Proverbs 5:15-20

Louise and I got up early this morning, about 6 a.m. to leave from Sapphire Valley, North Carolina, to come back to be in Sunday school. We were there for a reason. We were there to celebrate because 25 years ago, on August the 13th, I stood before God and witnesses and I said, I, David, I listened to the tape again this morning, so I know this is what I said. I, David, take thee, Louise, to be my wedded wife.

And I do promise and covenant before God and these witnesses to be thy loving and faithful husband. in plenty and in want, in joy and in sorrow, in sickness and in health, as long as we both shall live. So we went back to where we went on our honeymoon, Sapphire Valley, North Carolina, to spend a few days alone together. Some of you remember those wedding vows.

Louise and I, when we finished those wedding vows, went to our reception as is typical and then we were anxious to get away for the honeymoon. The ride to Sapphire Valley was a quick one. We checked in, we got our room, we finally got to the bedroom and the door shut. And then Louise, being the biblical woman that she is, looked at me and said, now remember it's been 25 years ago, my memory may be somewhat faded, but she said, you are radiant and ruddy, outstanding among 10,000. Your head is pure as gold.

Your hair is wavy and black as a raven.

It was 25 years ago. Your eyes are like doves by the water streams, washed in milk, mounted like jewels. Your cheeks are like beds of spice, yielding perfume. Your lips are like lilies, dripping with myrrh. rods of gold set with chrysolite.

Your body is like polished ivory decorated with sapphires. Your legs are pillars of marble set on bases of pure gold. Your appearance is like Lebanon, choice as its cedars. Your mouth is sweetness itself. You are altogether lovely.

You are my lover, my friend. I said, oh baby.

And not knowing my song of Solomon as good as she did, I grabbed my Bible and I said,

your graceful legs are like jewels, the work of a craftsman's hands. Your navel is a rounded goblet that never lacks blended wine. Your waist is a mound of wheat encircled by lilies. Your breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle. Your neck is like an ivory tower.

Your eyes are the pools of Heshbon by the gate of Bathraben. Your nose is like the Tower of Lebanon looking toward Damascus. Your head crowns you like Mount Carmel. Your hair is like tapestry. The king, King David, is held captive by its tresses.

How beautiful you are and how pleasing, O love, with your delights. Your stature is like that of the palm and your breasts are like clusters of fruit. I said, I will climb the palm tree. I will take hold of its fruit. May your breasts be like the clusters of the vine, the fragrance of your breath like apples, and your mouth like the best wine.

And that's right out of Holy Writ. That's Song of Solomon.

Today, we want to turn to some wisdom for living in a land of unbelief. Some plain talk about sex and about marriage.

And I want us to turn to Proverbs chapter 5. If there's anyone under the age of 18 present, it might be time to leave. But all of you who are 18 and older, you're welcome to stay as we turn and look at what Scripture has to say about sex and marriage.

Proverbs 5, verses 15 to 21.

Drink water from your own cistern, running water from your own well. Should your springs overflow in the streets, your streams of water in the public squares, let them be yours alone, never to be shared with strangers. May your fountain be blessed and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth. A loving doe, a graceful deer, may her breast satisfy you always. May you ever be captivated by her love.

Why be captivated, my son, by an adulteress? Why embrace the bosom of another man's wife? For a man's ways are in full view of the Lord, and he examines all his paths. Lord, this day we come before you asking that you will open our hearts and minds to the truth of your scripture and the grandeur and the delight and the joy that you have bestowed on us in marriage. I pray, Lord, for where there may be hurting in marriage.

But today, Lord, I want to celebrate all that is good and precious and delightful about marriage. For it is in Christ's name we pray. Amen.

If you grew up in the church in the era I grew up, you knew sex and marriage was okay, but you just didn't talk about it. We live in a different era today, don't we? An era where I'm afraid sometimes the church is not standing as forthrightly as it should to declare what God teaches about the valuable richness of sex in its right context. And we have let the world usurp and fool us into believing that there's something better than God's plan. And too many in the church have bought in to the lie.

Today, let's talk about the truth and then let's figure out how we can live it. Biblical advice about sex and about marriage. The passage we just read gives us a beginning command. And the command is this. Drink.

Drink. But drink exclusively from your own cistern or well. You see what verse 15 says? Drink water from your own cistern, running water from your own well. If you read the whole passage, it becomes clear that there's a metaphor here.

