Word of Salvation - December 2010

 

PROPER DELIGHT IS THE KEY, John de Hoog

(Sermon 8 in a series on the Ten Commandments)

 

Reading: Ephesians 5:21-33

Text: Exodus 20:14; Proverbs 5

 

Most people in Australia have not thought deeply about God and sex. If you were to ask people in the street what God thinks of sex, what kind of response do you think you’d get? “I guess he’s pretty much against it,” one person might say. “I suppose he tolerates it for married people, but not because he thinks it’s a good thing; it’s got to be tolerated because it’s the only way to propagate the human race,” is what someone else might think. “He doesn’t really care much about it, as long as it stays within marriage,” might be another opinion.

 

Will pleasing God in your experience of sex mean you’ll have less fun? Will pleasing God in your sex life reduce your own enjoyment of sex?

 

This is the first question I want to explore today. To set the scene I think I should begin by emphasising that God invented sex, that it was part of all that he declared to be very good in the original creation. Sex is God’s idea; he designed it; he created it. God never makes mistakes.

 

Our passage in Proverbs 5 teaches a remarkably positive view of sex. God’s strong statement here is that moral sex is good and pleasing in his sight, that he is glorified by it and that moral sex is the only kind of sex that contributes to human flourishing.

 

Maybe I should first say what I mean by “moral sex”. Moral sex is defined by God. The seventh commandment says, “You shall not commit adultery.” The Bible broadens this so that we quickly realise that individuals not married to each other must never have sex with each other, whether because they are single or because they are married to someone else. But this negative definition – don’t have sex with anyone you’re not married to – does not exhaust what the Bible means by moral sex.

 

Truly moral sex is pleasing – it is pleasing to God and it is pleasing to us – and that’s exactly what God intended. Married couples need to think: We can actually please God through moral sex, through following his will for our sexual relationship, and that will be the very best for us as well.

 

Right now many of you are thinking: This sermon is not for me. You may think you’re too young to deal with this question. You may be single, either because you’ve never married or because you have lost your partner by being widowed or through divorce. You may be married and think that everything is OK in your relationship and that you don’t need to hear a sermon about sex. I hope that by the end you will have changed your mind.

 

Let’s go back to Proverbs 5 and see God’s magnificently positive view of moral sex. The best way to think about this is to see the blessings that God promises on a faithful loving relationship between a husband and a wife. God promises true joy and real satisfaction. (Proverbs is cast here in terms of a father speaking to a son, so all the commands are to men, but they can easily be understood to speak to women as well.)

 

The blessings on faithful married love mentioned here are both command and promise. It’s very important to see that. God commands that we find joy and satisfaction in our spouse, and he promises that we will find joy and satisfaction in our spouse. Let’s see how this works.

 

The first promise is true joy. God actually commands a husband to find joy in his wife, and this is so critical that the order is repeated three times. Vs 18 “Rejoice in the wife of your youth.” Vs 19 “May her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be captivated by her love.” These are all imperatives, orders. Husbands are commanded to rejoice, to be satisfied, to be captivated by their wives. Proverbs is talking specifically about the sexual relationship here. The word “love” at the end of vs 19 means “lovemaking”, and the word “captivated” suggests intoxication. There can be no doubt that Proverbs is speaking about sex between husband and wife.

 

This is confirmed in the warnings against illicit sex that surround these verses. We’ll get to those later, but just a sample. Vs 20 “Why be captivated [same word as in vs 19, suggesting intoxication] – why be captivated, my son, by an adulteress? Why embrace the bosom of another man’s wife?”

 

We might find it a bit strange to be commanded to experience joy in our spouse. Isn’t joy something that wells up in us, an emotion we can’t control? No. The Bible is full of commands to be joyful – “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again, rejoice!” says Paul in Philippians. Here we need to get a good handle on the difference between pleasure and joy.

 

We live in a time in which pleasure is an ultimate value. This applies to sex in many people’s minds. A couple of young people who get into a sexual relationship will certainly enjoy great pleasure. “It must be right if it feels this good!” they think. We’re made to feel this kind of pleasure by God, why is it wrong? But sexual pleasure is not the same thing as sexual joy.

 

Joy is far better than pleasure. When a couple falls in love and romantic feelings run high, it may be hard to tell the difference, but there is a difference. What are the differences between pleasure and true joy? Daniel Heimbach suggests the following:¹

 

1. Pleasure is brief and temporary, it explodes and then quickly fades. But joy is permanent.

2. Pleasure cannot stand suffering, it always flees from pain. When life gets too hard, pleasure disappears. But joy lasts through suffering and rises above pain. A couple who obey God and find joy in each other can persevere in love in hard times when all pleasure is gone.

3. Pleasure is shallow; it arises simply from mental or physical stimulation. But joy is profound and permeates our entire being.

4. Pleasure is impersonal – one person can give as much pleasure as another, and if all you are after is pleasure, relationships will be weak and will quickly fracture. But joy is deeply personal and always deepens relationships.

