Dennis Tuuri

We turn to Proverbs 5 for the sermon scripture this week. Proverbs 5. This week we’ll begin at verse 15. Proverbs 5:15-23. Hear the command word of the Lord.

“Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well. Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets. Let them be only thine own, and not strangers with thee. Let thy fountain be blessed, and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe. Let her breast satisfy thee at all times, and be thou ravished always with her love. And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger? For the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord, and he pondereth all his goings. His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins. He shall die without instruction, and in the greatness of his folly, he shall go astray.”

Okay. At this time, the younger children may be dismissed to go to their Sabbath schools. We continue this afternoon in the series of sermons on the seven deadly sins. And essentially, we’re just going to try to pick up what we didn’t get to last week from last week’s outline. So the outline I’ve got this week is pretty much the same as last week.

I made a few little changes, mostly, for instance, under point one, how the verse references are listed. We’ll get to that for a minute why I did that. And then I added some verses down in the second half of the outline where we’ll deal with some things today. Mostly we’re going to review what we talked about last week and then move on and finish this up. And so we’ll be done with the teachings of the Proverbs in terms of the seventh deadly sin of lust and specifically the strange woman and the warnings against it.

We talked last week beginning about the prominence of the warnings against this particular sin and the development of biblical wisdom. And I wanted to mention that the song we sang this morning at the opening of worship, we’ll be singing that same song next week. Might sing it a couple of weeks in a row. I’m not sure. I want us to learn that song for several reasons. One, it’s based on that portion of scripture in the book of Isaiah where the angel song that’s recorded in Isaiah in worship before God’s throne is repeated.

And so it’s kind of like inspired worship and then secondly I think that the tune is very good because it puts us, at least in my mind, in mind that we are an army of God and that we are here for a reason—that our worship is not just an escapist sort of a thing. It’s preparatory rather for the tasks that God gives us to do. Remember the model of worship is God calls us to worship, we confess our sins, fall down dead, he raises us up, he then instructs us for a task. And throughout the scriptures, when you see men coming into God’s presence to worship, the purpose of all that is to give God glory and honor, of course, but then it’s that God has a message that he wants his messengers to take into the world.

And so that’s holy warfare. And so that’s what we’re involved with. And I bring that up again here. One, to tell you why I chose that song, why we’re going to learn it. And then secondly, and by the way, we did learn it—many of us did at family camp. And it’s got a catchy tune that you’ll be able to catch on to pretty quickly. But I also bring it up to remind us why we talked about the prominence of these warnings last week: the enfeeblement of the nature of the sin, so in terms of spiritual warfare.

So I, looking briefly again at the prominence of these warnings, and as I said, I laid the verses out a little bit differently under subpoint one on your outline. You’ve got 2, 5, 6, 7, 9, and that style, and that’s kind of to help you remember a couple of things here. Recognize that out of the first nine chapters, which are the introduction to the proverbs that then follow, a series of what Dr. Bahnsen has called jaw-breakers, that follow. The first section is introductory to that and lays the foundation of what those proverbs are intended to do and accomplish in our lives. So that introductory section is real important for understanding the book of Proverbs.

And out of those first nine chapters, references to this particular sin are mentioned in five of those nine chapters. That’s a lot of them. And two of those first nine chapters, Proverbs 5 and Proverbs 7, are given totally over to a discussion of this particular sin and fall and warning against the strange woman. And so that’s why 5 and 7 are in the same position on the outline. Two and 9 are in the same position because Proverbs 2—remember we talked about how Proverbs 2 tells us, as we just read in the responsive reading of Proverbs 2. It should be in your mind still. You can just turn back to there if you’d like in your order of service or Proverbs 2 in your scriptures.

Verse 10 says that when wisdom entereth into the heart, knowledge is pleasant unto the soul. Then discretion happens, understanding happens. For what purpose? Two purposes. One, to deliver you from the evil man, verse 12, and then verse 16, to deliver thee from the strange woman. And then both those things are summed up essentially in verses 21 and 22, that you may live on the land, that you may have victory, and that the evildoers will be rooted out.

And so this, again, is preparation for really spiritual warfare and blessing from God as opposed to curse. So Proverbs 2 gives an introduction saying that when these things that I’m going to teach you—when that wisdom enters into your heart and you practice it and discern it—then the results of all that is to keep you from the strange man, the evil man, and the strange woman. So it’s a summation.