That means there's a picture here that the writer of Proverbs is trying to give us. And the metaphor here is of the water in the cistern and the well. And the water represents something as does the cistern and the well. And in this context, the water represents the sexual relationship.

Just as pure drinking water in the day the writer of Proverbs wrote, just as pure drinking water was found in the cistern or in the well that was at home, he is telling us that there is something else that is pure that is found at home. Everybody know what a cistern is? We don't use them today. If you go to some parts of the world, you will see them. Some of you who have been in Honduras will see them.

seem as appetizing to us today but the cistern was just a large sort of tub that caught the water but it was kept separate from anything else it was designed to be up off the ground so no impurities or dirt could get into it or you could have a well that was dug in the ground but it was either at the cistern or at the well that you got the pure healthy refreshing thirst quenching water

and the writer is telling us that the water in marriage is the sexual relationship, and if you want to find the pure, healthy, refreshing, delightful drinking water, sexual relationship, then you must look to your own cistern, your own well. You don't look to any other cistern or any other well. cistern, your own well, and the cistern or well is your spouse. The writer here was a male, so he talks about his wife, but the spouse is the cistern or the well where the pure, healthy, refreshing sexual relationship is found. Everybody understand the metaphor? Drinking water, cistern, and well.

Questions? If you don't understand what I just said, you need to stop me and ask a question.

so the writer gives us a metaphor the running water in the well or the water in the cistern but he then gives us a command and the command here is to drink to drink to drink this is a command folks sex in marriage is not an option it is a biblical command the writer of hebrew says go drink dive into the cistern, dive into the well and drink.

Now, let's be clear. He's already made the point that there is only one proper outlet for the sexual relationship. There's only one place to find the pure, healthy drinking water. That's in your own cistern, your own well with your own spouse, who must biblically be a member of the opposite sex. What Scripture prohibits is any sexual relationship, sexual intercourse outside the bonds of marriage between a man and a woman.

That means homosexual intercourse or relationships are prohibited by Scripture. Anyone who tells you differently is not telling you the truth of what Scripture teaches. They may reject the teaching of Scripture, but Scripture teaches homosexual relationships are prohibited. Sexual relationships between single people who are not married, those relationships are prohibited. The only outlet for the sexual relationship permitted by the Bible is in the context of a relationship, a marriage, between a man and a woman.

We have to say that very clearly today, don't we? Those kinds of defining parameters. How many sermons have you heard where the preacher commanded and directed you to go home and have at it with your spouse? To go home and make love with your spouse? To go home and drink from the cistern?

To drink from the well? I don't think I've heard any in my lifetime. I've heard people say sex and marriage is appropriate and so forth. I've never heard anybody give the command that is clearly given here by the writer of Proverbs, go drink, go drink. Your homework for next week, if you're married.

Scripture is very plain spoken about the role of sex and its importance to the marriage relationship. Husbands and wives are to make their bodies available to one another to satisfy each other's sexual desires. When we came to Christ in faith, our bodies immediately became first and foremost the Lord's to be used as He pleased and to be used in His service. When we married, our bodies were no longer just our own. They were already the Lord's if we were Christians.

But when we marry, they also become our spouses. The Apostle Paul is very plain spoken about this. I want you to flip to one passage with me here. 1 Corinthians 7, verses 3 to 5.

where Paul writes these words. And chapter 7 is an interesting chapter in 1 Corinthians, but I just want to focus on this one part of it. 1 Corinthians 7, verses 3 to 5, where he writes, The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife's body does not belong to her alone, but also to her husband. In the same way, it's mutual, guys.

The husband's body does not belong to him alone, but also to his wife. Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. Do you hear what he's saying? While Scripture speaks of self-denial in many areas of life, one area where self-denial is rarely appropriate is in the sexual relationship between a husband and a wife.

And the only time that self-denial is appropriate is by mutual consent and only for a brief period, according to the Apostle Paul. What's the reason for that? not only can we find the joy and delight and bond the intimacy of marriage in the sexual relationship, but it is the way we help avoid falling into sexual sin by using the proper vehicle or outlet for the sexual relationship.

This is one area, you know, we teach our children to share when they're growing up. You need to share. You need to not just hang on to things for yourself. One area, ladies and gentlemen, where we never, never, never share with anyone else besides our spouse is when it comes to the sexual relationship. The writer of Proverbs in verse 16 says, Should your springs overflow in the streets, your streams of water in the public squares?

