Proverbs 7:1-27 – Wise Up

Our scripture reading this morning is from the Book of Proverbs.

We've been going through Proverbs series.

We're in the seventh chapter, so we're going to read the whole thing together.

Let me read it for us here.

It says, My son, keep my words and treasure up my commandments with you.

Keep my commandments and live.

Keep my teaching as the apple of your eye.

Bind them together on your fingers, write them on the tablet of your heart.

Say to wisdom, You are my sister, and call insight your intimate friend.

To keep you from the forbidden woman, from the adulteress with her smooth words.

For at the window of my house I have looked out through my lattice, and I have seen among the simple, I have perceived among the youths, a young man lacking sense, passing along the street near her corner, taking the road to her house, in the twilight, in the evening, the time of night and darkness.

And behold, the woman meets him, dressed as a prostitute, wily of heart.

She is loud and wayward.

Her feet do not stay at home.

Now in the street, now in the market, and at every corner she lies in wait.

She seizes him and kisses him, and with bold face she says to him, I had to offer sacrifices today.

I've paid my vows.

So now I've come to meet you, to seek you eagerly, and I've found you.

I've spread my couch with coverings, colored linens from Egyptian linen.

I've perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.

Come, let us take our fill of love till morning.

Let us delight ourselves with love, for my husband is not at home.

He's gone on a long journey.

He took a bag of money with him at full moon.

He will come home.

With much seductive speech, she persuades him.

With her smooth talk, she compels him.

All at once he follows her, as an ox goes to the slaughter, or as a stag is caught fast, till an arrow pierces its liver, a bird as a bird rushes into a snare.

He does not know that it will cost him his life.

And now, sons, listen to me and be attentive to the words of my mouth.

Let not your heart turn aside to her ways, do not stray into her paths.

For many a victim is she laid low, and all her slain are a mighty throng.

Her house is the way to Sheol, going down to the chambers of death.

I'm the assistant pastor here.

Well done to you for getting here this morning.

Did anyone have a stressful time?

Yes.

Thanks to all those half-marthen.

Every parent, every uh everyone who just struggles to get out of bed uh on time for normal church, but you were an hour earlier today, and then there was the half marathon uh to top it all off.

So well done.

Um I uh yeah, cast your mind back to when you first came to Dublin.

Uh this might be your first week in Dublin.

Um maybe maybe you're here a year, maybe you're here uh 10 years or more, maybe you were maybe you're from Dublin, but I uh I came to Dublin when I was 19 uh to study in UCD.

And um there was I got the bus to I got the bus to college and there was a little there was a wood, there was a wooded area that I walked through as a shortcut to get to the bus stop.

It was about a five-minute walk, and it was lovely like at this time of the year uh and in autumn, uh just the the the changing colours in autumn and the buds in the buds on the trees in at this time of year were just lovely.

First thing in the morning as I was heading to college.

But my first time coming home late, I was at something in college, came home and it was dark.

I did not want to go anywhere near that path that was going through the wood at night.

I I don't know if uh I don't know if you if if I'm just particularly scared, I am known for it.

Uh there was there was I'll yeah, I'll not go into it.

I can tell you a story of me being petrified in the dark in a park uh before.

But I never I didn't want to go near it.

So I took the extra 15 minutes, it was a 20-minute walk, to go around where the streetlights were uh and and to follow that, the to follow the road around instead of going through that dark wood at night.

And the other thing that I did uh is that um I called my dad.

I got off the bus and I called my dad.

I didn't tell him I'm scared, I didn't tell him I'm uh I'm I'm deciding not to go through the dark wood, which I think he probably would have said, yeah, that's that's fine.

Uh but I just chatted to him, just chatted to him on the phone.

Um I didn't say anything to him about being scared.

He didn't say, Are you scared either?

or anything like that.

Um, but yeah, I talked that way uh because I was scared, and that way seemed dangerous.

Um, and I knew it was dangerous.

I knew it could have been dangerous, it probably wasn't.

The father in Proverbs 7 speaks to his son.

He tells him not to wander down a particular path, not to wander down the path of temptation.

It's a path of darkness, too, because that path leads to death.

And what he urges him to do instead is to find life, to find intimacy in his words, to find life and intimacy, actually, as we're going to see in Christ, the word of God.

So Proverbs 7 is actually the final speech that the Father gives to his son.

It starts off, you'll see in verse 1, My son, keep my words.

He said that in and around, there's in and around 10 lectures, uh, commentators.

So you can count them.