Proverbs 9, the last few verses, and we’ll get to this in a couple of minutes in more detail, but Proverbs 9 ends with a discussion of the strange woman again, or the foolish woman in that case, in the last few verses of Proverbs 9. And that’s immediately prior to going into Proverbs 10, listing those whole series of individual jaw-breaker sort of proverbs. So nine is also kind of a summation of the introduction and of the book, and we’ll get to that in a couple of minutes.

So two and nine are in the same position because they sum up the purpose of the book. Five and seven are in the same position because they’re both devoted wholly to a consideration of the strange woman and how to avoid that sin. Proverbs 6 is stuck in there. Remember Proverbs 6, there’s about the last half of Proverbs 6 is a series of verses, and the whole point of Proverbs 6 is to talk about the damnation, the curses that come upon the one who falls into that sin. Looks good, but it isn’t. And he gives an extended description of why it’s bad.

And so if you want kind of an alliteration to help you think about that: Proverbs 5 is essentially doctrine. Proverbs 5 talks about the dos and don’ts—actually, the don’ts and dos. And we’ve read that last week. We’ll continue today. And mostly last week, we talked about the don’ts: know what the strange woman is like and don’t do those things. Keep away from her. We’ll talk, we’ll review that. And then there’s some dos in terms of the right woman, your wife, those of us who are married.

So five is like doctrine—dos and don’ts or don’ts and dos. Six is dangers to avoid, laying out the dangers. And then seven is a drama of this sin’s occurrence. In Proverbs 7, we’ll look at this in a couple of minutes. There’s a play pictured, so to speak, about a simple young man who goes out and gets seduced by the strange woman. And that’s important. So you’ve got didactic sort of teaching. You’ve got the dangers laid out in six. And then in seven, a drama to put it all together for us.

And as I said, two and nine are kind of like summations or introductory sort of material.

Okay. And as we said, one of the things you want to remember from all of this is that the prominence—and I’ll make this point once, I might make it twice, three times, I’m not sure, but I’ll at least make it once today. As I said last week, there’s more going on with these instructions about the strange woman than simply avoiding the sin of lust. And when we look at Proverbs 9 in a couple of minutes, it will probably become somewhat obvious to you that one of the things that’s going on, in addition to the specific warning about this specific physical sin, is warnings against false wisdom as opposed to true wisdom.

In chapter nine, we’ll do that. We’ll look in a couple of minutes. It contrasts true wisdom and then the foolish woman, who is really the strange woman. So don’t go away from here thinking that Proverbs is all about the specific sin of sexual lust and that’s it. Sexual lust is being warned against, but it’s being warned against also with another layer to this thing that talks about false wisdom. And it’s very important to realize that.

So false wisdom is being talked about as the strange woman as well as the temptations to sexual lust. Solomon is a great picture of all that for us. And of course, many of these—most of these—are his proverbs. Why is Solomon a good picture? Well, Solomon entered into this sin, didn’t he? With strange women. The scriptures tell us specifically Solomon loved many strange women—okay?—foreign women, women other than his original wife and women actually from other lands.

And then it goes on to say that those strange women led Solomon into various forms of idolatry, or false worship, or false wisdom rather—false worship based on false wisdom. And so in Solomon’s life, you know, if you turn this into just an allegory to say, “Well, it doesn’t really talk about sex. It’s talking about wisdom,” then you miss the point that often times one of the ways that the attack comes to lead you into false wisdom is through sexual sin.

And that’s what happened with Solomon. So it’s not just an allegory and it’s not restricted to a warning about the physical sin. Both those things are important. Okay.

Prominence points out the great danger that lies in this area. In addition, we’re not going to look at, but Proverbs 6:33, one of the bad pictures it gives—remember Proverbs 6 is the dangers of the sin—one of the dangers is you’ll be mocked. You’ll be outcast in society. But that’s not true anymore, is it? If you’re an adulterous man, you’re not outcast in the society today. You—that’s the norm now—is to have lustful thoughts and lustful activities, and so the society has no—there’s no external restraints against this activity on our part except within the church, of course. But in any event, the purpose of bringing that up is that once again this shows us this is a great danger to us because of the lack of societal restraint on this particular sin.

Okay. So there’s great danger going on here.

Now then we talked about, besides the prominence of the warnings and the danger and the enfeeblement of the nature of it, we talked about the sure end of this sin. And really the enfeeblement of this sin would fit into this section just as well as the first section. In other words, the sure end of this sin—both for the strange woman herself, but then more importantly for her victim, potentially you.

