Beyond Valuation

Proverbs 6:30-35

Adultery is worse than thievery. You can pay back what you stole. You can never pay back what was taken in adultery. That is the simple message of today’s verses. Adultery is an expensive hobby.

When a thief steals (vv30-31), what he steals is generally replaceable, or at least a value can be assigned to it. Even one-of-a-kind antiques can be valued. You can’t necessarily replace the sentimental value, the non-tangible portions, but you can buy something that will fit the same purpose. The Biblical punishment was to pay back seven times what the item was valued. Now that is incentive not to steal! You steal one iPad and you have to replace the one iPad with the value of seven iPads. Stealing is expensive.

But when you commit adultery there is no value that can be placed on what you have taken. In a culture that has reduced sexual intercourse to the accepted dating handshake, these words must be very hard to understand. We have reduced the consequence of these casual encounters to “tissue” that becomes a woman’s “choice” to deal with instead of a person made in the image of God. Wow, how far we have fallen!

Human sexuality is of the highest order, one of the most sacred acts in which a husband and wife can engage. So when someone, anyone degrades this act by committing adultery, there is no price that can be paid. There is no “do over” available. We have made what is sacred into something profane.

The last section of this chapter talked about hot coals in the man’s lap. That is nothing compared to the wrath of a husband. There is no payment you can give to the grieved spouse. Nothing will ever be enough. And the anger is justified! The spouse has given away something that was not theirs to surrender. The marriage bed belongs to both the husband and the wife. And only death can voice the contract!

Having walked with numerous couples working through the aftermath of an affair, there is nothing that strikes quite as deep as an affair. This even holds true with couples that didn’t wait until marriage to dip in the sexual pool. The expectation is exclusivity; no one gets what is rightfully mine. No one can share in the closeness and intimacy that intercourse can, but doesn’t always bring. There is no such thing as “just sex.” Sex is the whole ball of wax.

Hot Coals

Proverbs 6:20-29

Today we begin an extended section on sexual misconduct, adultery. He deals with two different women involved in sexual misconduct with men: the neighbor’s wife and the prostitute (v24). Both are just as deadly to soul, family, and life itself. As I have noted before, the structure of the Hebrew poetry ties these two together. It is not that they are one and the same, that every neighbor’s wife ends up as a wayward woman, but that a subcategory, the category the writer focuses on in this passage, is a prostitute.

Verse 25 gives us a very simple command. We must keep from lusting and not allow her to use her eyes to entrap us. From movies we know how eyes can be used to lure. Think of a bar scene in a movie where a hookup happens. It is the glance across the room that begins the journey. The man checks out the woman, then the woman connects with her eyes. Things between men and women have not changed very much over the millennia!

The most basic food in that culture was bread (v26). Carbs! Here the man is trading life’s essential as the fee paid for sex. Unfortunately, too many men still do that today, trading their family’s life for an orgasm. It might not take place with a physical person, the internet providing the portal into other places and events, but life gets expended, time gets stolen, affections get redirected.

The writer gives a great illustration demonstrating that you can’t get away with this type of behavior without negative consequences. Now before you try to come up with some exception, like wearing asbestos pants or the fire walking seminar people, hear what the writer has to say.

Committing adultery is like choosing to put hot BBQ briquettes in your lap. Just let them sit there! Are you going to get away without them burning your clothes or something even more personal? Of course not! As soon as the coals are placed you will react and do whatever is needed to get the heat away from you. You can’t just leave the there.

And you can only walk on hot coals in very carefully controlled circumstances. Everything is carefully scripted to maximize the possibility of not being sued! And of course to enable you to tell all your friends about the fabulous seminar you attended and how they should attend also, next time the medicine man comes through. All for a price, of course.

There is a cost to adultery. Punishment will come. You might think you got away with it, but it waits around the next corner.

SEX!

Proverbs 5:1-14

It takes two to tango, the old song lyric goes. To put it bluntly, prostitutes would have no job if the John’s didn’t show up and pay. We can’t put the blame on the women. The men are just as guilty as they are.

The next three chapters of Proverbs are filled with exhortation and illustration of what happens when anyone gets involved sexually with someone outside the bonds of marriage. Our culture dismisses this premise, but it is proved wrong by the facts. The best place for children to grow up and the most satisfying sexual relationships are within a lifelong marriage, man and woman. Despite the cultural trend away from marriage, the facts remain the same. So let’s begin to dive into the text.

Verse three give us a poignant picture of the thrill of an elicit sexual encounter. Lips dripping with honey, who wouldn’t want to dive in?  These kinds of encounters must be thrilling in that moment. The pleasure must override all the negative consequences that will inevitably come (vv4-6). Having talked to hundreds of divorced and divorcing couples down through the years, I have never heard of such a breakup that was filled with joy. Even the best, if there is such a thing on the negative side of this equation, have their pain.

If you get involved, be ready for aimless living. The pain will be greater than the reward. The pleasure is short-lived, while the pain is long-lasting. Read carefully the negative consequences of these types of choices. Read it again. Yikes!

Verse eight gives us some good advice, which we will hear stated several different ways in the coming chapters. The writer tells us to avoid even getting close to the temptation. Alcoholics need to stay away from places that sell and consume alcohol. Problem shoppers need to stay away from the places they purchase things. Notice he tells us to choose a different path, one that takes us far from the temptation.

Too often believers try to see how close they can get to the temptation. They want to walk the thin line between sin and righteousness. The writer tells us to do just the opposite: choose a path far from the temptation. We get to choose the path. At the end of your life, you will regret walking over the line. You will probably have lost what is most valuable.