Sermon script on the book of Proverbs, chapter 5

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Friends, brothers and sisters in Christ, turn with me in your Bibles to the book of Proverbs, chapter 5. We have been journeying through this remarkable book, a testament to the wisdom of King Solomon. Solomon, a man blessed with extraordinary insight, was uniquely qualified to speak on the dangers we find here, particularly the warning against sexual promiscuity and chastity. Why? Because Solomon himself had fallen into this very immorality. His failure began with a seemingly small compromise, marrying Pharaoh’s daughter, following tradition for peace. But this led to taking other heathen daughters, whose influence drew his heart away from the Lord. Compromise, he learned, is the first step in departing from God. Though God could have given him victory, Solomon was led by fleshly desires and carnal reasoning. Indeed, no one fell further in this area of sin than Solomon. Yet, in God’s marvellous way, He took Solomon’s greatest failures and turned them into a powerful anointing, allowing Solomon to speak the message of Proverbs, touching lives for centuries.

Proverbs chapter 5, particularly verses 1-14, gives us a solemn warning about giving our years of labour to the adulteress. But this warning is not just about sexual sin in isolation. The adulteress also represents the love of this world. So, this passage speaks to us about the dangers of following our own selfish path of worldliness, which inevitably leads us to depart from God’s plan for our lives. We see this passage speaking to us in couplets, or pairs of verses, from Proverbs 5:1-14.

Let us begin where wisdom always calls us to begin: by prioritising wisdom itself. Proverbs 5:1-2 tells us to seek wisdom so that we will understand what is going on around us and speak from a heart of wisdom. Verse 1 says, “My son, attend unto my wisdom, and bow thine ear to my understanding”. The word "attend" here, from the Hebrew 'qashab', means to prick up the ears, to hearken. It means to focus our attention upon God's Word. If we do not focus on the Lord, we will focus on the things of this world. Whatever we focus upon, the source notes tell us, will eventually capture our hearts. Verse 2 adds, “That thou mayest regard discretion, and that thy lips may keep knowledge”. We are to let wisdom guide our thoughts and words. This mouth of wisdom is later contrasted with the mouth of the strange woman in verse 3.

Now, the warning intensifies as we look at verses 3 and 4, describing The Lips of Seduction. Proverbs 5:3-5 tells us that the trap of seduction is found in the lips of a strange woman. Something that appears so pleasant and desirous, Proverbs 5:3 says, "For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil". In Solomon’s day, nothing was sweeter than honey, nothing smoother than oil. Yet, the lips of a whore are described as even sweeter and smoother. The sweetness appeals to our sense of taste, the smoothness to our sense of touch. The adulteress, the source notes explain, is appealing to man’s five sense gates, attempting to enter and capture his heart. She speaks soft words, beautifies herself for his eyes, prepares her lips, applies perfume – no entrance gate is left unattended. The battleground, we are told, is the mind, for it is through the mind that the heart is captured. This is a daily battle we must fight. Job understood this power of temptation, saying, “I made a covenant with mine eyes; why then should I think upon a maid?” (Job 31:1). He made a quality decision before encountering temptation not to gaze upon a woman. Jesus taught similarly in the Sermon on the Mount, that gazing upon a woman to lust after her is adultery in the heart (Matthew 5:27-28). This is precisely what Job was avoiding.

While her lips may drop as a honeycomb, promising sweetness, Proverbs 5:4 gives us the stark reality: “But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a twoedged sword”. Wormwood, from a root verb meaning “to curse,” is described as poisonous and accursed, containing a bitter taste. This bitterness and sharpness are used symbolically to describe what the spirit of man experiences when his conscience reveals his sin. The grief and pain in a man’s soul who has been overcome by sin is enormous. The smoothness and sweetness are contrasted with horrible results.

Proverbs 5:5-6 make it plain: The Strange Woman Leads a Man to Hell. These verses tell us her seduction leads down the path of death and not the path of life. Proverbs 5:5 says, “Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell”. Not only does it lead to death, but it is an unpredictable path to follow. Proverbs 5:6 states, “Lest thou shouldest ponder the path of life, her ways are moveable, that thou canst not know them”. To hear her talk sounds soothing and sweet, like honey, but when your heart follows her, she desires you no more. You cannot predict such a moveable person. How sharp is the pain of a broken heart, like a sword piercing you, and the taste is bitter. The source notes offer illustrations of this unpredictable nature: Delilah's love and hate for Samson (Judges 6:0 - Note: This reference might mean the account of Samson and Delilah generally found in Judges 16), and Amnon loving Tamar one minute and hating her the next (2 Samuel 13:2, 4, 15). Her ways are moveable; this kind of woman, also figuratively of this world, can love you one instant and hate you the next. She doesn't want anything permanent; she is restless, seeking constant change and greater depths of sin. While you tried to please her, she has led you further away from God. The word "ponder" in Proverbs 5:6 means to revolve or weigh mentally. Depending on how you translate the Hebrew, it can mean either "lest you ponder the path of life" or "she gives no thought to the way of life". Both meanings are valid as these two different meanings have the same structure in the Hebrew text.

