Honey Lips

Solomon warns his son of the temporal consequences of sexual sin. There will be a death, so to speak, right now. You will reap what you’ve sown. Anyone can see these consequences, even non-believers. Solomon is actually talking in 5:9-14 about the forbidden woman’s pimp or her husband taking revenge, but these consequences are generic enough to apply to all of us. They seem very similar to the covenant curses of Deuteronomy 28. When you obey God you will experience blessings that you did not work for, but when you disobey him even what you have worked for will go to another. You will give the best part of you to someone it does not belong to (Prov 5:10). You will waste your time, energy, and resources. Porn is a current example of an incredible waste of time when you could have been producing or providing for your family. Solomon says you will lose your money (in modern cases, alimony and child support). If you fall for this, someone else will kiss your wife and tuck your kids in at night—as Toby Keith sings about in “Who’s That Man?”

You may lose your health (v. 11; perhaps an STD). You will be filled with regret that you did not listen when you had the chance (vv. 12-13). It’s foolish to not listen to a rebuke. Perhaps your wife came to you with concerns about a new relationship you were developing, and you responded to her in anger. “You’re crazy. You don’t know what you’re talking about. Stop making a big deal out of this. There’s nothing there.” You attacked her and made her feel like an idiot for her concern. Do you get defensive when confronted on these things? If so, you are the idiot! This is your wife or your husband protecting you. You were convinced they were overreacting, but now you wish you had listened! You may also experience public disgrace and shame in the assembly (v. 14).

Solomon says in Proverbs 6:20-35 that sexual sin may cost you your life. He speaks practically about the cost of adultery. He says the price for a prostitute is like the cost of bread (v. 26). He is not condoning prostitution. He is just saying that it is less costly because it usually destroys just one family whereas adultery destroys two families. He says adultery is more costly because it may cost you your life (v. 34). I heard the story of a man who went into a Sunday school class to beat up a man who had an affair with his wife. Revenge is a reality!

Sexual sin may just cost your life as you know it. You lose the respect of your children or you lose your family. But it may cost you your physical life if the husband wants revenge. You cannot play with fire without getting burned; likewise, you cannot mess with sexual sin without it wrecking your life (vv. 27-28). This wound of shame, disgrace, and possible death is not worth a few minutes of pleasure. And the biggest problem is that these temporal consequences are not even the worst part. They are just a foretaste of hell because the wages of sexual sin is death (Rom 6:23).

Even if you do not die now, you will die later. This sin seems so appealing and sweet like honey, but in the end it is bitter and deadly (5:3-5). Proverbs 7:22-23 pictures this as an ignorant cow being led along to become a steak for someone’s dinner, an oblivious deer that is shot through the vitals by a hunter, or an unsuspecting bird that gets trapped. These poor, stupid animals were just going about their business and did not know that one second later their life would be over!

Solomon says not to be intoxicated with this sexual sin because the Lord is watching (5:21). If you think no one will find out, you are foolish. God sees all of our sexual sin. We will be held accountable for it on judgment day. It will not go unnoticed. Even if by chance we avoid all of the consequences in this life, we will not avoid judgment. The church has been too focused lately on self-help. So we often merely talk about sexual sin at the level of temporal consequences. Our appeal is to our self-centeredness: “C’mon, you don’t want to get pregnant, do you? You don’t want to get an STD, do you? You don’t want to ruin intimacy for your future marriage, do you? You don’t want to lose your money, do you?” We are so afraid to use the word hell because we don’t want to seem old-fashioned. But we need to use this word because sexual sin will drag us there. Solomon makes this clear throughout Proverbs 5–7. This raises an important question.

Solomon gives us two ways to fight this sin: vertical and horizontal. Your vertical relationship with the Lord must be right in order for your horizontal relationship with your spouse to be right. These work in concert.

The antidote to sexual sin is to be sexually active with your wife. True intimacy is found in exclusivity. You become an expert on one person that you are committed to for a lifetime. You might say, “Well, I’m trapped in a loveless marriage right now.” The truth is that if you will remain faithful and exclusive, over time intimacy will develop. That does not mean that you should not seek counsel or that there are not things to work on, but do not give up on God’s picture.

Paul utilizes the same strategy as Solomon. In 1 Corinthians 6 he exhorts the Corinthians to flee sexual immorality, and in 1 Corinthians 7 he says to enjoy sex regularly in marriage. He says it is dangerous to withhold sex from one another. If you are not having sex regularly in marriage, that is a danger sign. It can destroy your marriage. Sexual intimacy binds you together with your spouse in a way you are not bound with anyone else. You must develop this part of your marriage. Meet your spouse’s needs rather than insisting on your needs being met (Phil 2:3-5). Practically: Do not sleep in separate rooms. Do getaways without the children. Be gracious and kind to one another.

Solomon uses graphic imagery when he says, “Drink water from your own cistern” (v. 15; cf. Song 1:2-3; 4:1-7). He says, “Take pleasure in the wife of your youth” (v. 18; you got married young, and you’re still together!). He exhorts his son to be intoxicated with her breasts and her love (5:19). As Tremper Longman said, “The best defense against committing adultery is a strong offense in marriage” (Proverbs, 158). Solomon does not even mention procreation here. Experiencing regular sexual pleasure in marriage will guard against unfaithfulness.