And it’s very important that we not overlook another nuance. And it’s probably not even a nuance. It’s pretty blatant actually in some of these texts. And that what I’m talking about here is that there seems to be an actual attempt to subvert the faithful on the part of the strange woman that’s pictured here. For instance, Proverbs 23:28 says, “She lies in wait for a prey and increaseth the transgressors among men, the unfaithful among men.” It is as if her intent, some strange women, some women, their intent is to subvert faithfulness.

And you can remember here that, you know, that doesn’t leave out men—men who would lure women into sexual sin. Some of them are actually self-consciously, according to these scriptures, trying to subvert faithfulness—not just to your husband, but to God. That’s the picture that’s laid out for us. And we don’t want to take that edge off of those verses and say, “Well, it’s just a poetic device or something.” No, this is what we should realize is true.

1 Peter 2:11 says, “Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lust, which war against the soul.” Fleshly lust—lust, one of the seven deadly sins—wars against your soul, creates unfaithfulness. And it’s very important that we recognize these things as a warning against involving ourselves in them.

Turn to Proverbs 7, if you will, in your Bible, and we’ll look at this drama that’s pictured here in Proverbs 7.

And now remember I said that the chapter is totally given over to adultery—the sin of lust. The first four verses are again God always provides the positive way to avoid these things before he gives the warning. So the first four verses tell us how to avoid this sin, and then verses 5 and following give us a picture of the drama of people who fall into this sin.

And look what’s going on there. It says in verse 6, he’s at the window of his house and he looks out and he sees among the naive, I discern among the youths a young man lacking sense. So you’ve got a young guy out there who is an airhead, essentially, who is not trained in biblical wisdom, has not applied it. And so he’s out there foolishly. He is out wandering around, too much time on his hands, and he’s walking around the streets.

And it says in verse 8 that he passes through the street near the corner, her corner—that’s the strange woman’s. Takes the way to her house in the twilight, in the evening, in the middle of the night, and in the darkness. There’s a progression of terms there: twilight, evening, middle of the night, darkness. You would have to be blind to miss the analogy to the blindness that occurs when you enter into these sins.

But as I said last week, again, we don’t want to ignore the fact that timing is essential in terms of sin. The scriptures say that this is happening in the evening. And evenings, various temptations become more pronounced. When you go down to Portland during the day, it looks pretty clean. There are sections of Portland you go to in the evening, and there are prostitutes out. And so the evening is the place where men engage in this sort of sin.

Now what should you be doing in the evening? Well, you should be laying upon your bed just thinking your own thoughts. No, you should be meditating upon God. That’s what David gives as the model for what we’re to do in the evening. When we’ve taught my kids about this is that, you know, God turns out the lights outside and all the things that are out there which we’re trying to see through his eyes—reflecting who he is, essentially, and understanding in relationship to him—the light goes out on all those things and we’re alone in the darkness now, and now we’re supposed to meditate directly upon God and upon the wonders of who he is.

David will meditate upon the temple. We can meditate upon the church and the wonderful thing that God has done in constituting a church together. We can meditate upon the true temple, Jesus Christ, his life and his dying on the cross and his resurrection. Nighttime is to be a time when we don’t look outside and keep the senses going that way. We meditate upon God in our beds and we think about him. And that would go a long way toward curing sexual sin in our nation if church members understood that.

But that’s really one of the big things you’re supposed to be doing at night in preparation for sleep and resting in the God whom you’re meditating on. But this young lad’s not doing that. He’s got too much time on his hands. And instead of staying home and meditating on God, he’s foolish. He’s out there walking around late at night and he goes by the strange woman’s house.

Behold, a woman comes to meet him. Character number two in our play, dressed as a harlot. Remember we said last week that dress—this is important. Attire is not a neutral area. Somehow this man or others could discern that she is dressed as a harlot. Harlots dressed differently. Now you can go down to various portions of major cities and see prostitutes dressed in a particular alluring way. But you could have gone down there 20 years ago and they would have been dressed the way most women dressed today. Okay? Because the society’s sliding off that way.

Well, anyway, she’s dressed as a harlot and she’s guarded of heart. Now, what’s he like? He’s simple. He’s naive. He’s foolish. What’s she like? Is she simple? No, she’s guarded of heart. She knows what she’s doing. She’s boisterous and rebellious. Her feet don’t remain at home. That term for rebellious there really can mean that she is, well, I’ll read Derek Kidner’s commentary on the Book of Proverbs on this particular verse. It says outwardly she keeps nothing back. She is dressed, as we say, to kill. Inwardly she gives nothing away. Literally, the guarded of heart means to be hard, unyielding, or close and secretive.

