petty, you're free falling in that moment. Maybe he's talking about doing drugs. I don't know. Sex or drugs, it's kind of all the same. You feel so free in that moment, but it's gonna make a slave, it's gonna consume your life. That's what verse 10 is talking about. It's gonna bring complication. You're either spending your strength trying to conceal and cover up what you've got going on or you're laboring to manage all of the fallout, maybe through divorce courts or alimony or any number of things. It's gonna consume your life. It's gonna cost you a lot more than you think it's gonna cost you.

And then verses 11-14 give a picture of a man's bitter regret at the end of his life. And you can read it for yourself.

I do want you to hear the full counsel of God on this deal. Sexual sin is by no means the unpardonable sin. We're gonna talk about that in just a second. But Paul is really honest in 1 Corinthians 6:18 when he says it leaves some unique scars. He says every other sin a man commits is outside of his own body. When you sin sexually, you're kind of sining against yourself. It's something that you carry around with you. It comes in so close. It's so intimate. And so we want to handle this with care. And we want to listen to what the Lord says. We want to walk in the fear of the Lord, walk closely to him.

But as sad as verses 11-14 are, I want you to know that they point out the way of hope. Because we read here, someone who says, "How I hated discipline. My heart despised reproof. I did not listen." This is someone who's come to the end of themselves because of their choices and they're owning their sin. I did this. I chose not to listen to God. Now I'm reaping the consequences. What I want you to know this morning is that is the first step towards life. Jesus can work with that. Jesus can make a new creation out of verses 11-14.

Paul says to the church at Corinth, "look, none of those early church folks who were getting saved in the first century and pouring into these churches that Paul's pastoring, none of these people were monks and nuns. You know what I'm saying? I mean, they lived in the Greco-Roman world, and it was wild out there. So they're all coming in with a lot of sexual brokenness when they come to Jesus. And they enter these churches and Paul says, "look," after he lists all kinds of forms of sexual immorality, adultery, and homosexuality and all these different kinds of things, "Such were some of you." Church people! The people I'm looking at. That was you.

But guess what? You've been washed, you've been justified. You have been sanctified. You have been given an eternal inheritance in the kingdom of Christ. Jesus loves you and he's made you clean. You've got a different story moving forward from here and there may be some earthly consequences and ramifications of the choices that you made. But Jesus can help you with those too. He'll walk with you through every one of them. He won't be embarrassed by you. He won't be ashamed of you. He will hold you up. He will be the best friend you've ever had who will never leave you, never forsake you, never embarrass you, never dishonor you. He will be faithful. And so there is such hope for all of us.

Nobody in here is unmarked by sexual foolishness. Jesus says, if you look on a woman with lust, you've committed adultery in your heart. None of us is coming in here from a position of perfect righteousness and purity. And Jesus says, I want you to come to me and be cleansed and forgiven. But then I want you to let me teach you and lead you how to walk in wisdom. There's the pain that wisdom avoids. We want to avoid this by the grace of God. Whatever days we have left, we may have squandered many years in sexual foolishness, but the years we have left, the days we have left, we want to spend them avoiding brokenness, and walking in the light, and the wisdom, and the grace of Jesus Christ. Amen. We come to a close.

Now, why has God spent all this time warning us about sexual counterfeits out in the world? Answer: because God hates sex? No. Because God wants you to enjoy the real thing that he created. Verse 15, "drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own well." God is saying through this father, "look, you have a thirst for sexual pleasure and the relational closeness that comes along with sexual intimacy. You have a thirst for that and that is not wrong. God put that in you and he did not put that in you just to frustrate you and to say that you can't have it, and to deny you of it. But he wants you to satisfy it in the right way, in an exclusive, loving, committed marriage. That is the context for maximum enjoyment of God's gift. Look, it's the devil who wants you to think that God is always out to restrict your pleasure and your joy. That is not true.  There's some people who blow through the church at Ephesus telling all the church people that it would be more spiritual, more Godly to not get married, or if you are married to stop  living in the same house with your spouse, to be celibate, to not have sex ever again. Paul calls that a doctrine of demons because it is rejecting a good gift that God created for his children to receive with thanksgiving because it's sanctified by the word of God in prayer.

That's what God's talking about here. So, just three things and then we're done. What does God want to give us when we pursue sexuality his way?

Drink from water from your own cistern and flowing water from your own well. A husband and wife can say to one another under God, "All of me is for all of you forever, and for you alone forever." A husband and wife can say to one another, "What we share is too intimate and too holy to cheapen by giving it to a stranger. Now, God created sex to be physically enjoyable as he'll talk about in the next verses. But he also created it for more than that. When you get married, you hear this at wedding ceremonies, God creates a one flesh union that's from Genesis 2. It's a unique relationship. It's closer than your relationship with your parents. It's closer than your relationship with your siblings, closer than your relationship with your best friend. It's unique. It's a one flesh union, and sexual intimacy is meant to be the expression of that union. It's the physical expression of this relationship that God created. It involves you making yourself totally vulnerable to another person, allowing yourself to be totally known. Right? Giving all of you to all of them. And if you're in a covenant of marriage, you can do that freely without fear of comparison or competition or rejection. Because you made a vow before God that protects this. It's exclusive. It's not going anywhere. That's a precious gift to have--that kind of security and freedom.