There's a few more than that, but some of them it's like he says, My son, halfway through the lecture kind of thing.

But we've been on this, uh, we've we've been listening to these lectures of this father to his son, saying, Listen, my son.

And the next two chapters, the next two chapters, so there's a couple more chapters uh that we're gonna look at, and then we're gonna um look at some more themes after Easter in Proverbs, and then we'll look at chapter 30 and 31.

But the next two chapters then we have wisdom herself crying out.

It's not actually the father, it's wisdom herself crying out that we would listen to her.

And chapter 9 then puts these two houses, shows us these two houses.

One is the house of Lady Wisdom, and one is the house of woman folly.

That's where we're going.

But this is the father's final lecture, it's the final speech that he's giving to his son.

And in this, he renews the plea he has uh for his son to listen, to keep his words, to keep his commandments, to keep my his teaching.

He wants to instill in his son that these words are precious and that they must be protected, that keeping them is actually a matter of life and death.

So the first point today, this three points today, but the first point looking at verses one to five is to protect the precious words of wisdom.

We need to protect the words that God has spoken to us.

We need to keep, we need to treasure up his words to us.

A key part of this is that we actually have them already, recognize them as a gracious gift.

He's given his word to us.

For the Son here, he is all that the Father has spoken to him before.

He has all that, all of those lectures before, plus everything that's not recorded here.

And he also has everything that God has spoken before, too.

He had the word of God spoken through Moses.

What the Father teaches the Son in Proverbs is actually the outworking of that law that God gave to Moses, that God gave to his people about how to live.

That's what Proverbs is.

It's that outworking of God's law to us.

The Son is to live by and to guard God's precious word, and his father is helping him, he's helping him to see what it looks like as we've been going through these speeches.

And of course, we've been given his word too.

God has spoken to us.

And it's not only that, his word is with us.

He's actually written his precious word on our hearts, on the tablet of our hearts.

So protect this word.

Treasure it up.

Because it's a gracious gift that your father has given to you.

And you should keep his word like it's the apple of your eye.

He says that in verse 2.

None of us want to lose our sight because it's so precious.

We don't want anything to come near our eyes.

If you've been in a science lab, you wear those big, uh you wear those big goggles to protect your eyes.

The same if you're using power tools, or at least you should, you're very foolish if you don't.

You might wear gloves, you might wear a lab coat, you might wear overalls.

That's kind of just to protect, to to stop your clothes and the nuisance of them getting damaged or dirty.

But your eyes, they're too precious and they need protecting.

And your eyelids, it's like you have a built-in form of protection.

If something comes at your face, you're gonna blink before you even know.

Like you don't have to, you don't do it consciously.

Make God's word like that in your life.

Protect it, constantly be coming back to it and keeping it, treasuring it up.

And keep his words close.

The father tells a son to make wisdom his sister.

He's to keep wisdom close and have like a familial relationship with it.

And the phrase probably means it doesn't necessarily uh fit the Western modern context, but it probably means something more than sibling.

It's it's it's more akin to the relationship between a husband and a wife.

That's how close we're to make wisdom.

The insight is to be our intimate friend.

And this, as I hope we've seen through Proverbs, it's much more than just practical advice.

It's much more than just making us make good choices in business or good choices in terms of work or good choices here, there, or everywhere.

That's those practical, that practical advice, that practical wisdom is there for sure.

And the Father cares, and God cares for the practical details of our lives.

But it's it's much more than that.

The wisdom we've been given is actually a companion for us.

It's God, it's God's word with us, and that points us forward to Jesus, doesn't it?

To Emmanuel, God with us, God's word to become flesh with us.

So I wonder, do you have that intimate relationship with Jesus?

Is he closer than any other friend?

Do you treasure up God's word?

Are you increasing in getting to know are you getting to know him more?

Are you increasing in that intimacy with him?

That's what the Father wants and says we need.

We'll see what you you you we read the passage, we know what's coming.

This is where the father starts.

This is important.

This is key.

When we take communion later, why not take a moment to thank God for giving his word to you?

Thank him for Jesus.

Thank him for the word of God dwelling with us.

Reflect on how precious he is.

Take time to pray and ask him that you would treasure up his word, that you would treasure Jesus more and more.

And as you keep his word, his word actually keeps you safe.

The best form of defense is a good offense.

That's what the Father is kind of saying here.

Keep the words of wisdom close, protect them, and you'll be kept from danger.

And in particular, in Proverbs 7, you'll see in verse 5, and then he opens up to talk about it.

