Truth and Lies of Sex

[0:00] And turn to Proverbs 5. Scripture reading will be the entire chapter of Proverbs 5. This is God's Word.

[0:20] ! Now then, my son, listen to me.

[0:57] Do not turn aside from what I say. Keep to a path far from her and do not go near the door of her house, lest you give your best strength to others and your years to one who is cruel.

[1:11] Lest strangers feast on your wealth and your toil enrich another man's house. At the end of your life, you will groan when your flesh and body are spent. You will say, how I hated discipline and my heart spurned correction.

[1:27] I would not obey my teachers or listen to my instructors. I have come to the brink of utter ruin in the midst of the whole assembly. Drink water from your own cistern, running water from your own well.

[1:41] Should your springs overflow in the streets and your streams of water in the public squares, let them be yours alone, never to be shared with strangers.

[1:52] May your fountain be blessed and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth, a loving doe, a graceful deer. May her breast satisfy you always. May you ever be captivated by her love.

[2:06] Why be captivated, my son, by an adulteress? Why embrace the bosom of another man's wife? For a man's ways are in full view of the Lord, and he examines all his paths.

[2:20] The evil deeds of a wicked man ensnare him, and the cords of his sin hold him fast. He will die for lack of discipline, led astray by his own great folly.

[2:32] Well, tonight we're going to talk about truth and lies and sex.

[2:48] Proverbs 5 is about truth. You can see, look at verse 1 there. My son, pay attention to my wisdom. Listen well to my words of insight.

[3:01] Insight, insight, I'm going to tell you what it really is. I'm going to tell you the truth. Not just how things appear, but we're going to pierce the veil, and this is how it really is.

[3:16] So young people, listen to the truth, and listen like your life depends upon it. Proverbs 5 makes it clear that it does depend on how you listen.

[3:29] Proverbs 5 is about lies. Verse 3 says that the lips of an adulteress drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil, but in the end she is bitter as gall.

[3:46] So the person tempting you to sexual sin will lie to you. And he or she herself is a lie.

[3:59] What she's promising and what she seems to be is a lie. She seems like honey, but she's really bitter poison. But you're even going to lie to yourself.

[4:13] No one gets into a situation like this without lying to themselves. And to lie to yourself is not somehow less damaging than taking that lie from someone else, hearing that lie from someone else.

[4:25] You're actually betraying yourself. When you lie and deceive yourself, you are being your own Judas. Lying to yourself is stabbing a dagger into your own guts, into your own back.

[4:40] Proverbs 5 is also about sex. Sex that will ruin your life or sex that is glorious and good that will carve out a beautiful echo of the Garden of Eden.

[4:58] It will carve out an echo of the Garden of Eden or it will drag you down to Hades, to the realm of the dead. That's what chapter 5 is about.

[5:11] And so I thought we could read a story about how this happened in real life. It's a story from Bob Bevington, about Bob Bevington, from a book he co-wrote called Red Like Blood, Confrontations with Grace.

[5:32] And just to give you a little bit of the background of this story, Bob was married to his wife Rita. They had two children together, Dave and Lauren.

[5:45] And after 15 years of marriage to Rita, he had an affair with Amy, who herself was married. And this is his story.

[5:58] I've been dreading this next part of my story not because I'm afraid to publicly admit what I did. I've been open about it for a decade.

[6:10] I'm dreading it because Rita and our kids, Dave and Lauren, will eventually read this and re-experience the pain of being hacked to pieces by my sin.

[6:20] Joe, his co-author, wrote that lies are like webs that wrap around us and bind us. And by the time I hit 40, I was wrapped up like a mummy.

[6:32] But there's something about lies Joe did not tell you. Lies move you, even when and while they bind you. Every lie moves you in a common direction.

[6:42] They force you farther away from the truth and reality. The lies you tell have power to move you an inch at a time. But the lies you believe make you lunge forward with a force that will take your breath away.

[6:59] In my case, there were two such lies. The first was a simple, common lie. I deserve better. The second was an even more compelling because it contained a subtle half-truth.