5. Pleasure is self-centred, it focuses on what your lover can do for you. Joy appreciates the value and worth of the other, joy is concerned with your lover and about your relationship together.

6. Ultimately pleasure is just something we manufacture for ourselves, but joy comes from God. Remember that joy is a fruit of the Spirit. God the Holy Spirit gives and controls joy. You can get sexual pleasure without obeying God’s will, but it will end up cheap and unsatisfying. You will only know true joy in a sexual relationship if you submit that relationship to God and live by the Spirit.

 

God promises true joy to couples who conduct their sexual relationship in this way. You can easily see, can’t you, that it’s possible to be married and to have sex only with your partner and still be disobeying God in your sexual relationship. If you are only after self-satisfying pleasure and not finding true joy in each other, then you are falling short of God’s command and promise.

 

The world around us thinks and often says that it’s impossible to find real sexual satisfaction in a single one-woman-one-man relationship. This idea can find its way into our hearts as well. There might be some problems in our relationship and we begin to think about finding satisfaction elsewhere. But the Bible has a totally different view of the matter.

 

The Bible says that real satisfaction comes to us only if God allows it. God controls all satisfaction, and nothing satisfies unless God allows it. David says to God in Psalm 16, "You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you." Psalm 145:19 says, “He fulfils the desires of those who fear him” – that is, those who respect and obey him. So nothing can truly satisfy apart from God allowing it and providing the satisfaction. Even satisfaction with sex depends on how closely your life relates to God.

 

Proverbs 5 commands and promises great satisfaction. Vs 19 says, “May her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be captivated by her love-making.” It’s both a command and a promise. The word for “satisfy” means saturated, filled up, having extra, more than necessary, having abundance. We can be sure that moral sex, sex that is according to God’s pattern, will lead to overflowing satisfaction.

 

Pause

 

God, in his desire to bless us, calls us to conduct our sexual relationship in God’s way. But conducting a sexual relationship God’s way is actually not a matter of technique, of mechanics, of doing certain things and not doing certain other things. It is first of all a matter of a genuine relationship with God. We cannot even begin to please God in any way by simply applying rules. We can only please God if we live by faith, and if we live to please him.

 

The very first thing we need then is to know the way to God. Jesus Christ is the way, the truth and the life. He is the way the truth and the life for us in a general sense, and that certainly includes the way we live out our sex lives with our partners. Here is one of the central reasons why a Christian marrying a non-Christian is such a disastrous idea. It is impossible for a Christian to fully pursue, with his spouse, a sexual relationship that honours God and that reaches its full potential, if his spouse is not a Christian.

 

Of course I’m not saying that a Christian marriage will be perfect and that non-Christians cannot enjoy good marriages. That’s simply not true, and we all know from our own experience that Christian marriages can suffer many strains and difficulties. But two Christians, who are by the grace of God in Jesus Christ both doing all they can to experience and work out the fruit of the Spirit in their lives will be more able to find true spiritual joy, true sexual joy in each other than might otherwise be the case. If the Holy Spirit is at work in us to change us, to renew us, we will surely be better equipped to live, to love, to conduct a sexual relationship, according to God’s pattern. The gospel of Jesus Christ is just as central to our sex lives as it is to the rest of our lives.

 

Here then is our first point. Will pleasing God in your experience of sex mean you’ll have less fun? Will pleasing God in your sex life reduce your own enjoyment of sex? The answer from Proverbs 5 is that, to the contrary, true sexual joy and real sexual satisfaction can only be experienced in a relationship that is being conducted God’s way and in dependence on God through Jesus Christ.

 

Given this first point, how important it is that we guard the sexual relationship and avoid all perversions of it! Remember, this is for our good. God designed and made sex, his purpose for sex is that it bring true joy and real satisfaction, that it be a source of genuine pleasure between a husband and his wife. Warnings against experiencing sex outside this relationship are not the work of a party-pooper, of a God who wants to interrupt and limit our pleasure. Rather, they are loving restrictions designed to ensure that we reject second-rate substitutes and go for the real thing.

 

So let’s see secondly that there are fatal dangers in sex that strays from the path of God’s will.

 

The first nine chapters of Proverbs are an introduction to the book as a whole. The purpose of these chapters is to motivate us to desire wisdom and then to act wisely. The short proverbs in the rest of the book unfold in practical everyday terms of what wise living looks like.

 

It is surely significant that in these nine introductory chapters, the major single theme is the fatal dangers of illicit sex. Chapter 2:16-20, Chapter 6:23-35, all of Chapter 5 and all of Chapter 7 and the end of Chapter 9 are all devoted to this theme. Why did Solomon and the wisdom teachers of Israel regard illicit sex as so dangerous?

