Proverbs No.3 Fatal Attraction

If you have your Bibles with you, if you'd like to turn to Proverbs chapter 7, Proverbs chapter 7, I'll wait for the rustling to stop so I know you found it, okay. My son, keep my words and store up commands within you. Keep my commands and you will live.

Guard my teaching as the apple of your eye. Bind them on your fingers, write them on the tablet of your heart. Say to wisdom, you are my sister, and call understanding your kinsman.

They will keep you from the adulteress, from the wayward wife and her seductive words. At the window of my house, I looked out through the lattice. 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 a crafty intent. She is loud and defiant, her feet never stay at home.

Now in the streets, 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 I have found you. I have covered my bed with colored 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 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, to an arrow pierces his liver, like a bird darting into a snare, little knowing it will cost him his life.

Now then, my son, listen to me. Pay attention to what I say. Do not let your heart turn her ways or stray into her paths.

Many are the victims she brought down. Her slain are a mighty throng. Her house is a highway to the grave, leading down to the chambers of death.

May the Lord had his blessing as Tony looks at this passage a little bit later on. Now let's come to God's holy word. It's been around at least this passage 3,000 years ago.

So even with Nick's advanced age, we couldn't hold him as responsible for being the writer. But who was? You see, whoever it was, we are really indebted to him. It could have been Solomon.

The book generally is referred to as the Proverbs of Solomon, though actually the wisdom of that great king is acknowledged more from the 10th chapter and afterwards. In the book of Kings, in the fourth chapter and the 32nd verse, reference is made to 3,000 proverbs which Solomon wrote and 1,005 songs that he composed. So our supplements got some way to go before we catch up with that of Solomon.

It may be that of those 3,000 proverbs, some of them found their way into these first nine chapters of the book of Proverbs. But whoever wrote it, it doesn't really matter. What is of importance is that they were inspired and we should feel jolly well indebted to them for having the nerve to raise some of the most important issues that obviously confronted them all those years ago and actually confront us today.

Pastor Tim Saunders worked out our preaching agenda through our book of Proverbs and gets himself doled out at Fittleworth for this evening, leaving me with this particular subject of fatal attraction which actually has to do with sexuality and so forth. The story is told, it's an old and a hackneyed one, but it does perhaps convey even more of a punchline than it used to years ago of a father who had been waiting for the precise opportunity to inform his teenage son about certain matters fundamental to life, to put it neatly. And he got to the point one evening when his son in a fairly dim lit lounge sitting in front of the fire was on his own.

So dad pulls up his chair and says, son, I want to talk to you. And the son lifts up his eyes from the copy of notes and news which he was devouring and he says, what about dad? And dad says, the facts of life. And the son says, dad, what do you want to know? The punchline is actually this.

In my generation, as I mentioned before from the pulpit, it was rare that parents ever mentioned anything about sex to their children. Another generation has come and gone and there's a younger one to which I address my remarks. A younger generation in which it seems as though sexual education began shortly after the removing of nappies, or diapers as the Americans call them.

I don't suppose there has ever been a time, but at least only few occasions, when you could possibly rival the latter part of the 20th century and those brought up particularly in Western society, or to put it more finely, British society, when the younger generation has been so informed. So the idea of the lad saying to his dad, what do you want to know? Perhaps has more to it than it had just 30 or 40 years ago. I'm glad that dads can have fireside chats with their sons and daughters, but possibly your dad, a mum haven't, or possibly you don't have a dad or a mum living at home with you.

I'd like to suggest to you that here in this seventh chapter of Proverbs, whoever was responsible at the human level is actually pulling up the chair and having a fireside chat. And what you find is unbelievably frank, sometimes beautifully expressed, on occasions fearfully stern, but always incredibly straightforward. You will find that here is something that steers between prudery and coarseness, something in which polygamy is not featured, though promiscuity does.

You'll discover that someone comes alongside who is anti-adultery, but very pro-marriage, against lust, but pro-love, against seduction, but pro-sensuality. Here is someone who, like the abused, one of the heroes of the last 50 years, Mary Whitehouse, is very pro-marriage, very pro-intimacy, but perhaps he, being part of those who have written the Bible like her, is utterly misunderstood because like her he is not listened to in all that he is trying to say. He'll tell you that marriage is good for you and affairs are harmful, adultery is worse than burglary, and it's easier to forgive someone who steals your goods than someone who makes off with your wife.