[7:13] God just wants me to be happy. And over the course of the next two months, those two lies would grow and then combine into a tidal wave that would utterly drown the voice of my conscience.

[7:27] And before long, most of my family and friends were riding these waves with me. I heard their affirmations. You deserve to be happy. Just follow your heart.

[7:38] You've got to do what's right for you. And one day I found myself believing a new lie. And it instantly became my ultimate wave. It swallowed up all the other waves and rationalizations.

[7:53] My kids need a model of healthy marriage. This is best for my kids. So I dove in head first. I moved out of the house that had been Rita's dream home.

[8:07] I did it while she was skiing in Idaho with Lauren and Dave. They were nine and ten years old. And when they came home, all my stuff had been cleared out and half the furniture was missing.

[8:21] A month later, Amy left her husband and moved into the condo. And he goes on. The beach we had washed up on was no tropical paradise.

[8:33] It was covered with sharp rocks and poisonous jellyfish and piles of reeking trash. And one day I came home to the condo half empty in a fist-sized hole in the wall.

[8:46] And Amy went back to her husband for a couple of months. A few weeks later, I was standing in the loft, looking down from the balcony alone. More alone than just Amy not being there.

[9:02] I suddenly realized I no longer had any awareness of God's love. None. I remember desperately trying to remember.

[9:13] And I couldn't. And I was drowning. And there was nothing real to grab hold of to keep me afloat. Amy ended up getting a divorce and came back.

[9:27] But now she was absolutely allergic to lies. She wanted to read the Bible and go to church. And I said, okay. Truth started percolating back in.

[9:39] And something clean, something real started filtering into our lives. Our fairy tale was a nightmare. But now we could at least see that we were deep in a dark woods.

[9:54] And Amy and I became painfully aware that several people who had watched us writing our now abandoned lives were surfing very similar lives with gusto. One of them was my younger sister.

[10:08] I decided to confront her, to warn her, to not go there. She looked me in the eye and said, it worked for you. I became frantic.

[10:19] And before long, I was screaming at the top of my lungs, no, it didn't. I literally shook her. But no matter what I said or did, she wouldn't listen.

[10:32] Amy and I got married the weekend after my divorce was final. One picture from the wedding is permanently etched into my mind.

[10:43] The look on my son's eyes. The look in my son's eyes as he struggled to smile. Fourteen years have passed since then, and the memory still causes me to wince.

[10:57] Time heals all wounds is a lie. So brothers and sisters and young people, there's no temptation that has seized you, that has seized anyone, that is not common to man.

[11:15] And so we aren't talking about other people's dangers. We are talking about our dangers, my danger, your danger. Four times in the book of Proverbs, in this first section, it tells you stories.

[11:30] It gives you admonitions and warnings about sexual immorality and against adultery. We've already seen a small one in chapter 2. But these warnings and these calls to sexual purity and to avoid the adulterers are by far the biggest part of that first nine chapters.

[11:51] Because sex can easily turn us into fools. And because sexual folly is bound up into the heart of men and women and mankind.

[12:05] And so we must take this as seriously as God does. Before we get to Proverbs chapter 5, I want to give you four basic truths from the Bible about sexuality and about sex.

[12:22] Just to set the frame, to set the table, to frame our understanding. These are four basic things, and we'll get through them very quickly. The first is God is very positive.

[12:35] The Bible is very positive about sexuality and sex. God created sex. It's one of his good and perfect gifts. And there's a whole book that is about the glory and the grace of living in sexual wisdom.

[12:56] It's the book of Song of Songs. And it's beautiful. It's poetic. It's erotic. And it's in God's book. So people that think God and the Bible are somehow against sex or really enjoying sex, frankly, have no idea what they're talking about.

[13:14] The Bible is on the opposite side. Two, the Bible is very clear about the proper context for sex. It's within the context of one man and one woman married together in covenant together in marriage.

[13:31] Lots of people. Lots of people. Lots of people. Lots of people think or say that is an old fashioned idea. That's just not how things are done.