Verse 17, let them be yours alone, never to be shared with strangers. In other words, just as you wouldn't go drink water that had been flowing out in the street where it gets dirty and impure, you're not supposed to take the sexual relationship out into the street. You're never to share this relationship outside of the home with your spouse. You never go out and share it with strangers.

the lie of the 60s and 70s, the era in which I grew up as a young man, was that genuine sexual satisfaction is found solely in the illicit, in the forbidden, not in the context of marriage exclusively. Erica Jong, who was one who promoted the idea of sexual liberation in the 70s, was quoted in Newsweek's September 30, 1996 issue as saying this, Sexual liberation never worked, she said. The desire to be monogamous is more pragmatic than ethical, she said. We renounced the idea of sexual freedom because it doesn't work.

As a lawyer, I have seen the habit wrought by those sharing with strangers that which was to be kept at home. I have seen the emotional and psychological damage felt by a betrayed spouse. I have seen the emotional and psychological stress of the spouse who has broken the sacred vow given before God. seen the despair of children when mom or dad turns traitor. For children, it's often worse than if the spouse had died, the parent had died. I've seen the destruction of reputations, of relationships. I even know of situations where adulterous relationships have erupted into murder.

I have seen the weight of guilt on the shoulders of those who have broken their vows. Life is complicated enough, but if you want real complication, just get started in an illicit affair. The hiding, the secretiveness, the worry, the financial distress. It takes more to keep up two than one, folks. Not to say the problems of disease.

As Nolan Ryan said in his very down-to-earth, plain-spoken way, you want to stop AIDS, just have sex with your spouse alone. Too often, we are like Adam and Eve. We have everything given by God to satisfy us at home in our Garden of Eden, but we think things will be better if we will just eat of the forbidden fruit. The view portrayed by so many that sex outside of marriage is the best sex is a lie from the pit of hell designed to destroy, injure, hurt, and it does.

the American Dictionary of the English Language in 1828 said this about marriage I doubt it's I didn't check the Webster's current edition I doubt this is in there but 1828 it said marriage was instituted by God himself for the purpose of preventing promiscuous intercourse of the sexes for promoting domestic felicity that means happiness and for securing the maintenance and security of children. We can empirically demonstrate, that means the facts and the figures prove everybody in the home is better when mom and dad keep the sexual relationship to themselves and don't share with strangers.

Psychologically, children and the husband and wife when there's faithfulness in marriage. Socially and emotionally, children and parents are better off when the sexual relationship is kept at home. Financially, the home is better when the sexual relationship is kept at home. We can prove that by empirical data, by looking at homes that have been broken up because of illicit relationships and measuring and tracking what has happened in those homes. But despite the empirical data, despite the clear teaching of Scripture, it seems that we keep falling into the same mistakes, into the same sins.

There seems to be this notion that somehow the church and God's teaching is sort of a miserly teaching. You can only have sex with one.

And we bought into these slippery, gradual, slope lies to destruction. C.S. Lewis said this about pleasure, and this would include sex. You remember the screw tape letters C.S. Lewis wrote? It's a set of fictional letters written by a senior wise demon to a junior demon who has been given a Christian to trip up. And as this senior demon writes to this junior demon about how to trip up the Christian, Lewis is trying to teach us about what God is like and what pleasure is like. And Wormwood, the senior demon, says this in one of his letters, never forget that when we are dealing with any pleasure in its healthy and normal and satisfying form, we are in a sense on the enemy's ground. The enemy is God the Father. It is his invention, not ours. All we can do is to encourage the humans to take the pleasures which our enemy has produced at times or in ways or in degrees which he has forbidden. So we want to press for the Christian to go from sex only in marriage to infidelity. Take something that is pure and good and use it in the way, at a place, or in a time that is forbidden by God.

Don't buy into the lie. It's best when it stays home.

Next point. We are to find joy and satisfaction in the relationship with our spouses. Let's read verses 18 and 19 again.

where the writer says, May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth, a loving doe, a graceful deer. May her breast satisfy you always. May you ever be captivated by her love. You know, there have been times in the history of the church when even in the context of marriage, the church sort of looked at the sexual relationship as being something we weren't to enjoy, that it wasn't here for our pleasure. In fact, St. Jerome, who lived back in the late 300s A.D. and early 400s A.D., said this, anyone who was too passionate a lover with his own wife is himself an adulterer.