If the government maxim at the moment is back to basics, then let's send all the cabinet a copy of the book of Proverbs. It's got a high view of marriage. Proverbs will tell you, if you bring together all the references, what an ideal man is, and in the final chapter it'll tell you about the ideal wife.

But before we look at this man and this lad, or these lads, having their fireside chat, there are a couple of things that you want to know about the person who's involved giving the advice. They do make a theological statement. It's in the 21st verse of the fifth chapter and it is this, a man's ways are in full view of the Lord and he examines all his paths.

I find that quite a frightening verse. Once when I was a school teacher in a blackboard jungle area in London, we decided that we would try to get our kids to look a bit more tidy. The English master, God bless him, came up with the idea that if they actually saw what they looked like in great horror, they would react by sprucing themselves up.

So, as they came out of assembly, we angle-poised a six-foot mirror. It did not have the slightest effect. The fact of the matter, however, is that what we look like is in full view of the Lord who examines all our ways.

That's what the man who offers advice takes as a basic understanding. What's more, he'll give you a psychological comment. He'll tell you something about sexuality.

He'll close it this time in words in which there's a little bit of metaphor but you know what he's getting at. The sixth chapter, the 27th and the 28th verses. Knowing something of human frailty, of the weakness of the mind of boys and girls and men and women, young and old, he says, can a man scoop fire into his lap without his clothes being burnt? Can a man walk on hot coals without his feet being scorched? In other words, can you enter into the tempting situation volunteering to go and handle it without getting burnt? And his answer seems to be that human frailty, being what it is, means that all of us have a problem.

No one rushes into the tempting situation unless he or she is a fool. Daniel did not volunteer to have a night with the lions. He was chucked in.

When you're thrown in, God is with you. When you go in on your own, you are on your own. All right, pull up your chair.

Fireside chat begins. What I have to say, says this man to his son, which seems to grow to a larger hearing in the 24th verse because son becomes plural sons. What I have to say to you is for your protection.

Your eye, if I was to stab it, you would immediately react and try to stop my finger going in. And the eye is placed in the skull because the eye is the most sensitive part of the face. And as such, you need to protect it.

So my words are for your good. What is more, my words are for your reflection. Bind them on your fingers.

Write them on the tablet of your heart. Think that what I'm telling you now is so valuable, you mustn't put it in the back of your memory, you must keep it at the front. What is more, my advice is just like extending the family circle.

Say to what you hear from me, my wisdom, you are my sister. Say to what you grasp of my advice, that this understanding is your kinsman. And these three things, your protection, your reflection, and the extension, if you like, of your family, your relations, will cause you to live a happier, a fuller, and a better life.

So this is his introduction. And now he's going to tell you a story, a sort of once upon a time. You know how, was it at ten to two or something like that, maybe just after two o'clock in an afternoon, somebody would come along and give a children's talk.

Are you sitting comfortably? Then I will begin. Now with all your interest aroused, this man who stands in the place of a good father and speaks to you, he wants to tell you a story. He might indeed have gone to the book of Genesis and picked out Joseph and hoisted him in front of you and told you the story of Joseph and the way that a fatal attraction dangled itself in front of him and how he resisted.

He might have dipped a little later into Scripture and pulled out Samson as a sort of negative advice because dangled in front of him was a fatal attraction, her name was Delilah. And ere long, Samson was in trouble. But this man doesn't name anyone.

He just gives us the picture of a semi-comic person. We'll call him the hunted. He also paints the picture of a lady who has got intentions towards him.

We'll call her the hunter. When I was in Argentina, a little lad, I do love boys and girls, and this little lad, he became my friend on board MV Lagos. I've known him for some years, that is when I visited the ship or India, I've got to know him.

He's a lovely little kid. He has epilepsy and it's sad, but he's doing quite well. He and I, we get on together.

We sometimes went for a walk or he'd show me around the ship. He'd sort of keep me in order, eight years of age. We went down from the ship on the side and out towards the end of the harbour and then towards the nearby beach.

We passed some sea lions and we were talking about slang expressions. And somehow or other, I don't quite know how, the word twit came up. And he wanted to know what a twit was.

So I defined it. And he was in convulsions of laughter. The sea lions were twits.

Some people on board MV Lagos too were twits. I don't know what it was that was so funny about this, but he kept repeating it occasionally, every other day or so. And he'd laugh and laugh, he's a small lad, but rather fat, and he'd just shake.