[13:42] That's not modern. That's not understanding the way the world is now. But I just want to say God's way and God's thinking about how this works has never, ever, ever been in fashion.

[13:56] It's never been the thing, the way it, the thing to do. It's not the thing to do in the Old Testament. Not the popular, you know, everyone's doing it this way.

[14:09] It's not the way in the New Testament. It's not in some nostalgic colonial America. It is not in Puritan England or any place.

[14:20] Those people who call the biblical sexual ethic old fashioned really don't know anything about history. It was one of the common problems in the Old Testament.

[14:33] It's one of the common problems in the New Testament. It's one of the common problems in Europe, in America, in even our history. Martha Washington, the wife of George, named her Tomcat after Alexander Hamilton because she knew how he got around.

[14:51] And it was a bit of a joke. It was a joke to her. So this isn't some sort of holy history. And colonial New York City was filled with brothels and young people went to balls, not just to dance.

[15:07] Sexual purity has never been in vogue. It's never been popular. It's never been the in thing. The Bible has always, always been countercultural in this area.

[15:21] So this wisdom that we are getting from Proverbs 5 is not some old fashioned coming out of the history books. It's coming down from God who he is the wise creator.

[15:32] And he is telling us this is how my gift works best. This is the best way for us to enjoy it. So if you get a Christmas present and it's a bicycle, you ride the bicycle outside.

[15:45] Bicycles have a specific place that they belong outside. People who ride bikes, who shoot guns, they do those things outside because that's where those things belong.

[15:56] People that ride bikes inside of a house or shoot guns inside of the house, they simply don't know what they're doing. They're being foolish. And so the Bible is giving us God's wisdom.

[16:09] Third Bible truth. Sexuality is not ultimate. It's not ultimate. And what I mean by that is it's not God. It's not a savior. It's not our ultimate identity or anything like that.

[16:20] Neither marriage nor sexuality is seen as the most important thing. In our culture, it's elevated to some sort of supreme status. That is not how the Bible sees it.

[16:32] You don't need it to be. You don't need marriage or sexuality to be healthy, whole, happy humans. Only the world makes it an ultimate thing.

[16:43] But God in the Bible puts it into the category of a gift. Not above the creator. Not above the giver. But a gift. And so it's who we are to him.

[16:55] It's how we are related to him that is the ultimate thing. He is our savior. And so who we are to him is ultimately who we are.

[17:05] And so you can be single and a virgin your whole life and live a wonderful life full of meaning and purpose and joy. A complete whole human if you have the Lord.

[17:17] You are not somehow less if you're single. You are not somehow a second-hand citizen in the kingdom of God. And shame on any church or community or family that says that.

[17:30] That you just have to get married. Sex and marriage aren't God. They aren't saviors. They're gifts that God gives to some and not to others.

[17:41] Just like all of his other gifts. Fourth Bible truth. God saves sexual sinners. The city of Corinth was the Las Vegas and probably worst of its day.

[17:55] And it was filled with sexually immoral people. You can read about it. Sexually immoral. The male prostitutes. Homosexual offenders. Impulses. And that is what some of you were.

[18:07] That's what you were. That's when you were when God's grace found you. That's what you were doing. That's the lifestyle. The behavior. The activity that you were engaged in. That's the sin that you were filled with.

[18:20] But you were washed. And you were sanctified. And you were justified. In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And by the spirit of our Lord. Of our God.

[18:32] Sexual sinners can be justified. And sanctified. And washed. And made new. And filled with the Holy Spirit. So Jesus forgave prostitutes. He said you are forgiven.

[18:43] To the weeping former prostitute. Sexual sin doesn't put you beyond grace. It doesn't put you beyond grace. Beyond mercy.

[18:54] There is grace. There is marvelous. Glorious. Saving. Grace. That frees sinners from sin. Whatever that sin might be. Grace that will cleanse you from all of your sin.

[19:06] There is not some sort of special category. That the blood of Jesus does not reach into. And cleanse. Sexual sin dissolves. Like every other sin.

