Lust

Proverbs 23:26-28

Main Idea: The antidote to lust is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

1. Lust Will Ruin Your Life.
2. The Gospel Will Save Your Life.

When people go deer hunting, they put out bait to lure the deer in and they put on camouflage to disguise themselves so the deer cannot see them. The deer is not suspecting anything as it walks toward what looks like a good meal; then BAM! it gets shot through the heart. As graphic as that image might seem, that is exactly the picture that Proverbs paints when it comes to the issue of lust. You are prey being hunted down by a predator.

This wisdom principle is observable. Even non-Christians can sense this truth. I once counseled with an atheist who lost his marriage because of pornography. He and his wife were not believers and did not have the ethical code of the Bible, but his uncontrolled lust for pornography still destroyed his marriage and brought great devastation into his life. He, an unbeliever, saw up close and personal the horrible consequences of uncontrolled lust.

Lust is deadly for all of us! Lust is a predator stalking its victim, and we must be able to see it. The problem is that we are often like that deer that does not see the danger until it is too late. Granted, some of you do see it, but the only reason you see it is because it has already ruined you or gotten its clutches into you. Others of you do not think you have a problem with lust because you do not act on it, but Jesus says it is not just the act of sexual sin that condemns us. It is also the desire for sinful sex that condemns us. That is why Albert Mohler Jr. has said that everyone north of puberty is a sexual sinner.^[40] Some of you fool yourselves into thinking that you are safe because your fantasies stay in your mind, but the Bible says that sexual sin starts with lust in your heart and mind. Even if you have never acted out in a sinful sexual way, you have thought about it and are therefore guilty of it.

Some people do not see how right now they are taking small steps in this area that will ultimately destroy their life. Some are training themselves for destruction right now and think it is no big deal. They think to themselves things like, “I just look at porn occasionally.” “It’s not hurting anyone.” “I don’t have a problem.” “What’s the big deal if I make out with my girlfriend?” “What’s the big deal in giving an iPhone to my twelve-year-old?” Some folks are setting patterns in their lives right now—or in the lives of their children—that will cause them to do something one year, three years, or fifteen years from now that their children will remember at a funeral service.

Sexual lust is not something to play with; it is deadly! Proverbs 23:26-28 says,

My son, give me your heart,

and let your eyes observe my ways.

For a prostitute is a deep pit,

and a wayward woman is a narrow well;

indeed, she sets an ambush like a robber

and increases the number of unfaithful people.

Lust Will Ruin Your Life

God gave sex as a good gift to be enjoyed in the context of the covenant commitment called “marriage.” However, in our sinfulness we distort God’s good gift and use it in ways he forbids. He forbids those ways not because he wants to rob us of fun but because he knows that using sex in a way that he did not design is harmful and destructive. This includes all sexual activity outside of heterosexual marriage. All of it. So God warns us about sexual sin and lust because enjoying sexual pleasure in the wrong context is deadly.^[41]

The sage says, “My son, give me your heart,” because he knows—like Jesus—that lust starts in the heart. Purity of heart is the goal because it will lead to a pure life. As Proverbs 4:23 has already told us, your heart determines your behavior, so you cannot simply modify your behavior. If you are not pure at the heart level, you will find new outlets for your sin. For example, without a pure heart, you might put blocking software on your computer, but you will find ways around it, or you will just fantasize in your own mind. The battle against lust must be fought in the mind and heart because that is where this all starts. That is its origin.

Then the sage moves from the heart to the eyes because a lustful heart will drive eyes to look at things they should not look at. We cannot tell you how many people are killing themselves with pornography. They are warping their minds to view sexuality in a purely selfish and corrupt manner. This selfish view of sex destroys marriages and will destroy future marriages because the viewer’s mind is twisted by pornographic images into seeing intimacy as something other than what it is, something other than God designed and intended. Looking at all kinds of things can drive lust: Internet porn, the wrong movies, the wrong sitcoms, the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition, or just checking out women at the mall.

The sage says to the son, “Observe my ways.” Imitate me. Can we say that? What if your son or daughter grew up to think just like you? Would that be good? Can you urge them to imitate you? Or is the fact that you check out women in public or talk about the beauty of other women, thereby putting down your wife’s beauty, leading your son to death? I once ministered to a family with a young son who they would take to Hooters and get his picture taken with all the waitresses surrounding him. They would post his big smile on Facebook, but they did not understand the view of women and sexuality that they were planting in his mind with pictures that they thought were innocently cute. God designed sex for other-ness, not selfishness.