And his notion was that sex was only for the purpose of creating children. it too much, you were not following the biblical dictates. You were yourself an adulterer. And so we had a whole section of the quote Christian church that would not permit clergy to marry, priests to marry, and required celibacy. What a false view. Did you hear the song of Solomon when I read it at the beginning? The rapturous delight of a husband and wife in the sexual Relationship, you are like a palm.

Your breasts are like the fruit on the tree. I will climb the tree and eat of the fruit. That guy's talking about the enjoyment and delight of the sexual relationship. And that's what the writer of Proverbs is talking about. In fact, he argues that we should pray.

And in fact, he expresses a prayer that our fountains be blessed. The fountain, again, water. The sexual relationship. be blessed, he argues. How many times have you heard a preacher preach or have you yourself prayed for sex and marriage to be good and blessed?

It's an appropriate prayer.

We are to not only pray for the sexual relationship and marriage to be blessed, we are to rejoice in our spouses. That's what he says. That's the word there. May you rejoice in the wife of your youth.

Y'all, there is such delight in a good marriage relationship. Such excitement. Such wonder. I get to wake up in half for over 25 years now next to the same woman. And it's good.

And we snuggle in the morning. Up close. And it's good. It's rich. It's joyful.

God doesn't forbid us to spread the sexual relationship with strangers because he's a miser. He forbids it because he knows what is at home is best.

So enjoy and rejoice in your spouse. Let your spouse, the other word used here, let your spouse satisfy you. May her breast satisfy you always. And that reference to the breast is the idea of sexual satisfaction in marriage. Find contentment in this divinely ordained, divinely blessed relationship.

Don't be out there sniffing around for other stuff. Find your satisfaction and contentment with what God has divinely ordained and blessed. And lastly, he says, be captivated by your spouse's love. word captivated could probably be translated intoxicated. It's the idea that you're so enraptured by the love of your spouse that you're sort of a staggering intoxicated, you just are overwhelmed with the richness of it. There's such delight in rejoicing at home. The point is, Why bother looking anywhere else?

There's one other motivation that the writer gives us for being faithful in marriage. It's what we tell our children when they're growing up. Even if I'm not there to see what you're doing, God is watching.

God is watching. And that's what the writer of Hebrews tells us when it comes to our sexuality. Why be captivated, my son, by an adulteress? Why embrace the bosom of another man's wife? For a man's ways are in full view of the Lord, and he examines all his paths.

So keep the sexual relationship at home because it's good, it's delightful, it's captivating, it's satisfying. But on the flip side, also remember, the judge of the universe has his eye on you. He knows what you're doing.

I want to close with seven practical suggestions. You could probably think of others. These are practical suggestions about sex and marriage.

My wife Louise has reviewed these. And they have gotten her approval.

You ready for A? Buy lots of massage oil. Use it frequently with your spouse.

I started to put some other things there, but those didn't pass with Louise. Do you hear the point I'm making, though? I don't want something beautiful to become something tawdry. What I want to emphasize is that we need, as my second point says, at making the sexual relationship with our spouses more and more satisfying.

And sometimes it takes some work. Doesn't it?

Louise and I, when we got married, didn't have a clue about sex. It took some work. Boy. My toes are still curled. This is something we need to work at.

If it is legal, if it is not spiritually, physically, or emotionally harmful to you or your spouse, anything you and your spouse want to do sexually in marriage is permissible. But remember, the sexual relationship must always, always be exclusive. No third person or fourth person. And I'm going to read that again because I thought about the wording of this a long time. If it is legal and if it is not spiritually, physically, or emotionally harmful to you or your spouse, anything you and your spouse want to do sexually in marriage is permissible so long as the sexual relationship remains exclusive solely between the husband and wife.

Questions? We'll have more instruction after class. Control your thoughts and desires. How we think affects how we behave. Impurity of thought can easily lead to impurity of action.

And I'm going to go ahead and do the fourth one and then make a comment. Take a serious, honest look at yourself. Cut those things out of your life that cause impure thoughts or that tempt you to sin sexually or that tend to draw you away from your spouse. We want to preserve the integrity of the marriage relationship. That means we've got to control what we think, which means we probably need to be careful about what we let filter through our minds.

Internet pornography.

Oh, it doesn't hurt anybody. There are no victims. Hogwash. It's destructive. It's harmful.

It gets our minds thinking in ways we shouldn't be thinking. If you have a problem with it, get somebody to go in with the code so you can't get to it. You know, those parental control things. Stay away from sexually explicit magazines. They don't promote healthy marital relationships.

