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VOIDING ADULTERY (1)A Meditation on Proverbs 2:1-19
Ask a person who has committed adultery, “How did it happen?” and you’re likely to hear, “I don’t know, it just happened.” Adultery doesn’t just happen—let’s get real. It’s not as though you’re walking down the street, minding your own business, and then you accidentally step into a hole you didn’t see, which causes you to fall to the ground in great pain and anguish. Then as you’re lying there dazed and confused trying to recover, someone comes along and inquires, “What happened?” And you say with the world around you still spinning, “I’m not sure, it just happened.” Adultery is not like that.
It’s been said that adultery is not the result of a blow out, but a slow leak. There is always a prelude to promiscuity. The purpose of Proverbs 2:1-19 (and several other passages in Proverbs) is to help us recognize that prelude, so we can be delivered from the forbidden woman (this also applies to the forbidden man, but Proverbs was written for boys so the counsel is given to escape the forbidden woman).
Moreover, we must highlight the underlying presupposition, namely that men need to be delivered from the forbidden woman. The assumption is that young men (and older men) are vulnerable to this type of temptation. Therefore, our sons should be prepared in advance, so they will not be caught off guard by the snare of the seductress. Un-fortunately, if we can trust the statistics, married women are now committing adultery just as much as the men. This means adultery is an equal opportunity employer, so now both sexes require admonishing.
Proverbs provides us with preventative medicine. This is a tremendous aid, since the time to prepare for temptation is not after, but before it comes; before we destroy our marriages…our families…our reputations…our ministries. To prepare, let’s meditate on three characteristics of the forbidden woman found in Proverbs 2:16-17: “So you will be delivered from the forbidden woman, from the adulteress with her smooth words (flattery of the tongue, KJV), who forsakes the companion of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God.” The three characteristics are flattering conversations, a forsaken companion and a forgotten covenant.
First, we’ll address flattering conversations. I’d like to set the stage by sighting a list of warnings that exhort us to avoid adultery and the adulteress. “For her house sinks down to death, and her paths to the departed” (Pro. 2:18); “but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death; her steps follow the path to Sheol” (5:4); “none who go to her come back, nor do they regain the paths of life” (2:19); “He who commits adultery lacks sense; he who does it destroys himself” (6:32); “for many a victim has she laid low, and all her slain are a mighty throng. Her house is the way to Sheol (hell, KJV) going down to the chambers of death” (7:26-27).
“Now given such manifold and dire warnings, whatever would possess a young man to turn aside to go after such a woman? What exactly is the pull? What is it that first lures him away to lust after her? Proverbs makes it very clear that the initial pull comes from flattery” (Nancy Wilson, Credenda/Agenda, Vol. 16 Issue 3).
The hook of adultery is baited with flattery. Yes, some men commit adultery for sheer sex—perhaps with a prostitute, but for the vast majority of Christian men, adultery begins with flattery. When the adulterer is lying in the ditch wondering how he got there, he will look back and see that he was involved in inappropriate and intimate conversations, which stroked his ego. This message is repeated in Proverbs. Proverbs has four “adultery passages” and all of them talk about the speech of the adulteress. “For the lips of a forbidden woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil” (5:3; see also 6:24; 7:5). “With much seductive speech she persuades him…he does not know it will cost him his life” (7:21, 23).
Nancy Wilson concludes that “young men in particular are very vulnerable to flattery. This must be connected to their God-given need for respect and admiration; so it follows that a man who does not feel respected for his legitimate attributes will be a sitting duck for flattery…So what is my point of application? Wives: Respect your husband genuinely…Men who have a ‘full tank’ when it comes to respect from their wives are far less vulnerable to the flattery of the strange woman” (Ibid.). And husbands need to remember that women were created with a God-given desire for love. If a wife is secure in the love of her husband, and if he is sincerely honoring her as the weaker vessel, she will not feel the need to flirt or use flattery to get the attention of other men. Sometimes the best defense is a good offense.
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VOIDINGADULTERY (2)A Meditation on Proverbs 2:1-19
The second characteristic of the adulteress, following flattering conversations, is a forsaken companion. How do we know she has forsaken the companion of her youth? Or, we could ask, “How can we recognize a straying wife?” Proverbs 7:10-12 gives us a couple of clues: “And behold, the woman meets him, dressed as a prostitute, wily of heart. She is loud and wayward; her feet do not stay at home; now in the street, now in the market, and at every corner she lies in wait.” We have at least two indicators that this woman is straying from her husband, while he is away on a “long journey,” perhaps for work (vs. 19). The first indicator is her dress—she dresses like a prostitute. Few things say, “Come and get it” to men more than immodest dress.
Immodest dress is so bad in America that even many unbelievers are disgusted with the clothing available for young woman. I was listening to a talk show on a secular radio station one time as mother after mother called in complaining about how difficult it was for them to find appropriate attire for their daughters. I was listening to the program with my teenage daughter, and mentioned to her that you know it’s bad when unbelievers are repulsed. The shorts are short shorts, the jeans are skin tight, the tops are just as tight and often don’t cover the midsection much less other parts of a woman’s anatomy. Just recently my son told me about a guy who wears girl pants. I asked, “What are girl pants?” I had never heard of “girl pants.” He said, “Some guys buy and wear the girl’s jeans that are super tight.” He and his friends refer to them as girl pants. Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, we descend down yet another step into the pit… (but I digress; now we’re dealing with the women).