And as Kidner says, it will be an unequal contest. The rebelliousness there—the guarded of heart—can just simply mean that she is externally knowing what she’s doing, going after the guy, but you’re not going to find out anything about who she is in conversation with her. And so she’s out there very self-conscious. He’s out there wandering around not knowing what to do with his time. And as Kidner says, it’s going to be an unequal contest.

That’s the picture that’s portrayed for us. She is out hunting. Okay.

She seizes him and kisses him and with a brazen face she says to him, “I was due to offer peace offerings. Today I have paid my vows. I’ve come out to meet you to seek your presence earnestly and I have found you.” Baloney. Is she really looking for him? No, she’s looking for anybody. She’s looking for prey in the streets. So right away, the simpleton, he’s wandering around out there. She comes up and says, “Oh, yeah, I’ve really been looking for you.” No, I don’t think that’s what’s going on. She’s deceitful. Again, she’s flattering.

You go through a concordance. You can do on my computer, you can do it this way. You can look up “strange woman.” Every verse that has those two words, and every one of those verses in the very verse talks about the flattery of her lips. The young—it is the most essential aspect about her that draws young men in.

And so it’s the thing we should watch out for most. And she does it here. “I was looking for you. Yeah, you. You’re the one. Sure. Yeah.” And notice she seizes him and kisses him very brazenly, openly. She attacks essentially. She goes after him, flatters him, says, “It’s a holiday. It’s a day of rejoicing. Let’s go have some fun at my house.” And she paints this nice picture of what we’re going to do together.

But it’s a false picture because Proverbs 7 goes on to say, “No, those are chambers of death down there. That’s a slaughter house. That’s not nice. Coverings over things.” Okay.

Now, I bring this up because you look at this, you think, “Wow, how can you know this? Must be some kind of allegory or something? I don’t know anybody would come up and actually kiss me, you know.” But I know this is true. Literally true in the lives of people I’ve known in the past. This very scenario I have seen played out time and time again. This very old scenario: out in the street walking around. Oh yeah, you’re the one I was looking for. Kiss. Bam. And the young simpleton, as Kidner said, unequal contest. He’s gone. He’s gone. He’s passed. You know, he hasn’t gone down to her house yet, but that’s where he’s headed. She has bagged the prey.

Okay. So the point of all this is: we raise young men in our church. We’ve got to warn them about these very real dangers. We’ve got to teach them about what’s behind all this—true and false wisdom—but to fail to teach them about the real tactics of women who are out there who really do this sort of behavior and as a result wreck men’s lives for years. If we fail to teach them about that, we haven’t done our job.

And if we fail as men to recognize the fact that if we think we can goof around with thoughts in our head about romantic adventures, et cetera, don’t fool yourself by thinking that this will never happen to you. If you think you have nice, safe fantasies of things that may or may not happen with other women and think, “Well, I’m never going to get into this situation. I can control it,” what are you going to do when you’re gone away from home, whatever it is, and somebody like this woman literally comes up to you and says, “Gosh, I’ve been looking for a man like you. You’re a good guy,” and kisses you and grabs you and embraces you?

If you’re not prepared, if you’ve been building up or letting your resistance go down through improper thought patterns, I would guarantee you, you’re gone. You’re history. You’re bagged. You’re in the den of iniquity and you are sucked into darkness and death. That’s the way it works. You think it’s funny that some of these guys, some of these preachers, can get caught in some of this stuff, but that’s how it works. People are out there hunting for these men. And Satan, of course, wants to disable members of God’s army.

Okay. Enfeeblement pictured in this drama in Proverbs chapter 7.

Ecclesiastes, again, going back to Solomon. He says in verse 26 of the seventh chapter of Ecclesiastes: “I find more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets and her hands as bands. Who so pleaseth God shall escape her, but the sinner shall be taken by her.” Again, the picture of this woman is—and there are women like that out there, like that. There are men like that out there as well in this day and age—who really do want to subvert your soul. That’s what they want to do. Whether it’s self-conscious or not, sometimes yes, sometimes no, but that’s what’s going on. You’ve got to be prepared. You’ll fall.

Okay. So we have the sure end of this picture, the enfeeblement of it, and the very brazen nature of how these things can come to pass. And then we talked about the inspired instructions for avoiding this particular sin.

