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 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 youth, a young man lacking sense, passing along the street near her corner, taking the road to her house, in the twilight, in the evening, at 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, and today I have paid my vows. So now I have come out to meet you, to seek you eagerly, and I have found you. I have spread my couch with coverings, colored linens from Egyptian linen. I have 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. As a bird rushes into a snare, he does not know that it will cost him his life. And now, oh 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 has 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. This is the word of our God, and let's pray for His blessing and help. Lord, we thank you that you have revealed to us who you are and your ways that we might walk in your truth. And we pray that you would use this word now to grant wisdom and to keep from sin and to convict and to convert. We thank you, Lord, that your word is tested and proves true. and that there is blessing for all who take refuge in your word. So help us to do these things. We pray through Jesus Christ, amen. Well, it's said that something around 10 billion animals are killed every year to provide food for Americans. Eight billion chickens a year. About a quarter billion turkeys and 36 million cattle and many other animals are killed to provide food for us. Now, when we go and buy food, for the most part, most of us are far distant from the process in which Chicken Little gets to our dinner plates or Bessie the cow ends up in the hamburger. We don't have to take part or witness what happens. You go to the deli, and you pick up a bag, and there is some sliced chicken in your bag. And so you don't have to give a second's thought to the bird and that bird's fate, or the cow and the cattle and that cattle's demise. But in the Old Testament, it didn't work that way. People didn't have refrigerators back then. Meat wasn't preserved as easily. There is no plastic packaging to put your meat in. And so for people to eat fresh meat on a regular basis, they would commonly have to kill the meat, kill the animal themselves for the meat. And so in the days of the Old Testament, a common image that even a child would understand would be the image of slaughtering an animal. For us, we don't comprehend, except for maybe a few of you who might do that sort of thing, who might farm your own animals or slaughter your own meat. For many of us, that image is not something that's very commonly part of our lives. but they would understand what it means to slaughter an animal on a regular basis so that people could eat. And so the father here takes his son to a slaughterhouse. He reminds his son what would happen if he were to follow this particular forbidden woman. And the image that he uses, the image of where he's going to end up is this picture of a slaughterhouse. And maybe this boy, even at eight or 10 years old, although he's probably older by this point, but a 10 year old might understand exactly what all that means. The gruesomeness of watching an animal get stabbed and bleed to death. And so this would be impressed upon his mind. I don't want to end up like that. I don't want to be livestock and cattle in the slaughterhouse. And so that's the purpose of this father's story. In chapters five and six, he's lectured his son. He's given him teaching. But now in chapter seven, to impress the truth upon his mind with his last lecture, especially this last lecture on this particular issue of adultery and promiscuity. He wants to impress upon his son the consequences and the danger of this with a story. a story of a young man, a man who would be the same age as his son. And he says, let me tell you a story. This young man goes out at night and he doesn't come back. He goes out on the town and he ends up as livestock that is slaughtered. So we want to look at this story and also have the truth of these words impressed upon us. Let's begin looking at the passage. And we can see that in the first five verses, the father wants these things to be impressed upon the heart of his son. He wants them to be down in the heart. And as you can see in the outline, each part of the story, we can think about it as a man going down. And so he starts with having these things down in the heart. Again, in verse one, he says, my son, Keep my words. Treasure up my commandments with you. Keep my commandments and live. Keep 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 insight your intimate friend to keep you from the forbidden woman, from the adulteress with her smooth words. Well, verse five tells us his goal. He wants to keep his son from this forbidden woman. And so what does this son need to do? Well, he's giving him eight commands again, as he has done before. As he starts his lecture, he starts out with many commands of what this son needs to do. He needs to keep these things. He needs to bind them. He needs to write them. So the son needs to be active and take care to do these things. And we'll just look at a few of them where he says to keep the teaching as the apple of your eye in verse two. The apple of the eye is the pupil, the center of the eye. And so the center of your eye is the most sensitive part of your eye. You can know what it's like when you get dust in your eye and you start flailing around and you can't see anything and it might really hurt to just get a little speck of dust in your eye. or hear sometimes about people getting surgeries on their eye, or they get these injections in their eyes. And I just think, that sounds like one of the worst types of medical things to go through, is to get injected in your eye. It's the thought of how sensitive the eye is, sounds very painful. And so, because the apple or the pupil of the eye is so sensitive, You protect it, you watch over it. And this is how you're supposed to guard the teaching of the father for the son. And then he says, bind them on your fingers, maybe as a way to memorize them. And then he says, write them on the tablet of your heart there in verse three. That's really the center of his message. My son, if you're going to be kept from the forbidden woman, you need to write these things upon your heart. The heart is the control of what you do. It's the control room that's going to determine the decisions that you make. And so as you go through your life, you need to have like the big screen in the control room with big words. And on those on those screens, there need to be the commandments of God. that will give you wisdom to know what to do and what not to do. But this has to be written on your heart. And we know the promise in Jeremiah 31 and the new covenant in verse 33 is that God will write his word upon the hearts of the new covenant people. He will write his law on their hearts. And so here we have a command to the son, son, write the commandments, the law on your heart, but it's a commandment that can't be done. It's God who writes it on our hearts. Parents and teachers, they can write things on tablets. They can write out the rules and the teaching, and our children can read the rules, and they can even write them out themselves, and they can memorize the rules in their head, but only God can write them on their heart. So that as they go out in life, they will have these things directing and controlling them. For those of you who are young people here, this is what you need to have. It's for God to write this on your heart. You need to not just be content with seeking an outward or external obedience. Although we want outward obedience and we want good behavior, Good behavior in itself is not enough. Because you can still have a heart that is rebellious towards