As a pastor, a father, and a man I want to exhort you young (and older) women to consider how you dress. Some of you are sending a message you don’t want to send. Low cut tops and high cut skirts communicate looseness to men. You may not intend to send that message, you may not want to send that message, but nonetheless that is what men hear. Furthermore, if you ladies are praying for a godly Christian husband you need to know that modesty is not only important to God (1 Tim. 2:9), it’s also important to Christian men. I can still recall that just before two of my best friends got married they commented on how they loved the fact that their wives-to-be dressed modestly. Immodesty may get a man’s attention, but it will not gain his respect.
The second indicator that this woman is straying is her “loud and wayward” behavior—she’s begging for attention and is going all over town to find it (Pro. 7:12). However, before we come down too hard on this woman, let’s consider who her husband is. This woman says, “For my husband is not at home; he has gone on a long journey; he took a bag of money with him; at full moon he will be home” (vv. 19-20). Could it be that the forbidden woman is love-starved? Perhaps she’s been neglected by her husband? The sad irony is that many men are away from home, working to make more money, so that the home can be a paradise, when their absence actually turns it into a lonely desert. We could write a new proverb: “Better is a little with close companionship, than a large castle full of luxuries…and loneliness.”
Other husbands are consumed with hobbies or sports. I talked to a woman one time who said her husband played softball five nights a week. Gee, I wonder why she wanted a divorce? And how many men are missing in action because they spend evening after evening lounging on a recliner with a beer in one hand and a remote in the other? Sorry, is this too meddlesome? Come on men, your wife needs a little bit of your undivided attention. But you’re probably not even reading this, because the game is on; it’s always on, isn’t it? That’s okay, maybe your wife will set this devotional in a strategic location, like where she put the Christian books on the family that she was hoping and praying you would read, but didn’t. Since this is only two pages, she might have better luck.
For you who think the Bible isn’t relevant or practical, read on. “Let your fountain be blessed (check a good commentary for the imagery), and rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely deer, a graceful doe. Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight; be intoxicated always in her love” (Pro. 5:18-19). As I said earlier, the Bible assumes we are vulnerable to sexual temptation, so God has provided us with an antidote—sexual satisfaction. God is not prudish or Victorian. In fact he commands husbands and wives not to deprive each other (1 Cor. 7:5). To overcome sexual temptation, usually what’s needed is not more prayer or more Bible reading, but more sex.
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VOIDING ADULTERY (3)A Meditation on Proverbs 2:1-19
After flattering conversations and a forsaken companion, the third characteristic of the adulteress is that of a forgotten covenant. “[She] forgets the covenant of her God” (Pro. 2:17). There are two possible interpretations for “the covenant of her God.” This could refer to the marriage covenant. The adulteress woman is breaking the covenant she made before God on the day she got married, when she promised her husband that she would “leave all others, and keep herself only unto him.”
The other possibility, which I lean towards, is that the covenant represents her relationship with God. We tend to talk about a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ, which is okay, but in both the OT and the NT this relationship is expressed in terms of being in covenant with God.
When Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper, he said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me” (1 Cor. 11:25). The new covenant is a reference to Jeremiah 31:31-34: “Behold, the days are coming declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah…this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people…For I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more.” God’s people have always been in a relationship with God through covenants, culminating in the new covenant. If this is the interpretation of “the covenant of her God,” the application is that we avoid adultery by maintaining an ongoing, intimate relationship with our God and Savior.
And, I want to stress that this covenantal relationship includes learning sound doctrine (i.e. theology). Too many Christians think that more learning doesn’t have any connection with being a more loving Christian, or a more loving spouse, or a more faithful spouse, but it does. Yes, knowledge can puff up and love is the greatest of all the virtues, yet love flourishes in knowledge, not ignorance (see Phil. 1:9). Orthodoxy (right doctrine) and orthopraxy (right practice) go hand in hand. Put bluntly, stupid Christians who don’t know their Bibles are the ones lacking in love, and the ones vulnerable to adultery.
In this study of “avoiding adultery” we’ve been focusing on verses 16-17: “So you will be delivered from the forbidden woman…” But notice that verse 16 begins with the word so, which means that it is connected to the previous verses (1-15). The chapter begins, “My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to under-standing…then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God…he stores up sound wisdom for the upright; he is a shield to those who walk in integrity…discretion will watch over you, understanding will guard you, delivering you from the way of evil…So you will be delivered from the forbidden woman…” The flow here is important: This father is instructing his son with sound doctrine, and exhorting him to seek wisdom, so that he will fear God and find the knowledge of God, in order to walk in integrity and be delivered from evil, which includes being delivered from the forbidden woman. Practically, we teach our sons about God when they are five, so they will not be immoral when they are fifteen or twenty-five. A man with a vibrant, doctrinally-sound, covenantal relationship with God is not as likely to be seduced by the forbidden woman as is the ignorant Christian, who has not moved beyond Christianity 101 truths.
John Piper writes that the average evangelical doesn’t live substantially different than his unbelieving neighbor. However, “for those who belittle doctrine as troublesome, it may come as a surprise that [Christians with a biblical worldview, as opposed to Christians without one, do live] differently from the world…They are 9 times more likely than all the others to avoid ‘adult-only’ material on the Internet. They are…twice as likely to choose not to watch a movie specifically because of its bad content…twice as likely to volunteer time to help needy people.” He sights other statistics, but the conclusion is crucial: “[These] findings on the different behavior of Christians with a biblical worldview underline the importance of theology. Biblical orthodoxy does matter. One important way to end the scandal of contemporary Christian behavior (including adultery) is to work and pray fervently for growth of orthodox theological belief in our churches” (John Piper, Taste and See, p. 356-357).
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