[19:17] In the blood of the Lamb. It's washed away. And so. To put all that together. It's a wonderful gift from God. It's to be enjoyed between a man and a woman in marriage.

[19:31] It is not ultimate. It's not God. And sexual sin is not beyond grace. Jesus Christ's blood cleanses us from all of our sin.

[19:47] Proverbs 5 then is about sexual wisdom. And what should strike you is just as you can find financial wisdom in the book of Proverbs.

[19:59] And parent-child parent wisdom in the book of Proverbs. And relational wisdom in the book of Proverbs. There is also sexual wisdom. And it's two-fold.

[20:12] And it breaks down the half. Proverbs 5 breaks into two halves. And this is this two-fold division in sexual wisdom. It's one, avoid adultery.

[20:24] And two, enjoy the wife of your youth. Enjoy sex with your spouse. And so first, avoid adultery.

[20:35] That's the first 14 verses of Proverbs 5. Avoid adultery. Avoid the strange woman. How?

[20:48] Well, first the father says to his son, you have to see. You have to have the insight. He's giving this man, this young man, insight. You have to see her for who she is.

[21:01] Again, this word is the strange woman. And the idea is she doesn't belong. She's a stranger in your house. She's a stranger in your heart.

[21:13] She's a stranger in your bed. She doesn't belong there. She doesn't have a right to be where she is. She is a trespasser. She's not where God wants her to be. She's not where you should want her to be.

[21:24] And so you need to see her for who she is. And again, remember, these are words of insight. These are peeling back the veil so you can see things as they are.

[21:34] This is what this woman is. She doesn't have any right to be where she is. And you have to see her for who she is. And so now he's talking. He's talking to his young son.

[21:46] And so naturally he talks about the girl as the adulteress, as the strange woman. But young ladies and older ladies, there's no reason we just can't switch the pronouns out.

[21:58] And it works. Really nothing he says applies to men in a unique way that doesn't apply to young ladies. And guarding yourself and keeping yourself pure.

[22:10] So you have to see the tempter for who she is or for who he is. He's not what he says. He's not what he says he is.

[22:22] He's not what he seems to be. So for the lips, the words, he's talking about the words of the stranger drip honey. She's as smooth as oil. In other words, she is going to tell you, he is going to tell you exactly what you want to hear.

[22:40] These words are going to be exactly what you want to hear. They're going to be as sweet as honey to you. And so she'll flatter you. He'll flatter you. Oh, you're so handsome. You're so beautiful.

[22:52] You're so pretty. Oh, there's no one like you. Oh, the way you make me feel. No one can make me feel the way that you make me feel. I've never felt this way before. And you know what?

[23:02] It feels good when someone talks to you that way. Her words, her eyes, her attention. It can be so flattering and so attractive.

[23:13] So he puts you up on a pedestal and he worships you as his goddess. And that feels good. It feels good.

[23:25] His lips drip honey. It's so intoxicating to be wanted, to be desired, to be attractive in the eyes of someone else, to be worshipped and appreciated. So you need to see that there is real bait here.

[23:39] Satan hides the hook with bait. And he shows you the bait, but he doesn't show you the hook. But we're going to show you the hook.

[23:49] We're going to peel back the bait and we're going to show you what's coming behind that sweetness. And he says, but the end, she's as sweet as honey, smooth as oil.

[24:00] Her words are so attractive. It's so intoxicating. It's like you're drunk on this love. But in the end, it's marah. Bitter. You remember Ruth coming back from Moab?

[24:16] She'd gone because in Israel there had been a famine. And so she thought there's more food in Moab. And so her family goes to Moab. And now she's coming back. And her husband is dead.

[24:26] And her two sons are dead. And now she has no one and nothing to live on. And all she has is Ruth. And so that's how she says, you can't call me pleasant anymore.

[24:40] Don't call me Naomi. My name is now Mara. My name is bitter. I'm broken. I'm empty. I'm helpless. I'm hurting.