Solomon constantly warns his son on this specific topic because this is where Solomon fell and was destroyed (see 1 Kgs 11). He repeatedly said, “Listen to me,” and warned his son of the wayward (foreign?) woman who leads to sexual sin. Here in Proverbs 23 the sage again warns that the immoral woman—a metaphor for sexual sin and lust—is a deep pit! The image is clear. Hunters would dig out deep pits in an attempt to trap their prey. They would then camouflage the hole so that their prey would not see it and would fall into the trap. That is what sexual lust does.

Also, the pit is a metaphor for physical and spiritual death. Proverbs talks about Sheol, or the grave, when it talks about the pit (Prov 5; 7; 9). Sexual lust will send you to hell. Sexual sin and lust is an enemy. Lust is a huntress or robber who wants to kill you and take everything you have. Just like the hunter’s prey, you often do not see the trap until it is too late.

Proverbs has told us repeatedly that wisdom is not a set of ideas; Wisdom is a person. And the New Testament tells us that person is Jesus. But Proverbs also reveals that Folly is a person. Satan stands behind the wayward woman—sexual sin—seeking to kill you. The enemy is prowling around setting a trap to destroy you and take you to hell. How does he do it? He does it through things that are seductive and appealing. Satan is tracking you down, and he notices the things that turn you on, just as a hunter notices what bait attracts the deer.

Lust traps you and ruins your life. It is a waste of time and resources. It warps your idea of marriage. And it puts in place a pattern of behavior that in the future will cause you to hurt your spouse and betray your family. That is what verse 28 says. The predator increases the number of unfaithful people. So lust will ruin you. It will damage your reputation, or it will cause you to lose your family or your future family. Sexual sin is a break of the marriage covenant, even your future marriage covenant. Goldsworthy points out that this verse refers to those who are unfaithful in marriage (Tree of Life, 155).

The sage says that sexual sin is a pit. He said it earlier about the adulteress’s mouth in 22:14: “The mouth of the forbidden woman is a deep pit; a man cursed by the Lord will fall into it.” What does this refer to? The mouth is what often leads men and women astray (cf. Prov 5; 7). Flattery appeals to a man’s vanity (Longman, Proverbs, 408), and words appeal to a woman’s desire for intimate conversation. Sexual sin offers you pleasure, and it delivers for a little while. But then you realize too late that you fell into a trap. After all, Proverbs 7 and 9 say this woman’s house leads down to the grave.

Interestingly, falling for this kind of sin will not just earn you future judgment; it is a sign of God’s condemnation right now (22:14). A sign of God’s judgment is the fact that he is handing you over to your fleshly desires. He removes his merciful, restraining hand from you. Not being able to control yourself, loathing yourself because one more time you have deleted the Internet history on your computer, losing your family because of pornography addiction—these are all just a foretaste of the judgment that is to come.

The problem is that we are all predisposed to this and have fallen short of God’s glory in this area. It starts out small and sometimes seemingly innocent, but then BAM! you fall. All along you did not see how you were undermining your marriage or your future marriage. You thought it was harmless. You thought you had not really done anything “sinful,” but you did not see how you were driving a wedge into your marriage. You thought things like, “It’s just a little flirting. So what? He makes me feel appreciated in a way I don’t at home.” “What’s the big deal? I’d never really do anything anyway.” “She laughs at my jokes.” “He’s a better listener than my husband.” Those thoughts, even unconsciously, plant a deadly germ in your marriage.

Facebook can be a big killer because you start to wonder about an old flame and what it would have been like if you had ended up together. Now you can attempt to recreate what you once had. For some women it is reading romance novels that make them desire intimacy with someone else. For some there are struggles with modesty, causing others to stumble. For teens it might be when they ponder, How far is too far? If you ask that question, it shows that you do not understand that you are training yourself to enjoy sexual contact outside of the covenant of marriage and you are cheating on your future spouse. So parents, it is foolish to let your kids be alone with someone of the opposite sex.

Again, we do not see how deadly some things, that we think are innocuous, actually are. I ( Jon) once counseled with a couple where the husband had cheated on the wife. They were trying to put their marriage back together; and as I dug into their issues, they told me that they used to watch pornography together to spice up their marriage. I asked them why in the world they would do such a thing. I looked at the wife and said, “Don’t you see that you are training him to be aroused by a woman that is not you? Is it any wonder that he went out of the marriage with another woman?” Often, the things that we think are not that big a deal are the things that destroy us.

Proverbs 30:20 says of the adulteress, “This is the way of an adulteress: she eats and wipes her mouth and says, ‘I’ve done nothing wrong.’” What this verse means is that we find a way to justify our sexual sin. Some people justify themselves because their spouse isn’t “holding up their end of the marriage.” Some will even justify their sexual sin by saying it is God’s will. I ( Jon) remember riding to my brother’s basketball game with his roommate’s mother, who had stolen her best friend’s husband. She left her second marriage to begin a relationship with her best friend’s husband, and she said to me, “I finally found the person that God has for me.”