Given this danger, wisdom gives us clear instruction in Proverbs 5:7-8: Stay on the Path of Wisdom and far from her path. Proverbs 5:7 says, “Hear me now therefore, O ye children, and depart not from the words of my mouth”. The mouth of wisdom here is contrasted with the mouth of the strange woman. Proverbs 5:8 gives us a direct command: “Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house”. To ignore this warning, the notes state, brings the regret and sorrow described later. Yet, this is precisely what the young man did in Proverbs 7:8, “Passing through the street near her corner; and he went the way to her house”. He thought he was strong enough, but he was weak. Paul gave a similar warning to the Corinthian church to “Flee fornication” (1 Corinthians 6:18). He also told young Timothy to flee youthful lusts (2 Timothy 2:22). Paul knew this was an area where believers could quickly be overcome by the sinful nature. We do not even need to be near such temptations. Wisdom tells us not to get into a place where our senses are being aroused. We should not be deceived into thinking we are strong enough to overcome these temptations.

Proverbs 5:9-10 detail the heavy price paid by the man who follows the strange woman: He Gives Her His Honour, Labour, and Wealth. These verses tell us that our honour, our life, our wealth, and our strength will be lost if we follow her path and ignore wisdom's warnings. Riches, honour, life, and health are described elsewhere in Proverbs as blessings of wisdom (Proverbs 3:16). The path of death causes us to lose these blessings – spiritual, mental, physical, and financial. Solomon looked upon Pharaoh’s daughter, pondered her beauty, but it was a trap he thought he could avoid. Proverbs 5:9: “Lest thou give thine honour unto others, and thy years unto the cruel”. A man who follows such women loses his honour in the community. Giving years "unto the cruel" means giving one's life and effort to evil people, especially the devil. Proverbs 5:10: “Lest strangers be filled with thy wealth; and thy labours be in the house of a stranger”. The objective of the strange woman and the evil man is to gain their victim’s wealth. The devil craftily steals and causes you to waste your substance. Businesses advertising perverse lifestyles get rich off the victim's wealth. Those in bondage spend their wealth on these pleasures. When a man goes to satisfy his fleshly lusts, the club owner gets his wealth while the man’s life is destroyed. Giving his "labours" means giving his best strength, the most active years of his life as a young man. The source notes include a personal illustration of hard-earned wealth being left in the houses of ex-wives after wrong marriages and divorce.

Then, in Proverbs 5:11-14, we hear The Words of Grief from the Fool. These verses give voice to a man consumed with grief. It is often only in utter despair that a fool finally admits his errors. When his body is used up, he grieves and realizes how much he has wasted his life and hated God's instruction. He will sit down in sorrow on Judgment Day and mourn, saying, “How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof” (Proverbs 5:12). He stops considering his condition only when he has no more strength for his foolishness. Only when judgment becomes unbearable will the fool finally acknowledge his sin. This path of the adulteress is one of "The Three Paths to Destruction" outlined in the notes from Proverbs 5:1 through 6:11, where sin enters the heart, corrupts the mind, and defiles the body. The corrupted heart on the path of adultery is manifested by being in bondage to sins (Proverbs 5:22).

Now, after this stark warning, Proverbs offers a beautiful counterpoint and the true Remedy: A Happy Marriage. Verses 15-19 describe the institution of holy matrimony. Marriage is likened to a well of water, running waters, fountains, rivers. While water refreshes the soul and sex refreshes the flesh, genuine love in marriage refreshes the spirit, soul, and body. The pleasures of marriage, we are told, outweigh the pleasures of fornication. The remedy for avoiding the strange woman is to pay attention to wisdom, stay far from the adulteress’s house, and focus on your wife as God's source of satisfaction.

Proverbs contrasts the adulteress with the wife. If the wife is called fresh, clean water, the whore is a dirty ditch or a narrow pit (Proverbs 23:27). Just as filthy water is a source of disease, so is a filthy whore. The adulteress is called "strange," which is a direct contrast to "knowing" one's wife. Proverbs 5:15 says, “Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well”. In that time, owning a well was a great blessing. This is symbolic of marriage. The notes offer a personal illustration of neighbours coming to purchase water from a father who had one of the few homes with running water, contrasting this with a wicked person attempting to steal water. Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant, but the one who partakes does not know the dead are there, and her guests are in the depths of hell (Proverbs 9:17).