[24:50] That's where this goes. This is where the adulterous. This is where this ends up. As marah, as bitter, as gall. And so her words go down so smooth.

[25:02] It tastes so good. But her words are a double-edged sword. And that means when she pulls those words out, you're disemboweled.

[25:13] She'll empty you and your guts on the ground. Because her feet go down to death. And her steps lead straight to the grave.

[25:27] She gives no way to the thought of life. She has no idea what living is all about. She has no idea what it means to flourish. And what she is involving you in, what he is involving you in, is the exact opposite of what it really means to live and to be blessed and to flourish and to grow.

[25:45] Her steps lead straight to the grave. She gives no thought to the way of life. Her paths are crooked. But she knows it not. That word crooked means she's wandering. They're not straight paths.

[25:56] She just wanders around. She meanders. The same word is used throughout the Old Testament to talk about exiles who are homeless, who are not where they belong.

[26:07] It's used for exiles. It's used for beggars. It's used for the homeless. It's used metaphorically for Israel staggering around drunk in their sin.

[26:18] They're not connected to God like they ought to be. They're not experiencing the blessing of living under God's smile. They're just staggering drunk, no idea what they're doing in their sin.

[26:32] That's this woman. And that's this man. And this is, young ladies and young men, that's what these people are trying to rope you into. They might not even mean to, but that's what they are roping you into.

[26:43] Spiritually, emotionally, homeless, poor, lost, dazed, confused, ruining his own life, and he can't even figure out what is going on.

[26:58] Why he's such a mess. The idea that came to my mind is, I'm thinking of a particular hotel in Plymouth, but there's other hotels like this or motels, and you've seen them.

[27:14] It's where so many of the wrecked humans, they pay a week at a time to live there. And you can see the grocery carts out front.

[27:27] People always come in and go in. You know what goes on in those kind of hotels? Abuse of all every kind.

[27:41] Prostitution and poverty. Desperation. Just broken wanderers trying to make it through life. That's what she's like.

[27:55] That's what she's trying to bring you, he's trying to bring you into. That's where he's going. He'll ruin you. And you know how much he'll care about you when he's done with you.

[28:09] Not at all. You know, he, she is just using you to fill up some sort of desperate poverty. And you'll just become one more shipwreck.

[28:26] Just one more shipwreck on the shore of his life, of her life. And so the Father's words then is, avoid her. Avoid him.

[28:38] See them for what they are. And then have nothing. Don't go near the door of their house. Avoid them completely. Don't go near them. And so if you find your heart, your desires, and the least bit attracted to him or her, the thing to do is to get out of there.

[28:59] Get out of that relationship. Get out of that conversation. Get out of that room. Whatever it is, avoid her. Do whatever you can to avoid her. Because the end is nothing that you want to taste.

[29:10] The end is nothing you want to experience. He goes on. Verse 10. Less strangers feast on your wealth. And so your work will go to another man's house.

[29:22] So there's really no distinction in Proverbs between the strange woman, the adulteress, a prostitute.

[29:32] They're all sort of the same thing. And this woman is married. And guess what? Now her husband wants revenge. She wants payback. And if he doesn't make you pay with your life, what we're going to see in I think Proverbs 7, he's going to make you pay some other way.

[29:50] It's going to cost you. And at the end of your life, he says you're going to groan when your flesh and body are spent. And he's probably talking about sexually transmitted diseases.

[30:05] And he's saying, is that what you want? That's what happens. You're in your body infected. So parents, maybe you need to have a blunt conversation about that.

[30:22] The father in Proverbs is saying, you don't want this. You don't want anything to do with this in your life. But that's what's going to happen. But worse than the viruses and the bacteria and the parasites infest in your body is something else.

[30:40] It's a never dying worm of regret. Of regret. So now your body's spent, your flesh is spent, your finances are gone, and all you are left with is the sense of regret and shame.

[31:00] He says you'll groan. You'll groan. You'll moan. At the end of your life, you'll growl is the word.

[31:15] The word is used for an animal that's been injured and is now growling in pain. Or a starving lion that can't find food and he's growling.