But in particular, you'll be kept from the forbidden woman and the smooth words that she uses.

Now, for you, this could be a literal man.

It could be.

It could be a literal woman.

It could be literal words.

And some of you really need to hear this wise and loving father telling you to stay away from that man or that woman.

That they're only ever going to take your life from you.

But it's important for each of us to see, to take time to look and to see where that forbidden woman is in our lives.

If you think it doesn't apply to you or that you've heard all this before, then be very, very careful.

We'll get to it in a while, but glance down at the end at verse 26, the second last verse.

Those who have fallen victim and haven't been kept safe are those who were strong.

Those who were mighty.

If you think you don't need the father's words, if you think you're wise already, you may just find yourself in the trap that the father points out.

Well, this father is so wise.

The defense he has against the adulterous who flatters and offers intimacy, those smooth words, is to tell us to find that intimacy in the right place.

He's not just saying don't do this, he's saying find this in the right place.

Divert yourself from there to there.

The smooth words of the adulteress, they're hollow.

But the true and the precious words of God are solid and they keep us safe from harm.

So protect those precious words of God which He's graciously given to you.

So the best form of defense is uh is offense, but the Father has more wisdom than that too.

He tells the Son, and we're being told as well, to stay far away from temptation.

Our second main point is pass nowhere near temptation.

And the way he does this is by being perceptive of different things about temptation.

The father takes time to look out the window at what's going on in the world and then sits the son down and talks to him.

You can imagine maybe a dad driving through the city, and his son is the passenger.

Uh he's sitting beside him.

And that's often the place where these kind of conversations happen, isn't it?

But he takes the opportunity to point out some things uh as they head home that they see uh on the road.

He'll point to a shop or to a street and say, I'm telling you this because I love you far too much to see you hurt and to go down this wrong path.

It might look fine.

It might look like it's just a bit fun and it's harmless.

It might look like it's what you want in the moment, but I never want you to step foot near it.

Ever.

And as the drive continues, he tells him why.

He tells him, he tells him what will happen if he goes down there.

If he does that thing or gets involved with this other thing.

He talks maybe about a friend that he had when he was a son, son's age and how he lost everything because he ventured up that street.

Or he tells a son about a young man, only a little older than he is, who was invited along somewhere and apparently didn't really know what danger he was in.

And one thing led quickly to another, and his life was ruined.

We need to listen to the father telling us to steer clear of temptation because he's taken the time to look.

He's been perceptive.

And it's kind of a side note, but it's good for us to be perceptive too, not just rely on the, not just to rely on the father, but to to imitate the father in taking time to look and be perceptive.

Maybe having a look before we jump in to something and that we're gonna regret.

So we'll look at now at how the father is perceptive.

That comes in three main ways.

We need to take them all on board.

Firstly, perceive temptation's target.

In verses six to nine, we have the father looking out the window and he sees a young man lacking sense.

He's simple, it's not necessarily uh bad in uh in Proverbs, especially as we've been moving through from the start.

And it could seem like he's being introduced as just this innocent chap, just merely existing, that he knows no better.

And again, maybe there is some of that, but as we'll see, uh it doesn't lead to a good place.

And and and maybe maybe there's some that some of some of it is that uh this intergenerational wisdom that's supposed to be passed on hasn't been passed on.

But the young man who's lacking sense, it's not his parents, it's not his father who's called out.

And as we have been progressing through Proverbs, we saw in chapter one that wisdom called out to the simple and said, How long, oh simple?

Will you carry on being simple?

Come turn to me, follow me, follow wisdom.

I want life, is here and we're in chapter seven now, and we have this young man, he's lacking sense.

And yeah, he's he's he's just hanging around with the simple.

He's not moving on from being simple and becoming wise.

And temptation goes after men who young men who lack sense like this.

Temptation goes after us if we aren't wise.

Temptation has a target.

It's like a tourist uh in Barcelona, you know, Las Rambolas, or like at the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

They're like they're notorious places for being pickpocketed.

So if you're there, you don't have your phone sticking out, you don't have your wallet sticking out, you push them in, you make sure you wear zip pockets, you have your bag zipped up, and maybe you wear it around your front.

This young man hasn't grown at all in wisdom.

And he's like that tourist who's completely unprepared.

He sticks out like a sore thumb.

He's surrounded himself with others who are simple and young.

He needs to get older and wiser people around him to help him grow in wisdom.

But it isn't only that.

He's on the road to temptation's house.

Yes, maybe again it's maybe he's not quite aware of where he's going.