What is a twit? You've got one here. I'm referring to what is in Proverbs. At the window of my house, once upon a time, I looked out through the lattice.

I saw among the simple. I noticed among the young men, a youth who lacked judgment. Fatal attraction demands a lack of judgment.

We're talking about someone who gets themselves embroiled in a relationship which will lead to their harm. Generally speaking, when such a relationship develops, the emotions, they rise and they take the place of reason. Man is a rational being.

He can think things through. Man is also an emotional being. And there are emotions in the depths of the psyche which, when released, when aroused, can be so powerful that they block out reason.

I was addressing, in a country I shall not name, a group of leaders, key leaders influencing hundreds of thousands of people. How do you handle a fallen leadership in the church of God? When men fall, when women fall morally, what happens is this. The emotions increase, the reason decreases, and God help the person who is driven by their emotions.

Well, he was a simple fellow. If you don't want to use the word that I shared with my young Indian friend, then try the definition of a theologian, an Anglican theologian. Young, inexperienced, and feather-brained.

Twit would have saved a lot of printers' ink. He wanders into temptation. I noticed among the young men a youth-like judgment was going down the street near her corner, footloose and fancy-free, walking along in the direction of her house.

We are not talking in terms of her as some unattached lady. We are not talking of the beginnings of a relationship which could be honorable because, at the metaphorical level, Cupid is shooting his arrow and the two are falling in love, and that love could lead to marriage. We are talking about the beginnings of an affair.

We are talking about the beginnings of burglary. We are talking about a theft which is more serious than breaking into a bank and stealing gold nuggets. I don't know whether in the perversion of Dallas or some of the episodes in that series, something of a stimulus might have come from the setting that you get in this ninth through to around the 22nd verse of this chapter, because this is all the ingredients of the modern novel, which without a bedroom scene cannot be a novel because it will not sell.

I make an extravagant statement. There needs to be some qualifications, but alas, not many. It's twilight, day is fading, the dark of night is setting in, and out comes a woman dressed to kill in more senses than one, brazen, defiant, like some dog on heat.

Her feet never stay at home, now in the street, now in the squares, at every corner she lurks. We're not told much about this fellow. Probably it's hypothetical, or maybe the writer has some individual in mind.

Perhaps he was a lad who went to synagogue from time to time. Doubtless in a Jewish context that would have been the case. Bring it through into the 20th century.

He may have been a lad who's got some sort of moral understanding, but then he's a hot-blooded fellow, as we all are to some degrees, both men and women, hot-blood, capable of relationships. Relationships which in one context can be quite honorable and acceptable and glorifying to God, and in another context can do as much damage as a fire that's uncontrolled. There are women and women, as there are men and men.

And here this one, she oozes a sophistication. And this young brainless fellow is no match at all. We're told a little bit about the breakdown in terms of what happens.

There's the startling introduction, the kiss, verse 13. Then there's a little bit of religious hypocrisy. Having embraced him, she says, well I've been to church, you know, I'm all right, I'm a good moral person.

You'll be okay with me, if you believe that. You believe elephants can fly, or pigs. So I came out to meet you.

Isn't that sweet? I looked for you. You are really special. Maybe nobody had ever told him that before, with reason.

But she tells him, and he believes it. She tells him not because it's a genuine expression, wanting his good, but she sees him as a prey that she can bring down. You know, I've got a little love nest, and it's quite ready, it's all prepared.

I've been to the let's have a love nest. Verse 18, until morning, let's enjoy ourselves. Why not? Joseph, party for my husband, he's at the frontiers, you know, and you're a young, Hebrew, handsome fellow, warm-blooded, all the red corpuscles chasing around your body.

Why not me? You see, this woman sets up a similar sort of scenario, doesn't she? My husband is not at home, he's gone on a long journey. And this young fellow, with money in his pockets, handles the coins, and realizes, as he's still in the tempting situation, that it's now or never. He either advances, or he retreats.

But maybe he's now gone too far to be able to engage in reverse gear. Persuasive words baptize him. She leads him astray.

She seduces him with her smooth talk. All at once. That's a brilliant translation.

All at once. The urge, that inability now to stop himself, the crowning of reason, and the crowning of emotion, and the rejection of reason, he follows her. And the Bible is not overloading it.

When he says, when the man occupying the fireside chair, and applying the point, says of this young brainless individual, he's like an ox going to the slaughter. He's like a deer stepping into a noose. There's an arrow that will pierce the vital of his constitution, that organ, the liver, without which you cannot live.