1 Corinthians 10:11 and following says the following: “Now, all these things happened unto them for examples, examples.” And he’s talking about Old Testament revelation. He’s talking specifically there about the golden calf incident, which also involves lust, which is another matter. But in any event: “All these things happen for an example. We can say that these proverbs are written for an example. They were written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world has come. Therefore let him that thinketh he stand take heed lest he fall.”

Say, take heed. Watch it. Watch out. “There has no temptation taken you but such as is common to man, and this is one that is very common to man, but God is faithful who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able, but with the temptation also make a way to escape that you may be able to bear it. Wherefore my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry.”

Now that’s real important. That last verse says that no temptation is going to come across your path but such as is common to man. Lust is a common temptation that will come across your path, but God has given us the means to avoid that. And that’s just what Proverbs said, didn’t it? It said if you let this wisdom seep down into your inner being, you’ll be prepared for this.

See, the point is, don’t think you can ignore these things, then get involved in a temptation situation, and then rely on this promise. You’ve ignored the means. And then particularly in verse 14, he says, “Dearly beloved, flee idolatry.” So you’re not supposed to sit there and think, “What’s the intellectual way to get out of this thing?” No, he says—and here’s the means to get away from idolatry situations. And that’s what lust, greed, gluttony are—their idols. They are idolatry. And this one is very closely linked to idolatry in scripture: sexual lust.

Don’t think you get an intellectual argument to think it through at that point in time. Get out of there. That’s his means of escape for you in terms of adulterous or an idolatrous, lustful situation. God gives inspired instructions for avoiding this sin.

And one of the largest things you can do is get wisdom. One of the second things you can do is get out of there geographically. Notice in verses 1 and 2 of Proverbs 5: “My son, give attention to my wisdom. Incline your ear to my understanding that you may observe discretion and your lips may reserve knowledge.”

There’s a dynamic here. There’s a progression. You’ve got to attend to the things of the scriptures. You’ve got to expose yourself to God’s teaching. And as a result of constantly meditating upon these things, what you might call habitualizing these instructions from God’s word, then you achieve discretion and your lips preserve knowledge. Okay? It isn’t automatic. It comes as a process of exposing yourself to, meditating upon, memorizing God’s words and ways. And as you do that, discretion occurs.

He goes on in Proverbs 5 to give some specific example. In verse 7, after warning about this particular sin: In verse 7, he says again: “Now then, my son, listen to me. Don’t depart from the words of my mouth.” He says again, “Shema”—open those ears up. Listen now to what I’m going to tell you. I’ve warned you about the strange woman. Now listen, here it comes. Here’s the instruction.

Verse 8: “Keep your way far from her. Do not go near the door of her house.”

What does he say? First off, keep away from the situation. Flee idolatry. Get away physically, and you’re mentally as well, of course, but physically as well. That’s the command. Okay? And we’ve got to heed those commands in order to avoid this sin.

Okay? Under these, so generally the instructions that God gives us, the inspired instructions are the whole book of wisdom here in the scriptures to meditate upon. And then we talked about some detailed instructions relative to the strange woman. Remember we said that the five specific areas that are laid out here—the tongue, the eyes, her attire, geography, and timing—are all things to be aware of. And as I just said a couple of minutes ago, the tongue is probably one of the most important things. There’s a list of verses that are quite long on that particular aspect: the flattery, the insincere flattery that she brings to her prey, as it were.

So we talked about that last week some, and again the idea is to meditate upon these things. Notice by the way here that we can look at it a different way. We won’t take time to look at the specific verses, but some commentators have pointed out that the appeal on the basis of the strange woman is to the five senses. You know, to sight: she tries to catch you with her eyes. Her attire is appealing to your sight. She is described as fragranced in various places: she appeals to your instinctive smell. She comes up and kisses you: she appeals to your instinct—the sense of touch. And hearing, of course, the flattery comes in through the hearing mechanism, and taste as well with the kiss. And so the five senses are where the attack comes on, so to speak.

And you have to be prepared for that. Your senses are to be discerned and trained and under the control of your mind in order to avoid the temptation. Okay.

James 1:14-15: “Every man is tempted when he is drawn away by his own lust and enticed. Then when lust is conceived bringeth forth sin, and sin when it’s finished bringeth forth death.”

And you can see that progression here in Proverbs 7. This young man, he begins to fall into the lust. He’s wandering in the wrong areas of town. He then gives way to sinful action, and sinful action leads to death. And to break all that, it means that we’ve got to control our heart and our thoughts. And that will help us to actually specifically be where we’re supposed to be and not be where we’re not supposed to be geographically.