That's why Godly sex in marriage strengthens the relationship far beyond just that evening that you spend together. It does something to strengthen your relationship. It reinforces that intimate bond that God created. And it's also why sex outside of marriage leaves you feeling so hurt and cheated and betrayed because there's a deep giving of yourself to someone else. You're thinking that you're getting something reciprocal that's gonna last. And when it doesn't, it leaves scars. And so we want to keep God's way sacred. God's way of sex is sacred.

If you read those verses, there's nothing restrictive about them, "let your fountain be blessed and rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely deer, a graceful doe." I wouldn't recommend that maybe for an anniversary card. "Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight, be intoxicated always in her love." One of God's designs for sex and marriage is procreation. Having children, being fruitful and multiplying, that's really important, especially in our day. We'll talk about it on another day because that's not what Proverbs 5:18-20 are focused on. The stress here is on the pure delight that this son and his wife can know together as they submit to God's way of sexuality. We see from those verses, they're attractive to one another. They rejoice in one another. They are intoxicated in one another, and it's all mutual.

We won't just linger here forever, but we should make this really clear. There's nothing demanding or demeaning or taking or abusive about this relationship. That's what pornography is all about. And if you view pornography, that's going to shape the way that you think about sexuality. It's going to warp what you think this other person is for. You think of them as an object for your own gratification. That's not what God intended for this sexual union. Instead, it's all about serving and giving and honoring. It's a beautiful act of love. We might note that the words, "at all times" and "always" in verse 19 indicate that this is an important part of this marriage relationship, an ongoing part of the marriage relationship, believe it or not.

Paul the Apostle in 1 Corinthians 7 warns Christian spouses not to remain apart for too long, even to pray, even to commit themselves to the Lord! He says, you don't need to do that for too long. Because sexual intimacy in marriage under God's design, it's going to bond your union together and it's also going to protect you from sexual temptation. This is your one legitimate outlet for these deep desires, for this deep thirst that God put in you. And we want to make the most of that. We want to utilize God's good gift and provision.

Now, I want to quickly say on the other side of that, we're coming to a close. You can't wield that verse in 1 Corinthians 7 as a weapon. Paul goes so far to say in 1 Corinthians 7, the wife doesn't have authority over her own body. The husband doesn't have authority over his own body. They belong to one another. And yes, that is true. But you cannot just walk into your home and open up to 1 Corinthians 7 and demand your rights. You can't do that. We need to remember sexual intimacy is an expression of this total relationship that you have. It's meant to express the love, tenderness, and consideration that's going on all the time. So you can't talk to your spouse like a dog all day long and expect Proverbs 5 in your life. That's not going to happen. You can't not listen to your spouse, not consider your spouse, neglect your spouse, never be around your spouse. You cannot do that and expect a Proverbs 5 marriage. That's not going to happen. I'd say if a brother wants Proverbs 5 in his life, he might conduct himself as one who is seeking Proverbs 5 in his life, in his home, with his marriage. Listen to your wife, talk to her with tenderness, love her, sacrifice for her. She's got burdens. Take them on yourself. Don't dump more on her. Also, take a shower. You know? I mean, just basic actions of consideration for this other person. It's not all about you. If you want to find your way here to Proverbs 5:18-20 you might conduct yourself in a worthy manner.

Just look at verse 21. "For a man's ways are before the eyes of the Lord and he ponders all his paths." Here's the best thing about all of this, under the covenant of marriage there's nothing sneaky about sex. It's not dirty, it's not wrong, it's nothing to feel guilty about or embarrassed about. It leaves no bitterness or sharpness like we talked about earlier. Your ways are before the Lord. You say, "that kind of freaks me out." Well, you need a bigger vision of God. All your ways are before the Lord. And God blesses this union. God blesses this relationship. God blesses this act in his eyes. It is clean and holy and good and right. He calls it blessed. On the other hand, verses 22-23 describe the individual who ignores God's wisdom and is snared by lack of discipline, led astray by the world, held fast in the cords of his own making. There's nothing safe about that.

So I want to encourage you as I want to encourage myself, as we declare how much we need the Lord's grace and mercy in this area as in every area of our life, whatever time we've got left in this world, we want to spend it walking with Jesus Christ in the light of his truth and his wisdom, avoiding the brokenness that we will all stumble into if left to ourselves.

Whatever your life situation may be at this moment, you will walk in the blessedness that Jesus has for you as you live under his lordship. Let's talk to the Lord about it. Let's pray.

Sermon by Eric Smith
Senior Pastor, Sharon Baptist Church