He he's like might know what what's at the end.

But if he told me this, I wouldn't really buy it.

It's kind of like he wants there to be plausible denial.

Oh, I just I didn't know.

I didn't know that was where it was going.

I was just hanging around.

I didn't know what was down there.

He's hanging around where he knows she'll be.

He's making it very likely that they'll bump into each other.

And on top of this, he's out at night.

He's out and about in the street where she will be, when he knows she'll be there too.

There's this willful lack of sense.

There's a willful simplicity.

He's wandering around at the time of night and darkness where he can hide his intentions and his actions.

He's putting himself in temptation's way.

And he probably thinks he'll get away with it.

But the father sees.

The father is wise to temptation's target, and he wants us to be too.

He wants us to avoid being simple, to avoid being in the wrong place at the wrong time, whether intentional or not.

We need to perceive temptation's target and seek out wisdom and not be simple.

We need to perceive temptation's tactics too.

The father steps back, sees these tactics.

He points them out to the son, he points out the schemes of this woman to this, to his son.

She does a number of things.

She persistently pursues.

She prepares pleasures.

And she persuades with flattering praise.

Lots of P's there, hopefully, we'll help you remember.

But the so those tactics and schemes that temptation uses are that she persistently pursues.

She prepares pleasures and she persuades with flattering praise.

These are temptation's tactics.

Verses 10 to 15 all show a woman who's she's going after this young man.

She spotted her target, this simple young man.

And now she's going in for the kill.

She's going in to get what she wants.

She's persistent in her pursuit.

She comes out to meet him.

She flaunts herself and makes herself heard.

She's loud.

She's here, there, and everywhere.

She waits for him on the corner, too.

Her initial pursuit goes so far as seizing him and kissing him.

When verse 10 says that she's dressed as a prostitute, she wants to attract him and to communicate what she's offering.

But as revealing as her clothes are, she's wily of heart.

The translation for that is literally that her heart is guarded.

She's not showing him what her real intentions are.

She wants to use him for a moment and then discard him, and she's hiding that.

That's what temptation always does.

It promises so much, and it looks like it's it's there for the taking.

But beneath that, temptation just wants to use you and leave you empty.

She also prepares pleasures.

She's got the finest wares to attract him and to make him feel valued too.

She says, I've got this luxurious linen from Egypt.

I've spread it just for you.

She perfects the preparation of the bed by perfuming it with these precious aromatic spices.

She wants to wow him with things that maybe he's never come across before, things that he's never experienced.

Me?

You've done this for me?

And she invites him for dinner, too.

Verse 14 could be something to do with pagan fertility ritual where she needs him since her husband is away.

But it's likely that she's just made this sacrifice and now there's some leftover food to eat.

She's telling him that she's got dinner ready and she came just for him.

They say food is often the way to a man's heart.

And the adulteress here is she's pulling no punches.

She's relentless in her preparations.

She's giving him as many reasons to follow her as she can.

And then in verse 18, she promises him delight and satisfaction and love.

She says they'll take their fill of love.

She's offering him life to the full.

She's offering him everything he ever wanted.

And she says that they don't need to worry about being caught.

Her husband's off on a business trip and won't be back for a while.

He's gone, he's taken money with him.

He's not coming back until the full moon.

She says to him that all these pleasures are for him and that there's no consequences.

She promises all delight and none of the repercussions.

And you need to see that temptation does that for you too.

And that's whatever form it takes.

Whether it is sexual and physical, or if it's something else.

It could be the promise of escape into food or into alcohol or binging TV or playing hours of video games.

Temptation offers you satisfaction and escape from the realities of Monday to Friday on sun holidays or city breaks.

And it promises that you'll be filled with life when you buy that new gadget or that new car or even that new house.

It says that lying is good, that being dishonest is best for you.

Temptation says that if you do that extra hour or two at work, then you'll get the adulation of your colleagues or your boss or your parents or your spouse.

All those things are true.

We may go after those things, like going at this young man going after this adulterous woman.

It doesn't make those things necessarily bad, but it's what temptation uses.

And we need to look at the idols of our hearts.

But the father in Proverbs 7, he does know that temptation does some of its nastiest work when it comes to intimacy.

That the temptation to pursue pleasure with someone else, to have sex outside of marriage, or to turn to porn are some of the most pernicious and alluring.

It'll promise to satisfy you, to give you every delight.

It'll offer you all the pleasures you could want, and it says nothing else matters.

It says you won't suffer for it, that it's only good.

Take a moment to look, to see the barefaced lie and the tactics of the tempter exposed.