 

David Hubbard expresses the answer brilliantly. He writes, “Nothing in life so clouds our judgment and makes stupid fools of the wisest of us as succumbing to illicit passion. All our useful energies are drained off to defend or conceal that behaviour. The colossal compromise of adultery colours all our other value judgments and causes us to stagger along life’s road half-tipsy. To the teachers it was worth every possible effort to prevent their young people from falling into this bottle-dungeon of perverted sexuality whose walls slope inwards to the top and make escape only a wild fantasy.”²

 

The words in Proverbs are addressed to a son, urging him to avoid the adulterous woman, but they can just as easily be applied to daughters avoiding adulterous men. Vs 3 “...the lips of an adulteress drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil; but in the end she is bitter as gall, sharp as a double-edged sword. Her feet go down to death; her steps lead straight to the grave.” The adulterous woman (or man) is incredibly attractive in speech and appearance, but she or he is an agent of the devil, being used by him to lead you to death. In the end she is like a double-edged sword – literally she is like a two-mouthed sword, both mouths feasting on the naive man (or woman) who has been captured by her (or him).

 

She looks gorgeous, her speech is so reasonable, who can resist? She’s described in Chapter 7. “I saw among the simple, I noticed among the young men, a youth who lacked judgment. He was going down the street near her corner, walking along in the direction of her house at twilight, as the day was fading, as the dark of night set in. Then out came a woman to meet him, dressed like a prostitute and with crafty intent. (She is loud and defiant, her feet never stay at home; now in the street, now in the squares, at every corner she lurks.) She took hold of him and kissed him and with a brazen face she said: ‘I have fellowship offerings at home; today I fulfilled my vows. So I came out to meet you; I looked for you and have found you! I have covered my bed with coloured linens from Egypt. I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes and cinnamon. Come, let's drink deep of love till morning; let's enjoy ourselves with love! My husband is not at home; he has gone on a long journey. He took his purse filled with money and will not be home till full moon.’ With persuasive words she led him astray; she seduced him with her smooth talk. All at once he followed her like an ox going to the slaughter, like a deer stepping into a noose till an arrow pierces his liver, like a bird darting into a snare, little knowing it will cost him his life.”

 

What happens to the man (or woman) so caught? Our passage in Chapter 5 says you will lose your honour, your strength, your years and your wealth. Everything you’ve worked for is lost. If you are discovered the personal shame will stay with you. Your family and your friends may forgive you, but they will probably never trust you again in the same way. If you are not discovered your behaviour will grind on your spirit and your conscience and will colour all your responses to others, men or women. For many of us, the temptation of illicit sex is the most attractive and therefore the most dangerous of all the potential traps we face.

 

Pause

 

It’s all been very plain, hasn’t it! First, we’ve seen that true sexual joy and real sexual satisfaction can only be experienced in a relationship that is being conducted God’s way and in dependence on God through Jesus Christ. Second, we’ve seen that there are fatal dangers in sex that strays from the path of God’s will. Finally, notice how Solomon ends this section in Proverbs 5. See that your life, including your sex life, is under God’s scrutiny, so exercise extreme prejudice.

 

God our Father in vitally interested in how we deal with temptation, what steps we take to please him in our lives from day to day.

 

In Matthew 6 Jesus taught us to pray these words, “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” Do you pray that prayer? Are you serious about praying it? What does God think if you pray that prayer, but then refuse to help answer it? What does God think if you pray that prayer but then intentionally put yourself in the way of temptation? God knows your heart, he knows your true intentions. Vs 21 “For a man’s ways are in full view of the Lord, and he examines all his paths.”

 

We Christians need to learn to practice extreme prejudice. Prejudice is usually regarded as a bad thing. Prejudice means pre-judging something or someone – coming to a decision about someone or something before giving it a chance. Prejudice is bad in many areas of life. But in this aspect of our lives, we must, God’s calls us, to exercise extreme prejudice. God calls us to decided beforehand to steer our lives away from sexual temptation.

 

The Book of Proverbs knows how difficult it is to resist sexual temptation when it’s in your face, when it’s right there. And so it calls us to decide beforehand, to be prejudiced, to steer a path away from temptation. Vs 7 “Now then, my sons, listen to me; do not turn aside from what I say. Keep to a path far from her, do not go near the door of her house.” Chapter 7:24 “Now then, my sons, listen to me; pay attention to what I say. Do not let your heart turn to her ways or stray into her paths. Many are the victims she has brought down; her slain are a mighty throng. Her house is a highway to the grave, leading down to the chambers of death.”

 

1 Corinthians 6:18 says, “Flee from sexual immorality.” There are times when the most spiritual thing you can do is just to run, to get yourself out of there.

 

What are you doing to practice extreme prejudice in avoiding sexual temptation? It may be relatively easy to steer away from the more obvious things. But all around us, in our culture, there is a steady drip, drip, drip of with its constant message that self-fulfilment and pleasure are automatic rights when it comes to sex. How easily our hearts can be led astray!

 

God’s creation of sex, his design for its use in a faithful marriage relationship is a magical, wonderful blessing. But because it is so magnificent and potentially life-giving, Satan has done all he can to make it tawdry and fatal. But sex can only become ugly in its misuse. Don’t be sucked in! Proper delight in your spouse is the key. Exercise extreme prejudice, and look to God for rich blessing.

 

Amen