If you’re not married, this counsel in Proverbs can also refer to your future wife. Marry young. Do not delay marriage.

Do not “just say no” in regard to sex when you talk about it with your children. The “no” alone will not work because sex is too powerful. The church has often neglected our duty to talk about this topic that is all over the Bible. God gave sex as a good gift to be enjoyed in marriage. So instead of “just saying no” with your kids, point them to the beauty of marriage and the goodness of sex in marriage. Yes, of course the culture downplays marriage because it is a picture of the gospel (Eph 5). But we need to tell our kids that their desires and urges teach them they are meant to be married.

The immoral woman is the rival to the father. She is the rival to Woman Wisdom. Whom will the son listen to? Whom will he embrace? This immoral woman is a major character in Proverbs. She stands for a literal person with whom the son can be sexually unfaithful. However, later she will be personified as Woman Folly, the rival to Woman Wisdom (Prov 9). If the son embraces this forbidden woman, it will reveal that he has rejected his father, Woman Wisdom, and Yahweh himself. Sexual sin and spiritual sin are tied together throughout the Bible. Adultery is the distortion of the most intimate human relationship, and it is used as a metaphor to speak of the distortion of our relationship to God. Idolatry is spiritual unfaithfulness. That’s the whole point of Proverbs 1–9. If our horizontal relationships are off, it reveals that our vertical relationship with God is off as well. Solomon knows this because the “foreign women” he was intimate with led him into idolatry. Falling for this woman would reveal that the son is not in right relationship with the Lord.

So yes, there is a real adulteress who can tempt the son, but Woman Folly stands behind that adulteress. In the context of the whole Bible, we know that Woman Wisdom points to Jesus, and we will see that Woman Folly stands for Satan. (Longman, How to Read Proverbs, lays out this case.) There is a personal being that stands behind the people or things that would tempt you to sexual sin. Satan wants to destroy you and drag you to hell. One of the ways that he most often attacks is sexual sin. If you are not experiencing regular sex with your spouse, there is room for Satan to tempt you (1 Cor 7:5). He and his minions observe the things that entice you and bring you pleasure, and when the time is right they might just offer them to you in order to ruin you.

The whole point of Proverbs 1–9 is the father trying to get the son to be in a relationship with Wisdom instead of Folly. That’s the question: “Whom will you choose to follow? Whom will you choose to marry?” You cannot walk in wisdom in terms of sexual ethics if you are not in a right relationship with Jesus. Your vertical relationship will affect your horizontal marriage, and vice versa. So Solomon says, marry Wisdom—Jesus. That may seem like strong language, but that is precisely the antidote to sexual sin. He says to call Wisdom “my sister” (7:4). That may seem weird, but that is exactly what Solomon calls his bride (Song 4:9–5:2). You must be in a one-flesh union with Christ. Through believing the gospel you can become a part of Christ’s bride—the church.

Once you are part of Christ’s body, the law of the parents is written on the tablet of your heart (Prov 7:1-3) so that you can obey and live a life of safety in terms of sexual ethics. Those who fall for sexual sin lack the heart necessary to obey God (6:32 literally says in the Hebrew, “The one committing adultery with a woman lacks a heart”). You need to meet Jesus and get a new heart with new desires, so that you can live up to the sexual ethic laid out in Proverbs.

God created his world good and everything worked right, including relationships and sex. But sin broke our relationship with God and with each other, so nothing right now works as it was designed. Instead of intimacy and satisfaction in marriage, there are distrust, barriers, and unfaithfulness. Sex is still a good, God-given gift, but it is not used properly because we are sinners. Fire can be both good and destructive. When it is in a fireplace it can warm a house so you do not freeze in the winter, but when it is outside the fireplace it will destroy the house. Like a fire, sex is very good in the right context (i.e., marriage) but very destructive in the wrong context. Because of our sinful nature, we use sex in destructive ways that God never intended.

Because of human sin, our vertical relationship with the Lord is off; and as a result so are our horizontal relationships like marriage. We need to be brought back into right relationship with God in order for our marriages to work properly. That’s the point of Proverbs. Your relationship with the Lord—fear of Yahweh—is directly connected with your relationship with your spouse. Solomon understands this full well, and that is why in Proverbs 1–9 he constantly talks about two relationships. He talks about our spiritual relationships (Wisdom or Folly; Yahweh or idols), and he speaks of our practical relationships (wife or immoral woman). Each relationship has a direct effect on the other. If your spiritual relationship is off, it can destroy the practical, and vice versa! Solomon’s heart was pulled toward other women, and his heart was pulled toward idols!

Here’s the good news: Jesus Christ—the Wisdom of God—went into Sheol for our sexual sin, and he came back victorious three days later. Through his death and resurrection, we can be reconciled to God. In Christ, there is no condemnation for our sexual sin. And by the power of Christ’s Spirit and our new hearts, we can be transformed to live out God’s plan for our lives, including sexually. That is good news indeed!