There is a figurative truth that Proverbs makes a great deal about – lady wisdom is our friend and folly is like an adulteress. We are forever coaxed and teased and attracted by folly into a life that is self-destructive and other-destructive and offensive to God. Folly is an adulteress, ever tempting us.

But more literal, adultery is folly, and Proverbs has a lot to say about adultery as “a highway to the grave.” Especially in Chapters 5-9, but from various other places, the wisdom writers who authored this portion of God’s word are terribly concerned about our propensity for falling prey to this cataclysmic form of sin.

As I said last week, Proverbs is a kind of moral primer, especially for young men. But since it obviously takes two to tango, these words are for all of us, especially in a part of the world with a disproportionately large divorce rate and an emerging youth culture with a kind of sexual brazenness that would have been embarrassing not-so-many years ago, even to young, hip people.

So here is Proverbs on adultery. We’ll do 7, 6, 9, 5 chapter by chapter.

Chapter seven is loaded. It starts with a simple appeal to heed the wisdom of God’s commands. If you keep them, they will keep you. It you guard them, they will guard you.

Then it describes the prostitute and the adulterous woman. She has crafty intent. She’s loud, defiant, a wanderer, brazen. She has gifts to offer – fellowship offerings, colored linens, a perfumed bed, persuasive and seductive words. To paraphrase, she is really putting some thought and effort and energy into the game; most likely more thought and energy and effort than a busy wife or mother is capable of putting into the game most of the time. And, of course (verse 19), her husband is not home.

What happens? Men fall into a trap like an ox led to slaughter or like a deer in the noose or a bird in a snare – little knowing (verse 23) that it will cost him his life.

Advice from Chapter 7? Listen. Pay attention. Don’t let your heart turn her way or stray into her paths (that’s really the key – avoid her paths. Easier to keep a distance altogether than to resist her from close at hand). “Many are her victims. Her slain are a mighty throng (verse 26). Her house is a highway to the grave, leading down to the chambers of death.”

Now, from Chapter 6. Again, we see an appeal to pay attention to God’s commands and the teachings of wisdom. Keep from the immoral woman; keep from the smooth tongue of the wayward wife. Do not lust after her beauty, or let her captivate you with her eyes. She reduces you to a loaf of bread (money or identity?). She preys on your very life. Can you scoop fire into your lap with out being burned (verse 27)? One who commits adultery lacks judgment (verse 32). He’s in trouble with her husband, the husband of the adulteress, who won’t show mercy in revenge. And his shame will never be wiped away (verse 33).

Now Chapter Nine.

 “Stolen water is sweet,

    food eaten in secret is delicious!

    But little do they know that the dead are there,

    And that her guests are in the depths of the grave”

                        Verse 17

And it’s too true. There is something exciting, dare I say truly arousing, about the secrecy of stolen sex. But we are not people of the dark. We are people of the light. We’re not secret-keepers but truth-tellers in the church. There is health in honesty and openness and there is an exciting, lasting thrill to building a memory book of marital secrets within the sanctity and safety of God-ordained, God-honoring covenants. Those who lack judgment will choose seductive, secret sex over sensational sanctified sex.

Now Chapter 5, which is loaded. Again, it says pay attention. Listen well. Maintain discretion. Preserve knowledge.

The lips of the adulteress drip honey. Her speech is smoother than oil, but in the end she is bitter as gall (verse 4). She’s sharp as a double-edged sword.     

Her feet go to death, her steps to the grave. She gives no thought to her way of life – she’s crooked and clueless about it. Pure narcissism – living for me.

Don’t go there, says Proverbs. Stay away. Again, don’t even go near. Build a lifestyle that stays safely away from those alluring possibilities. Build into daily life a system of checks and protections, because it’s easier to say no if there’s not even opportunity to say yes.