Again, 2 Timothy 2:22: “Flee also youthful lust, but follow righteousness.”

So it’s not just avoiding things, it’s specifically turning to proper things as well. It’s interesting that in Matthew 5:27, I should touch upon this briefly, of course, because this is one of the oft-quoted verses relative to lust. We have our Savior then giving a series of teachings, and he says in verse 27 of Matthew 5: “You’ve heard it said by them of old, thou shalt not commit adultery. But I say unto you, whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

“And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out.” And he goes through all that. And it’s interesting that the next set of teachings—he says, “It’s been said, whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement.” He goes directly from the teaching on lust and adultery into discussion of marriage, just the way this proverb does. As we move away from the positive admonitions in Proverbs 5—the don’ts: know who she is, keep away from her—there’s admonitions then to positively act in terms of your own wife. So Jesus uses the same parallel. And so it’s very much application of the proverb in his teaching there.

And it’s interesting too because he says that whosoever looks on a woman to lust after hath already committed adultery. And now I’m sure that he’s condemning lustful thoughts, but I’m also sure there’s an aspect there to which the Proverbs teach us: that if you allow yourself to go down that path, there’s no escape. You are bagged, as it were, long before you get in the bag, so to speak. Use a bad joke. You know, the point is that if you allow your thoughts and your eyes to be controlled by your lustful, sinful desires, then you’ve already moved down that path and you may as well have committed adultery with the woman. It’s that inevitable in terms of its application.

And again, what’s our Savior’s remedy for that? If your right eye offends thee, pluck it out. It is that serious of a matter to avoid sinful looking after, et cetera. You’ve got to flee. You’ve got to take whatever measures are necessary to get away from that thing. That’s got to be a programmed response in you as this temptation is bound to occur.

Okay, moving on to you and the right woman as opposed to the strange woman. We have some positive admonitions here in terms of our—the in terms of married people—that is, to the correct mate for you.

Very important here in Proverbs 5 to see this. We read about in verses 15 and following: “Drink water from your own cistern, fresh water from your own well. Should your springs be dispersed abroad, streams of water in the street? Let them be yours alone and not for strangers with you. Let your fountain be blessed and rejoice in the wife of thy youth.”

That last verse obviously links the fountain to the wife. Another verse that you might look at is Song of Solomon, chapters 4, verses 12 and 15, where Solomon writes, “A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse, a spring shut up, a fountain sealed,” verse 15, “A fountain of gardens, a well of living waters and streams from Lebanon.” All referring to the wife. And so the wife in scripture is frequently pictured as a well, as river, as a river, and as water. And so in verses 15 to 17, we have a specific command by God to drink water from your own cistern. In other words, to limit your physical activity and your love and affection to the mate that God has provided you in his providence.

And so there’s a specific replacement here. It’s not just don’t get involved with a strange woman, but do rejoice in the wife that God has provided to you. Very important.

It’s really interesting to read the church fathers on marriage. I don’t know if it was because they saw all this as an allegory for wisdom or what the problem was, but many of them had a very low view apparently of the marriage state and particularly of the physical aspect of marriage. Well, such is not the teaching of scripture. Scripture teaches that the physical aspect of marriage is good and proper. You’ve heard that a lot the last couple of months at this church. But it’s important.

It’s important because here we have inspired instruction from God’s word on how to avoid the strange woman. And one of the specific ways to do that is to rejoice in the wife that God has provided to you. It’s positive instruction, but it’s a command.

Look at the words here used in terms of what our relationship to our wife is supposed to be like, and pictured as, verse 18: “Let thy fountain be blessed.”

So your wife should be blessed. And bless—this word specifically means to get down on one’s knees to bless God or give thanks. And you should have that kind of attitude toward your wife. Support her. She is a blessing and she should remain blessed. And I think there’s the aspect here of thankfulness for the mate that God has provided to you. Let this wisdom seep into you. Remember that dynamic in verses 1 and 2 of chapter 5. Let your wife be considered to be a thing to give thanks to God for.

“Let your fountain be blessed. Rejoice with the wife of thy youth. Take the light in her. Rejoice.”

And it’s the same word used of the rejoicing times in the scriptures relative to worship, et cetera. You’re to rejoice in your wife. So you have thankfulness. You’re to have joy. And then in verse 19: “Let her be as a loving hind and pleasant roe. Let her breast satisfy thee at all times. And so satisfaction is supposed to be an aspect of how you perceive your wife.