Like a bird darting into a snare, little knowing it will cost him his life. Too strong a statement. A sort of Mary Whitehouse equivalent in the Old Testament.

Jesus tells us in the New Testament that no adulterer shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. Jesus tells us in the New Testament that we are to work at this whole area of purity in mind and thought. And however difficult it may be, we are still to struggle on the basis that unconfessed, undealt with sin in this area costs you your life.

Not just your life here on earth, that is a small thing, but your life eternally. This man is no killjoy, is he? I mean, the man who's giving the advice, the avuncular fellow in the armchair, the father, if you like. My sons, listen to me.

Pay attention to what I have to say. Guard your mind. Keep your ways.

Look beyond this woman to what she has done to others and think of the mess and the eternal destiny that awaits them. Three men, I'm told, were having a debate about when life begins. One was a priest, the other was a Protestant minister, the other was a rabbi.

The priest said, life begins at conception. The minister says, life begins at birth. The rabbi with a smile on his lips says, life begins when the dog dies and the kids grow up and go away.

When does life begin? Life begins when you have your life under the authority and the superintendence of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This man who is in the place of God, who is speaking for God to his son, to his sons, who's projected this brainless fellow, he is concerned as the Lord Jesus Christ is concerned that all who hear him shall know life, eternal life, and the best that life can offer even here during what Martin Lloyd-Jones called this short, uncertain earthly life and pilgrimage. You see, there is no way in which you can say that this man represents a sort of Hebrew version of the Victorian idea.

When the Old Testament deals with sexuality and sensuality and eroticism, it does so in the most unblushing fashion. It does not speak negatively, it speaks positively, but it puts it within the context into which God has ordained this sphere of human relationships. You cannot read the fifth chapter of this book of Proverbs dealing with the delicacy of sexuality in its most intimate fashion and possibly point your finger at this man and say, look, you are a killjoy.

He is not representative of the church fathers, that is the people who lived after the years of the apostles on into the second and third and fourth century and right through to Augustine who took this concept of sex and degraded it and spoke of it as though it was a second best, a substitute for celibacy and so on and so forth. The Bible will have none of this. The Bible will tell you that the first sexual thought was conceived within the heart of God and God gave to Adam Eve and he says to Adam, know your wife and that immediately sets up a distinction between the Bible's noble view of sexuality and Hollywood.

For the knowledge to which it speaks is not just the knowledge in terms of the biological ingredients of the sexual union but if you like the transference that there is at that point between two people, not just in terms of body but in terms of soul, in terms of spirit. That is why the Bible coins the word one flesh, one fleshness and within that one fleshness there is the eroticism and the sensuality of what is contained in the fifth chapter of Proverbs and on into the Song of Solomon. You see, you cannot, this is the marvel of this book, you cannot criticise it, you cannot critique it in terms of it being antiquated and what have you.

It is more up to date than the modern so-called sex therapist. Here is this man, this brainless fellow, this twit, who goes down the road and he has this one night stand. What does that mean? That he sold himself, that the woman that perhaps God has in store for him will receive soil goods and what is more, he will be despised by the partner that he has had for the one night, he will be despised by her husband when he returns.

You say we live in a promiscuous society. I'll grant you we live in the most strange days. Here is Anastasia Alexander who featured on Hollywood Wives and she talks about the artificiality of her life, having gone through facelifts and goodness knows what.

This guy came up to me in the gym the other day and said, you look so natural and I felt like looking him right in the eyes and saying, this is hair dye, I have hair extensions, I have coloured contacts, I've had my nose done four times, my face peels and this is a breast augmentation and a fake tan. But thanks. The artificial world in which we live is reacting it seems to me against some of this artificiality and in a report which our government tried to suppress during the reign of Mrs Thatcher which is going to be released this coming week, Twin published by Scientific Publications and Penguin, there is a survey and the response of that survey as to what the standards are that the average person in our country would like to see sustained.

Only one person in 50, 5-0, believes extramarital sex to be not at all wrong and four out of five people think it is always or nearly always so. Fewer than one in 10 married men and one in 20 married women reported being unfaithful to their spouse in the previous five years and if some of the 18,876 respondents in this painstakingly representative sample of the 16-59 year old British population were lying, it should be pointed out that they at least did so consistently. It is a careful piece of work.