Proverbs 5:16 adds, “Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets”. For those with their own well, there was enough for themselves and to bless others. If the fountain represents the man and woman in marriage, the rivers represent their offspring and the overflow of blessings into society. Offspring from a godly marriage become blessings to others. This is contrasted with the man who commits whoredom and will not produce children (Hosea 4:10). A man’s wife is his true source of refreshing, like the well in his own yard. There is enough refreshment in a godly relationship with his wife to overflow and bless a multitude.

Proverbs 5:17 says, “Let them be only thine own, and not strangers' with thee”. Children produced in a holy marriage are loved by the father and honoured by the community, unlike children produced in harlotry. This is illustrated by Jephthah, the son of a harlot, rejected by his half-brothers (Judges 11:1-2), and Ishmael, Abraham's son by his handmaid, who was cast out (referencing his relationship with Isaac).

Proverbs 5:18: “Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth”. The phrase "the wife of thy youth" appears elsewhere, urging us to live joyfully with the wife we love all our days (Ecclesiastes 9:9) and warning against dealing treacherously with her (Malachi 2:14-15). There is joy in early marriage, with the wife excited to care for her husband. Unfortunately, a husband can neglect his wife's needs, causing her to lose her youthful joy, leading him to look elsewhere. He may blame her, but his immaturity was the cause.

Proverbs 5:19 paints a beautiful picture: “Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love”. A loving doe, a graceful deer. Women were even named after these graceful animals (Acts 9:36). Matthew Henry notes that wealthy men kept these animals as pets for entertainment. We see an illustration in the poor man's beloved ewe lamb (2 Samuel 12:3). Other scriptures link the roe to love (Song of Solomon 2:9, 17; 8:14).

The phrase "let her breasts satisfy thee at all times" speaks powerfully. The breasts are both the seat of a woman’s emotions and a source of a man’s attraction. If a man is satisfied with his wife, he won't look elsewhere. His affection for his wife’s breasts satisfies her sexual needs, and his physical attraction to her indicates the strength of their relationship. Scriptures in Song of Solomon reinforce this imagery (Song of Solomon 1:13, 4:5, 7:3).

Finally, "be thou ravished always with her love". The word "ravished" here, while meaning "to stray" or "mislead" elsewhere, is used positively to contrast the desire for one's wife. This shows the heart of a man passionately in love with his young bride. The word "let" in Proverbs 5:19 is key. It indicates that keeping the bond strong with one's wife is a matter of a man's will. When someone claims their passions were beyond control, they deny the fact that they chose that path initially. Secular media uses seduction to gain wealth, seeking to get a man's eyes off his wife and onto others, regardless of the cost to marriage. The note’s author learned as a single man to turn his eyes away from seduction and not meditate on it, lest it bring bondage. Proverbs 5:19, put simply, tells the husband to keep the fires of romance burning. His physical attraction is key. He must take her on dates, do things to keep her beautiful and attractive, buy romantic things. If he doesn't, he may be tempted, even just in imagination. It is the man's responsibility to keep romance alive, and the wife will often follow his leading.

Finally, Proverbs 5:20-23 gives us a preview of The Punishment for Adultery. Proverbs 5:20 asks, “And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger?”. Wisdom is trying to reason with us. This sin makes a man lost in his passions, failing to listen to reason. Proverbs 5:21 is a powerful reminder: “For the ways of man are before the eyes of the LORD, and he pondereth all his goings”. The Lord not only sees our ways, but He weighs our works on the scales of judgment. The word "pondereth" here also means to weigh mentally. As the Berkeley Version translates it, “For a man's ways are before the eyes of the Lord, and he puts all his goings in the scales”. The Bible speaks of these scales of judgment elsewhere (1 Samuel 2:3, Daniel 5:27, Psalms 62:9). A personal illustration is given of a dream: "The Stage and the Scales," signifying that we live on a stage before God's eyes and will be weighed after death.

The consequence for the wicked is described in Proverbs 5:22: “His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins”. When a man persists in a sin, it becomes a bondage. Alcohol, tobacco, drugs are examples, but sexual perversion is described as perhaps one of the greatest bondages a man can fall into.

Proverbs 5:23 gives the final outcome: “He shall die without instruction; and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray”. This refers to the judgment of the sinner. The Bible is clear that God will judge whoremongers and adulterers (Hebrews 13:4, Revelation 22:12, 15). For believers, this judgment is often seen as God's chastisement, not condemnation (1 Corinthians 11:30-32).

So, we see two paths laid before us in Proverbs 5. The path of the strange woman, the path of worldliness, starts with sweetness but ends in bitterness, loss, bondage, and judgment. The path of wisdom, prioritising God's Word, fleeing temptation, and cherishing the covenant of marriage, leads to life, blessing, and honour. The choice is ours. Will we attend to wisdom's call, keep our eyes focused on God's plan and the wife of our youth, or will we be drawn away by the sweet-sounding, but deadly, lies of the strange woman and the world? Let us choose wisdom, maintain focus, and build strong, godly marriages that are a blessing to ourselves and others.