[31:29] And that's what this man is doing. I wouldn't obey. I wouldn't listen to my teachers. I knew what they were telling me, but I didn't do it.

[31:42] See, because here's the terrible thing living and growing up in the church. Here's the terrible thing about living in a Christian family. You know the truth. And no matter how hard you try to compress it and press it away and to keep the truth away, the truth comes out.

[31:57] The truth will out. And you'll know what you've done and what you could have done and what you should have done, but what you didn't do. What you didn't do.

[32:07] You knew what you were supposed to do, but you didn't do it. And that, he says, will leave you like a wounded dog howling, growling, and pain. And then, so not only are you ruined on the inside, then there's the public shame.

[32:26] One of those lies is, no one will know. Everyone will eventually know. Everyone will know. Jackie Watkins had an affair, and she wrote this about what you need to know before you have an affair.

[32:48] She said this, for me, my choices have forever marred my reputation. Friendships ended. Acquaintances were severed.

[33:01] Family relationships became strained. I lost my history with college friends and church-based relationships, and it has been a lonely road of recovery.

[33:14] This is the price I've paid, and the low-grade ache of lost relationship continues to this day. So, a lifetime of righteousness, a lifetime of pouring yourself into relationships, into friendships, into the people at church, a lifetime of building up trust, and pouring in, and giving capital, and building up capital with people, it's going to be destroyed.

[33:43] Destroyed. People will never trust you like they did before. People will never think of you like the way they did before. Because you betrayed them.

[33:56] And so, this isn't, this is not a fairy tale. You're not washing up on some tropical beach, enjoying things for the rest of your life.

[34:07] No, this is walking into the grocery store. This is walking into Woody's, and being afraid. And then seeing someone that you knew, and then hiding from them, because you're so embarrassed.

[34:20] And he's saying, that's what the price is. That's what you're going to pay. That's where this ends. And everything else is a lie. The world, the devil, they're going to make it look somehow different, better, worth it, whatever.

[34:36] It's just a lie. So, avoid the adulterous. Avoid the strange man or woman that doesn't belong in your heart, that doesn't belong in your mind, that doesn't belong in your bed, that doesn't belong.

[34:49] They shouldn't be there. That's what he says. See them for what they are, and have nothing to do with them. But, that's not where this ends.

[35:01] And the father is talking to his young son, who's probably just married, or almost going to be married. And he says, instead of that strange woman, instead of that person that has no business whatsoever in your life, enjoy your spouse.

[35:17] The idea here is, the best defense is a good offense. Enjoy the wife of your youth. She belongs.

[35:29] She is yours. You're hers. You're her home. She is home to you. You are for each other. And what the father is saying is, satisfy your God-given sexual desires with your spouse.

[35:45] That's what sexual purity is. That's sexual holiness. And this is God's intention, God's wisdom. Continual, frequent, satisfying, lovemaking with your wife or your husband.

[36:00] He says, may her breasts satisfy you always. And so, yes, she's the wife of your youth, but your enjoyment of each other is not just confined to when you're young. It is lifelong.

[36:11] She's always the wife of your youth. She's always the one that God gave to you and made for you. And so, even as you're growing old together, he's saying, rejoice in the wife of your youth.

[36:23] He compares it to drinking. And so, how often do you drink? You drink as often as you are thirsty. And you stop drinking when you're satisfied. And so, wives, husbands, you are God's only rightful satisfaction for your spouse.

[36:40] And so, Paul says, you belong to each other. Your body is not your own. It belongs to your spouse. And so, you belong to each other. And then he says, do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time so that you may devote yourselves to prayer.

[36:57] It can't just be your idea. It has to be mutual consent. And the only reason you should withhold is if you both agree, if it's for a short time, and if it's for prayer.

[37:13] That's the idea. That's what Christian holiness is. That's what biblical wisdom is. That's the biblical view of marital sex. Frequent, continual, satisfying, and also wonderfully enjoyable.

[37:27] He says, may you ever be captivated. It means intoxicated by her love. It really is rejoicing, celebrating, enjoying the wife of your youth.