So temptation persistently pursues, it prepares pleasures, and it persuades with flattery.

This forbidden woman here, she persuades with this flattering praise.

She goes out searching for her prey, she lays the trap, but she coaxes him in with her smooth talk.

Everything she says to him is to make him feel special and to build his ego.

We have to be so careful of that.

She says, I've come to meet you.

How special he must have felt.

I've been seeking you eagerly.

I've done this and that for you.

See it all for you.

She seduces him, she persuades him, she compels him.

All with her words.

She says that he wants to, she says, sorry, she says what he wants to hear in order, just in order to manipulate him.

That's what she's doing.

And she's loud too.

It's not like he has to listen carefully and listen in and to hear.

She's bold and she's brazen.

Temptation shouts this to us all the time.

It tells us what we want to hear and it flatters us.

We need to see through this, though.

Whether it is another woman or another man saying these things, or the allure of those temptations that we face.

Temptation will try to convince us by puffing us up.

The father wants his son to see the tactics this woman uses, and God would have us perceive them too, so that we'll pass nowhere near temptation.

And what's the final end of temptation?

What's the destination of temptation?

It's death.

We need to perceive temptations terminus.

We need to see temptations end.

So the trap is set.

She's got him following her like a domesticated animal.

She's leading him like an ox that's about to be slaughtered.

The ox has no idea what's about to happen.

It's just plodding along, and the next thing, it's dead.

The same for wild animals that are being hunted.

The stag just standing there with no clue that a bow has been pulled back.

And that an arrow is about to come hurtling through the air, striking and piercing it.

The bird doesn't know that what it's rushing towards will cost him his life.

It's so sad to think, isn't it?

You can picture this young man like these animals with no clue of the consequences of his actions and of her intentions with him.

But so it is with us if we fail to heed the Father's warning.

So how do we do this?

That's what we're looking at in our last point.

The last point is prevent perishing.

And this is the refrain of the Father throughout.

It's his motivation.

He said, says, avoid her paths.

Let not your heart turn aside to her ways.

There's dark paths through woods like I had when I was when I came to Dublin first, that are really obvious not to go down.

But these paths, too, avoid them.

Go nowhere near them.

He restates what he's been saying and he renews his appeal, having given the account this story of this young man who finds himself on the road to temptation.

We need to avoid that path.

Don't go near it.

Don't flirt with it.

Don't say, I'll just have a look at what's around that corner or what's over that hill and then I'll come back.

Don't stray there.

Don't click on that video.

Don't have your phone in your room at night if needs be.

Don't go to that party where you know temptation is.

Don't flirt with that person you know you shouldn't.

And it is, it's it's heart issues according to verse 25.

And not just 25, look, that brings us back to the start, too, verse 3.

Verse 3 says, Write these words in the tablet of your heart.

It's not just a matter of actions, though they are important.

We must submit our hearts to God and let Him determine our way.

Let Him lead us.

Let His words stay so close to us that we follow His way.

That's how we're kept from perishing.

And we also need to avoid the pride of the powerful.

Look at verse 26.

Many a victim has she laid low, and all her slain are a mighty throng.

Temptation's like a strong current that carries even the strongest swimmer out to sea.

It's hard to see and maybe impossible to know at times, but if you're not careful and if you don't get wisdom from someone who knows, it doesn't matter how fast you can swim.

You'll be dragged out deeper and deeper by the current.

If you're proud when it comes to the ocean, the consequences can be catastrophic.

The same goes for temptation.

Don't think you'll be able to flirt with it, literally or figuratively, and then pull away.

It's a slippery slope.

And once you put one foot on it, she'll pull you down to the chambers of death.

It's not to be messed with.

And you should be very careful of saying that you don't need to hear what Proverbs 7 is saying.

But these last few verses, they don't just end in death and despair because they point forward to one who went to that place of death for our sake.

And he rose to give us life.

Though he is the mightiest, he humbled himself and he was laid low.

He never followed temptation's path, but he treasured up his father's word in his heart.

He is himself the word of God, and he speaks the truth.

Rather than preparing all the pleasures of this seductress, he actually prepares a place for us in his father's house forever.

So as we look, as as we see the adulterous woman, as we see temptation, as we take time with the Father to perceive all that temptation would do, all the temptation would take from us.

Avert your eyes.

Follow a different path.

Follow Christ.

Pursue Him.

Find satisfaction.

Find intimacy in Him.

And doing so leads to life and keeps you from that destructive path of temptation.

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