You probably need some, and all of us may have different areas that we need to focus on, but watch the movies. Be careful about the movies you watch. Television today, it is... If we could go back and watch for one hour or for one day what was shown in the 60s and come and watch it today, we would tear our TV sets up and throw them out the window. But we've slowly been inculcated.

We humans have a great capacity to take something good and healthy like TV and pervert it. You have TV, then you have MTV. Be careful. Keep your children away from some of that stuff. I am not yet advocating we all get rid of TV.

I thought about advocating that. I'm not advocating that. I would be very careful about premium channels and what comes into your home. I would be very careful about what you let your children watch, particularly in prime time these days There's nothing good, typically. There's nothing saying that sex in marriage is the only way and that's the way to go.

I'm not saying we can shield our children from everything or ourselves from everything. But at the same time, we don't have to let ourselves be inundated with it when we can control it. Don't leer over other people who are not your spouses.

You know, I hear some people talking about movie stars or this person who, you know, boy, what about, you know. I'm saying those people most by and large are just little people with messed up, screwed up lives and yet people spend so much time wanting to know about them. Forget it. Forget it. Keep your mind on your spouse at home and those that want to take you from that.

You can control your thoughts. You can control your desires. And you can control your actions. It's hard sometimes.

Fifthly, be cautious about relationship with members of the opposite sex, particularly at work. Set practical boundaries for yourself to protect your marriage relationship. One reason I think the Lord let me be a lawyer for so many years going to ran into. I don't know why it is, but it seems like the work environment is the place where people get into trouble often. If you work with members of the opposite sex on your job, that's fine.

But be careful. Don't believe you aren't susceptible to falling into sexual sin. Set yourself some practical boundaries. You do not have to go into a motel room with a member of the opposite sex who is not your spouse. You do not have to go on a business trip with a member of the opposite sex alone. I don't care what your employer says. Just be cautious. You know your danger points. Set up some practical boundaries and keep them in place. One of mine has been not to be alone with a woman of the opposite sex who's over about the age of 12.

and I keep my spouse close. You know, when I'm in business settings, as much as I can, I like Louise right there. That's a good protective measure, you know? Keep your spouse close. You understand what I'm saying?

We could spend a lot of time talking about different boundaries, but think about it. When tempted to sin sexually, run away. Admit it. You can't handle it. Admit it, that it's dangerous.

Just get out of there. Act immediately. Don't delay. Don't toy with it. Don't play with it.

Well, I'll just, we'll just go up and do this for a little while. Or I'll just do this for a little while. When the temptation raises its head, get away from it as quickly as you can. And lastly, cultivate the relationship with your spouse. As one writer said, marriages may be made in heaven, but man and woman is responsible for the maintenance work.

We need to work on having good marriages. That means we need to spend some time with our spouses. We don't need to be on the job all the time. We need to sometimes get away from the children to cultivate and work on that relationship. I want the church of Jesus Christ to be a model for the world.

and I want people to see how foolish the worldly view about sex is and to see how wholesome and refreshing and delightful the Christian view is but that means it's up to us folks to model it if your marriage hasn't been what it should have been or if you're in a second marriage wherever you are begin today to make it the way God wants it to be can I close with one note I wrote a letter to Louise. And with her permission, I'm going to close with this and pray.

Being married to you, the card says, means that my best friend is always there. I love you. Happy anniversary. And then I wrote, For richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do us part, I will love you, cherish you, and be your faithful companion. I am grateful, delighted, and honored to be your husband.

We have come far in 25 years, journeyed through many mountain peaks and a few dark valleys. But it has always been a joyous journey for me because you have been my constant companion. I loved you immensely when we began our life together. Today, the intensity, depth, and breadth of my love for you, if it were accurately quantified, would fill the universe. To know you is to love you.

The more I know you, the more I love you. Because of you, there is a richness and satisfaction to life that is priceless. As we celebrate today, the first 25 years, I am already eagerly anticipating the next 25 years together with you, the love of my life, your husband of 25 years, David. Lord, we celebrate the gift of marriage, the gift of sex in marriage. I pray for everyone here today who is married that they would find fulfillment and joy, contentment and satisfaction.

And where there is pain, where there is hurt, where there is anger, I pray that your spirit will work in that situation to change the hearts and minds of those involved in those situations. And may we as a community of faith, exemplify what you intended when you first united a man and a woman in holy matrimony. For it is in Christ's name we pray. Amen.