Why the vigilance? Without it, you’ll end up giving your best strength to others, and your best years to someone who is cruel (verse 9), (by the way, it is cruel to break up a family or a marriage – not just weak, but cruel). And without vigilance, strangers (verse 10) will feed on your wealth and your toil will enrich another man’s house (his name is Divorce Attorney)

But even more, at the end of your life (verse 11) you will groan, “How I hated discipline! How my heart spurned correction. I wouldn’t obey my teacher or listen to my instructors. I have come to the brink of utter ruin in the midst of the whole assembly”. In other words, my reputation is a shambles and regret is now my loud, brazen partner as I lie sleepless in bed at night.

Verse 18: May your fountain be blessed. How? Rejoice in the wife of your youth. Verse 19, “May her breasts satisfy you, and may you even be captivated by her love. Not the adulteress. Not the prostitute. Not another man’s wife. Your wife.

One more thing from Chapter 5:21: For a man’s ways are in full view of the Lord, and He examines all his paths. God is watching, and God has high standards in this regard. 30:21-23 says that under three things the earth trembles and under four it cannot bear up. The first two have to do with other injustices. But number 3 is this – a married woman who is unloved makes the earth tremble. And number 4 is this – a maidservant who displaces her mistress. In other words, when one woman steals another woman’s place in a household it makes the earth tremble. Why? Because a) these things are our personal undoing, b) they shatter families, and c) families are the building blocks of civilization.

Briefly, other scriptures, Hebrews 13:4, “Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.” Malachi 2:13-16, “Another thing you do: You flood the Lord’s altar with tears. You weep and wail because he no longer pay attention to your offerings or accepts them with pleasure from your hands. You ask, “Why?” It is because the Lord is acting as the witness between you and the wife of your youth, because you have broken faith with her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant. Has not the Lord made them one? In flesh and spirit they are his. And why one? Because he was seeking godly offspring. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith with the wife of your youth. I hate divorce” says the Lord God of Israel, “and I hate a man’s covering himself with violence as well as with his garment,” says the Lord Almighty. “So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith.” And there are others.

This is big. Our basic problem? We make covenants and God’s moral imperatives too small in our lives, and we make sex too big. We buy the lie that sexuality is more important in our marriages than it really is, or we don’t understand that it really is important and don’t give our partners their due.

I Corinthians 7:2 says, “Since there is so much immorality, each man should his own wife and each woman her own husband. The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife’s body doesn’t belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband’s body does not belong to him, but to his wife also. Do not deprive one another, except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer (sexual fast). Then come together again so that Satan will not temp you because of your lack of self-control.” Simple – give to one another…

That’s another problem – self-control. Again, we’ve bought the cultural lie that we’re mere animals without the capacity for self-control or delayed gratification. Not true. These disciplines are good for us and are much of the good in us. More than other animals, we’re capable of codes and honorable commitments.

A few more thoughts:

Our vows matter. Let’s keep them.

There will always be attractions and temptations to navigate. Steer a wide path.

Win the heart of your bride. Win the heart of your husband.

If we think the grass is greener on the other side, go home and water your own lawn.

Men, quit letting your bride be the sole care-taker of the relationship.

Women, stop mothering and controlling, and playing games of withdrawing privileges as an unhealthy way of managing anger.

Do the work. Get help. Keep the love alive. Stoke the fire. Feed the best, starve the worst.

Another silly notion – that kids are better off if we walk away from conflict by walking away from marriage. That’s so untrue. Kids hunger for stability and need a model of promise-keeping.

If you have already fallen prey to temptation, as all of us have in one way or another

…plead for God’s forgiveness

…apologize to offended parties

…get help and accountability

…look for God’s merciful redemption, and don’t mistake that mercy or that generous redemption for license to blow God’s covenants to pieces again and again. Don’t cheapen His grace.

And be humble. One author once wrote that “If you think it can happen to you, it probably can.” Later after his fall into adultery, he wrote again with many counselors and much accountability, “If you think it can’t happen to you, it probably can.”