We try to downplay and justify our lust and our sexual sin, but the Bible says they are deadly. The sexually immoral will not inherit the kingdom of God. So the question asked by Tim Challies is a good one: “Do you love pornography enough to go to hell for it?” (“Desecration and Titillation”). And we might add, Do you love lust enough to go to hell for it?

The Gospel Will Save Your Life

Folly—Satan—wants you to follow him to hell. So the sage constantly warns us not to fall for lust because if you do, you are following Folly toward death. On the flip side, Jesus is the Wisdom of God and wants you to follow him on the path of life and wisdom. If you are falling into lust, it shows you have a problem with Jesus—that is, you do not believe the gospel rightly, even if you are a Christian.

In Tim Challies’s article, he makes a great argument (“Desecration and Titillation”). God gave humanity a picture of the gospel long before Jesus died and rose again when he gave us the institution of marriage (Gen 2; Eph 5). Marriage is meant to point us to the relationship of Christ with his church. Our marriages should picture this: Christ’s pure love for his bride that drove him to the cross to be united with her in one flesh. Sexual union is only right in marriage because only then can it point to the intimate love Christ has for his people. Sex outside of marriage—lust—lies about Jesus and the church. It makes a mockery of the gospel. “To tamper with sex is to tamper with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ” (Challies, “Desecration and Titillation”). When you look at pornography, fantasize, or flirt with a coworker, you are mocking the gospel. In pornography, you are watching a violation of the gospel and being turned on by it. In contrast, a pure sexual relationship in marriage points to the purity of Jesus’s love for you. So when you lust you are saying that you need a more satisfying and pleasurable love than the love of Jesus. That shows you have not rightly grasped the gospel.

Therefore, Proverbs tells us that the horizontal antidote to lust is marriage. Enjoy exclusive and repeated intimacy with your spouse rather than burn with lust. So guys, romance your wife, learn about her, become an expert on her, do getaway weekends without the kids, do not sleep in separate rooms, and pursue her your entire life. If you are not regularly intimate with your wife, Paul says you are in a danger zone. After all, he mentions the same predators seeking to destroy marriage as Proverbs (1 Cor 7).

The vertical antidote to lust is Jesus and the gospel. Preach the gospel to yourself daily. Fight this war in your heart and mind. John Piper talks about imagining graphic images of Jesus dying on the cross—head pierced by thorns, lacerated back heaving up and down on the cross beam, and lungs struggling for breath—as you quote Titus 2:14: “He gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to cleanse for himself a people for his own possession, eager to do good works.” He did that for our purity; and if we yield to lust, we add to his already excruciating suffering by stabbing him with a sword. Because he died for our purity, we should not do that (Piper, “Future Grace, Part 4”).

The sage warns us through the Spirit about lust, and we are called to heed the warnings and walk in wisdom—following after Jesus. That means gouging out your eye instead of going to hell (Matt 5:29). Flee from lust and do not even get close to it because it is so dangerous. Do not see how far you can go or how close you can get to the line. Do not ask, “How close to immorality can I get without actually committing it?” No! Run from it (1 Cor 6:18)! This might mean a community group where you are accountable to other guys, blocking software, joining a reporting program like Covenant Eyes, getting rid of your computer, or throwing your kids’ iPhone in the trash. It means doing whatever you have to do. You might say, “Oh that’s a bit much,” but not if you look at it this way: there is a ferocious predator loose in your house trying to kill you, and it only makes sense to take drastic measures to take its life before it takes yours.

Conclusion

We have all fallen into lust and earned the wage of descending into the chambers of hell (Rom 6:23). The good news is that Jesus went into the pit for you—he became the prey—and he came back alive on the other side. He crushed the head of the predator and offers you forgiveness and new life if you will turn to him. One day those things that you think no one else knows about will be uncovered, and you will have to look a man in the face who knows not only everything you have ever done but also everything you have ever thought. Miraculously, you can hear that man say to you right now, “There is no condemnation” for you if you will repent and ask me for mercy (Rom 8:1).

Reflect and Discuss

1. Why does porn destroy marriages?
2. In what ways does sexual sin include more than physical acts?
3. What are some seemingly innocent ways that people fall into lust?
4. Why is God’s design for sex the best?
5. Why is porn so destructive?
6. What are some ways that we express our lust?
7. How does sexual sin show you are under God’s wrath right now?
8. How should marriage free you from lust?
9. How can you practically fight against lust?
10. What does it look like practically to “gouge out your eye”?