“And be thou ravished always with her love.”

Ravished. The word there means actually a better translation would be intoxicated. Drunk wouldn’t be too bad. It’s not a matter of losing control. But in Isaiah 28:7, it says there are some who erred through wine. And in Proverbs 20:1, it says that strong drink is raging and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise. It’s the same word there—people who are deceived through strong drink—as the word to be ravished with your wife’s love. It’s interesting, isn’t it?

I think the idea there is you’re supposed to be—I don’t know—the word “gooey” kept coming to mind. That’s not a bad thing—to perceive our wives as something to be delighted in, to thank God for, and of course, by way of application, wives for your husbands as well, to be satisfied physically with your wife and with all that she is. And to have a sense of involvement in her life, the way that involvement with wine changes the way you see things, to have involvement with your wife to that point is good and actually commanded by the word of God here.

And so one of the prime things that God gives us positively to avoid strange women and the sinful—the seventh deadly sin of lust—is to have a correct understanding of our wives.

Now, this is real important. I think that one of the things being said here is that if you’re going to delight in your wife, if you’re going to be gooey-eyed over her, ravished with her, and satisfied by her, I think that one of the things that necessarily implies is that you are not keeping a list of the problems with her. You know, you can pick anybody out—I don’t care who it is—and begin to think about the problems that person has, and you can grow pretty disenchanted pretty fast.

We all have feet of clay, and most of us up to about the neck, you know, in clay. A lot of falls. And when you get that close, and as close as you are to a mate, the faults of that person become somewhat obvious too if you decide to attend to them. But the scriptures say don’t do that. Don’t attend to the faults all the time. Don’t look at all the problem areas. Do look at the things about her that God has given to you as a blessing to you and as a blessing to him.

And so the idea is you should really, you know, we’ve talked about trying to look at the world through biblical glasses, and you should look at your wife through biblical glasses as well. This is a woman who is a blessing from God, who is the best wife that God has for you. And if it’s your husband, the best husband God has for you. Don’t attend to all those faults. I guess I’m coming close to saying “rose-colored glasses” here.

But the scriptures seem to imply that here. Be ravished with her love always. How do you do that? Well, you don’t do it by noting every time she does something wrong. You do it by concentrating on what she does right or what he does right. And so it’s very important that we see that God gives us positive instructions here: how to think about our mates, how to treat our mates, and how to treat the sexual relationship, the physical relationship, as well as a good, glorious thing from God.

So the right woman, the way you approach her, is totally different than the wrong woman.

Now it’s interesting. The adulterous woman, the strange woman, she paints you a picture. She puts on attire, covers her face with makeup, whatever it is, talks about what it’s going to be like in the love chamber, as it were. It’s a fantasy world that she creates for you. Why is that? Well, because that’s what you want. You’re tired of looking at your wife or your mate and seeing the reality of what human relationships are like. You want fantasy. Usually it begins in the thoughts, then is played out with strange women. Could be prostitutes, could just be a woman at work, whatever it is.

But instead of dealing with a real person in a real situation, most lustfulness comes in when you start dealing in a fantasy situation with you controlling every aspect of the relationship. And so the scriptures pull us back. They don’t just say, “Ignore all that and get back into yourself and be content.” No, it says, “Learn how to live with the real person that God has chosen as your mate. And when you do that correctly, when you look at that mate through God’s word, that mate is lovely to you, that mate is satisfying to you, and that mate is delightful to you and causes you to rejoice and causes you to be intoxicated with her love.”

If you’re not doing these things relative to your wife, don’t blame God. Don’t even blame your wife. These are commands to you from the word of God. And if your wife isn’t lovely in your eyes, then maybe the reason is because you haven’t applied the discipline to look at her the way the scriptures say here you shouldn’t be looking at her.

You know, I mean, it talks here about physical things, and it gives these as general instructions to all men in all times who are going to learn wisdom from the word of God. And all men at all times have wives who are quite different physically one from another. And God says that doesn’t make any difference. He says you’re supposed to delight in that relationship, including the physical side of that relationship.

Okay. So the point is here, men: this is a job for you. Wives, of course, have application for you on how you look at your husband as well. But very important that God says: learn to live with the person God has chosen for you, and then live that way recognizing the benefits that God has built into that relationship. You know, if we ask for a fish, will God give us a stone? No. If we prayed for a good wife, will he give us a wife who’s a turkey? No, he’s given us a wonderful wife. Count it so, reckon it so, and on the basis of that, your life will be delightful, and your married life will be as well.