[37:41] Rejoicing in her beauty. Rejoicing in her grace. She's a delicate doe or a graceful deer. So, she's beautiful, soft, thrilling. And he says, that's God's intention is for you to enjoy each other.

[37:57] There's none of that medieval Catholic idea that sex is just for procreation. So, yes, the birth of children is one of the blessings that come, but it's not the sole purpose, and it's really not even the emphasis in Proverbs.

[38:17] By far, the emphasis is put on the pleasure and the joy that God intends for married couples to have. And so, you see what he's picturing here.

[38:28] You see his image. There's life. There's water. There's animals. There's joy. There's satisfaction. And what he is saying is sex, marital love, inside a loving covenant marriage between a man and a woman, it builds a wall around the marriage, and it allows an echo of the Garden of Eden to come to life in the lives of these two people.

[39:01] Remember the Garden of Eden? They were naked and unashamed. You could ask Eve, you could have asked Adam, what does it mean to be ashamed? And they wouldn't have even known what that meant.

[39:15] Covenant love, married love, doing as God intends, does exactly that. It builds a wall around this couple, and it makes a little Garden of Eden where the man and the wife can retreat and enjoy each other and God's blessings.

[39:37] You can read the book of Song of Songs. It's full of the same imagery. Plants and trees and fountains and animals and naked and unashamed. This is God's wisdom for us.

[39:51] Avoid adultery. Avoid the stranger. the one that doesn't belong have nothing to do with them and then jump right in.

[40:04] Jump right in with two feet into married love. Jump in with happy, grateful joy for the gift of God. And then he ends with this.

[40:16] You need to know that all of this, all of man's ways are in full view of the Lord. All of it is in full view of the Lord.

[40:30] And the Lord has a way of making things turn out the way they're supposed to. The evil deeds of the wicked will ensnare them.

[40:41] There's no kind of escape. There's no exception. There's no escape clause. The cords of his sin will hold him fast and drag him down to death. So, do you see the contrast?

[40:58] We have Sheol, the land of the dead. Wanderers, dead inside. Hades. Or we have Eden on the other side.

[41:11] Groping in darkness and misery and poverty and regret and pain and agony or life. Real life.

[41:22] Enjoyable life. And God's ways are best. That's what Proverbs is saying. Yes, this is old fashioned or it's not even old fashioned. This is other worldly wisdom. This is not what the world is saying is the best.

[41:35] But these are words of insight. God's ways are best. So, may He give us the grace to choose life.

[41:48] May He give us the spirit of God that we might say no to death, no to ourselves, no to all those lies and say yes to what He wants us to say yes to.

[41:59] Yes to the spouse, the wife, the husband of our youth. And this is where I'll end.

[42:10] if you have been less than doing this, then you need to repent immediately and you need to turn from that sin and you need to find forgiveness and mercy in Jesus Christ and grace because there is grace in Him to choose life, to do what is right.

[42:38] And if you say I've already messed up in some way, then also know that just as we saw from Jonathan Edwards this morning, yes, God hates our sin but not as much as He delights in the sacrifice of His Son and so cling to Christ.

[43:00] Take the blood of Christ and apply it to yourself and you will find forgiveness. Let's pray. Lord, thank You for Your wisdom. It is one thing though to know it and it is another thing altogether to do it.

[43:20] And so help us to be like people who look in the mirror and see ourselves, see the world and then actually do what it says.

[43:33] I pray for our young people. I pray for their purity. I pray for Your grace and Your protection upon them. I pray that they would have insight.

[43:45] They would see clearly the lies, the devil, the world in their own selves are showing to them and help them to see through all those lies and to choose life, to see that Your ways really are best.

[44:02] Help us as husbands and wives and parents to model that kind of love and faithfulness for them. Help us to model the kind of honesty and clarity that we see in Proverbs that we would show them and be faithful parents to our children to show them the truth and to not let them be captivated by lies.

[44:31] Please be merciful to us. In Jesus' name, Amen.