The average man, the average woman, recognizes the wisdom that there is contained within this old-fashioned word which we call the Bible which speaks to human sexuality, fatal attraction. Our Lord says that his understanding of marriage alongside that of Moses is one man, one woman, for life. Ah, but you see, Mr. Preacher, I agree with what you're saying.

I realize that one night stands and promise security. They may give you a shot in the arm for a while but it's an illusion. But you see, I've been down that road.

I've met that woman. I do not accuse her. I recognize my own weakness.

What about me? Where I am at? You have said no adulterer shall enter the kingdom of heaven. That is quite true but it needs some qualification. No unconfessed adulterer.

There is only one sin that cannot be forgiven and that is sin against the Holy Ghost. It's blaspheming the work of Christ. It is a rejection of what he has done for you on the cross of Calvary.

If you recognize the wisdom of the Old Testament and the wisdom of the New Testament in this area and you want to bring your life into line, I want to tell you there is a new beginning which can start tonight. I also want to indicate that I am not suggesting for a moment that sexual sin is the only sin, nor necessarily the most heinous of sins, but I am saying to you that this sort of practice is obnoxious to God and is harmful to you. Fatal attractions which distract you from the person that God wants you to be and the route down which he wants you to go.

Ah, Mr. Preacher, you say you talk about eroticism and sensuality and so forth. Don't you know I'm a single person? You make my singleness worse. Let me tell you something.

Our Lord Jesus was a single person. Let me tell you something. There is within the large yes of God sufficient blessings to compensate for, to come alongside your lack of having a partner so you still feel complete, so you still feel that life is worthwhile.

To delight to do the will of God, whether in singleness or in matrimony, is the best thing for you. And the greatest attraction to eclipse every other attraction, bringing all the lesser ones into perspective, is the attraction of knowing Jesus Christ as your Lord, your Savior, your husband, your lover, your friend. No, these are not platitudes from the pulpit.

I've been with men from communist jails and Chinese prisons who've done 28 years and more in solitary confinement away from their wives, away from their lovers, and they've told me that the beloved Lord Jesus was more than compensation for all that they needed. Our Lord Jesus can come alongside you as your Savior, your friend, your partner, your lover. He offers his forgiveness, he offers you a relationship with himself.

Will you take it? My little friend, he chuckles, I smile as I still think of him, the word twit. But you know, there are many of us who in the full understanding of that word sometimes operate in that category, brainless. Take the advice of this man who comes alongside you from scripture in a fireside chat and make the corrections and know the blessings of the gospel, the hand of God upon your life.

Let us pray. Father, we're grateful that we can even talk in such terms of sensuality and eroticism and not blush because your word does. We can retrieve intimacy and experience that has been bespoiled and degraded and dust it down and bring it into the purity of gospel teaching.

We thank you, Heavenly Father, for the way that you have designed life, for the way that you have designed our bodies. We ask, Lord, that you will allow reason always to control emotion. We ask that you will give us that same sort of mettle and discipline in the tempting situation that that Muslim has had, that that Christian had as he addressed the Muslim court.

We pray, Father, for those disciplines which honour our Lord Jesus and bring glory to you, and we pray for forgiveness. We all battle with our minds. We battle with the cesspit of this world, sometimes directing its sewage towards us.

Help us, Lord. Elders, deacons, pastors, church leaders, Sunday school teachers, youth leaders, 70-year-olds, 60-year-olds, 50-year-olds, 40-year-olds, 30-year-olds, 20-year-olds, I, even 10-year-olds, purify our hearts. Lord, help us to walk in holiness and help us to show love, pure, honest, selfless love towards our partners and towards our brothers and sisters in Christ and all the people of God's end.

Amen. Lord, to Thee we owe our consternation, Of Thyself, our help, for all Thy good. Are we answer to Thy rising glory? Even so, come quickly, Lord, we say.

In our hearts, we have a blessed answer. Christ, my Lord, my head on high, Every king, prince, royal and nation, By Thy holy spirit's mighty pow'r. By Thee, Christ, in Thee, most great salvation, Place Thy rightful, Thy appointed power.

Are we answer to Thy rising glory? Even so, come quickly, Lord, we say. In our hearts, we have a blessed answer. Christ, my Lord, my weary, in this world's rejection, Closing on, I am to gain a crown.

While I'm wiling, even so, come quickly, Lord, we say. In our hearts, we have a blessed answer. Christ, my Lord, my head on high.