Okay, very important to see that is one of the specific ways that God gives us to avoid the sin of lust. And I would say by the way there that obviously one of the first things you should begin that process with is thanking God for your wife, acknowledging what I’ve just said here to be the truth from the word of God.

Let this wisdom seep into you. Remember that dynamic in verses 1 and 2 of chapter 5. The idea is you have this wisdom and instruction that then patterns your actions and gives you discretion. Let these truths from these few verses here—meditate upon these verses. Men, meditate. Get them into your mind and into your heart. And you will be trained, and you will train yourself to treat your wife according to this picture that God gives you to set before yourself.

Ark these things, count them so, and habitualize them in your life.

Okay. And then secondly, I’ve said “protector.” This is a little tricky because there’s not a consensus on how verse 16 should be translated. Verse 15 seems pretty clear: “Drink water from your own cistern, fresh water from your own well. Don’t go to the strange woman. Go to the right woman for sexual satisfaction and for satisfaction in all areas of life.”

Verse 16: “Should your springs be dispersed abroad, streams of water in the street?” That’s New American Standard. They make a question out of it. The King James version says no—it’s a simple statement that your stream should be dispersed abroad and streams of water in the street. The contention is how to interpret that verse.

Verse 17: “Let them be yours alone and not for strangers with you.”

So regardless of what we do with verse 16, whether or not the results of that marriage relationship produce downstream benefits to culture, you can look at it that way. If it says these streams are supposed to be dispersed abroad, the results of the marriage relationship produce benefits in the culture around. Or rather, if it is a question, again, it’s the idea that you don’t want to—in verse 17—it’s quite clear: “Let them be yours alone and not strangers with you.”

So the idea there is, again, this is written primarily to men. You have a responsibility not just to make sure you attend to the stream, so to speak, that God has given you to quench your thirst, but you’re also to make sure that stream isn’t given to others to assuage their thirst. And so you have a responsibility as men to protect her from becoming that strange woman or giving into seductions from strange men. You are encouraged here, commanded here, to be a jealous husband—in a proper biblical sense. You should be jealous for the attentions and affections of your wife.

And if things start to get out of hand, you should put a quick end to it. You have a responsibility not only to delight in your wife, to rejoice in her, but also to protect her, that those streams be fresh, and that they do then produce downstream benefit to the culture instead of being mingled, as it were, with the improper or strange man.

And of course, one of the ways we do that—and wise for your husbands as well. He pointed this out last week. 1 Corinthians 7:5: “Defraud not one another except it be for consent for a time that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer. And come together again.”

He’s talking sexually here. Come together again that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency. And so one of the ways you guard and protect your wife is not withholding yourself from her. And one of the ways that the wife can protect the husband is not withholding yourself from him. And then if you do that, you begin to work toward fulfillment of these instructions to not let those streams be given to others.

Okay. To sum up this section I wanted to turn to Proverbs 30:18-20. This is probably a mistake on my part, but I’m going to do it anyway. Proverbs 30:18-20.

A lot of difference of opinion as to what’s going on in this proverb. Difficult one. We read there: “There are three things which are too wonderful for me, wonderful right, tough, hard, difficult to figure out—from which I do four which I don’t understand. So, you know, three and four the way they do that in the proverbs.

What are these things? “The way of an eagle in the sky, the way of a serpent on a rock, the way of a ship in the middle of the sea, and the way of a man at the maid—this is the way of an adulterous woman. She eats and wipes her mouth and says, ‘I have done no wrong.’”

Well, we could spend a lot of time on this. There’s lots of different interpretations of this, but I’m bringing it up now for a reason that I think what’s going on here. He tells us there are four things which are too wonderful. I don’t think the fifth thing he throws in—the way of the adulterous woman—is included in those four. We’ve got four things already: the ship in the water, the snake on the rock, the eagle in the air, the man with the maid.

Okay. The fifth thing, I think, is given to help us understand the relationship of those first four. The fifth one—the way of the adulterous woman—he knows that way. He says, “This is that way. That’s easy. What does she do? Why? She eats and wipes her mouth and says, ‘I’ve done nothing wrong.’”

It is incredible, but it’s easy to discern. She treats sexual activity like eating. You take care of the physical itch, so to speak, and it’s all over. What’s the big deal?