God and towards his commands. And this is what God promises to do. He can write his law on your heart. He can change your heart. So has this happened to you? Have you had God do this for you? This is what's going to control you and motivate you as you go out in the world. You need God to write this on your heart. For parents, you understand that this is part of your parenting that is not under your control. You can do your job as a faithful parent and you can discipline and do all the work and you ask God for wisdom and for his help. But at the end of the day, you present your children to God and say, God, you need to write your commandments on their heart, because I can't do that for my children. That's what you say. And so we feel like failures, maybe, if our children maybe are not behaving the way that we want them to behave. Well, our job is to do our job. We do what is under our responsibility in training and disciplining them, but we can't change their hearts. And we shouldn't feel like failures because we're not able to change the heart. This is the work of God. And so we pray that God would do this in their hearts. So the father wants this to be upon his son, down in the heart. And so then from there, he begins to tell his story. Starting in verses six through nine, the second part, he now begins with the story. Son, let me tell you about a young man. Once upon a time, I was looking outside the window of my house. The father would probably have a two-story house, and so he's on the second story where the windows would be. And so he's able to look down somewhat upon the town and he looks out of his window and he says in verse seven, I have seen among the simple perceived among the youth, a young man lacking sense. Here, the father goes out and he makes an observation. He observes a young man who is simple, who is lacking sense. And this, just one point that we can see from this is that wisdom can be learned through observation. The father doesn't say, hey, let me tell you about a time when I was 19. No, he says, let me tell you about an observation as I watch someone else do something foolish and watch someone else sin. Sometimes people have this idea that, well, you can't really give me any advice because you don't understand what I'm going through. Well, that's not really true. There are times when 2 Corinthians 1, we're comforted so that we can comfort others. But that doesn't mean that the only way to gain wisdom is to experience your mistakes yourself and learn from those mistakes. A good way to learn is by observation. Watch how the world works. Watch how other people make mistakes and learn from them and that's wisdom that you can gain and then you can pass on to others. So he perceives this young man and he calls him simple. He calls him a simpleton. He's simple, not quite the same as the word fool in the book of Proverbs, but a simple person is someone who is just naive. Someone who just doesn't really think through things. Someone who is unaware of what's going on. And so this young man, he's not exactly the fool in the sense that he is rushing off and he says, you know what I want to do tonight? I want to go find a forbidden woman. No, that's not what he says. He's just dumb. He's naive. And so the first step of his naivety is that he goes out. He goes out at night. He doesn't have a date with this woman or anything. He's just going out on the town, going out at night. And the word in verse eight about taking the road to her house, that word for taking the road could, well, it means to march, to march down the road. And so it could be giving us even this idea of pride among this young man. This young man has no idea what's coming. He's not intending to fall into this sin, and he's not intending, certainly, to end up at a slaughterhouse. But he's naive, dumb, simple, and possibly prideful. And so he's marching around town thinking he's this wonderful guy, thinking that he is very important. Perhaps he is a young man who's now out of the house and he's got his first taste of freedom and he says, yeah, this is good. Finally, I'm out from under my parents. So here he is in his pride and his simpleness. And this is a lesson that young people need to learn too. You can't be naive. You can't be simple, especially about this issue of immorality. You can't be naive about Satan and Satan's schemes. Satan knows that young people are especially, especially tempted in this area, that they could especially fall in this area. And so Satan is going to attack young people right here. He's going to attack young men in particular. Satan is a lion who prowls around, just like this woman we're going to see. She's like a lion prowling around the town. That's what Satan is doing. He is out to get you. He is out to draw you away from Christ. And you need to be aware of his devices and his schemes. You can't be proud and think that you would never fall. You can't be naive and say, well, I didn't realize that was gonna happen to me. You gotta be aware of the ways that you could sin and the ways that you could fall. You have to think ahead, think through these things. And so, for example, think about things like the internet. You can't say, well, I wasn't expecting that to come up. I wasn't expecting to end up there when I clicked on that thing. Well, you gotta be smarter than that. You gotta be aware of the types of things that will lead down those paths. Or the phone, and who you text, or who texts you, and who you interact with on the phone, or the things you download on your phone. Again, you can't just say, well, I wasn't expecting that to happen. I had no idea. I didn't know this person was gonna do this. Well, you have to think ahead about those things and put guards in place so that they don't happen. You can't just say, well, I didn't mean to do it. Well, that's not gonna protect you. This young man might have that very same excuse. Well, I didn't mean to do it. I was just wanting to walk around downtown. Yeah, well, that's your problem. You didn't realize the dangers. And then the second lesson we learned from this is the fact that verse 9 tells us basically four times that he's out on the town at night. And not only do we have to be aware of the things that might come up and that might cause people to fall into sin, but a very practical thing is that he's out at night. What do you think is going to happen at night? What good will come from going around downtown at night Shakespeare had this line, he said, light and lust are deadly enemies. Shame is folded up in blind, concealing night. Light and lust are enemies. So what is the friend of lust? It's darkness. And what is the friend of shame? Night. because night and darkness can help conceal things that bring people shame. And even unbelievers today, although we live in a pretty shameless society, there is still some sense of deep down shame over what they're doing, the promiscuity and the immorality. And so there is a tendency to commit sinful acts at night. Night is a way to hide. What good will it do you to be out on the town late at night? What good will it do you to be on the internet at one in the morning as a young man? If you're 16 or 19 and you stay up late playing video games and you stay up until two in the morning playing video games, well, guess what? A lot of other things could happen as a result of that. Good things don't happen at night. Darkness is the friend of lust. And so you need to guard yourself and guard what you do throughout your day and throughout your night. So the young man in his simplicity, his first bad move, is he goes out at night. He's out on the town, and then we read third here, that now he goes down the street. As he's out on the town, verse 10 says, Behold, the woman meets him. Now, behold here, I don't know what the father's tone is. Is it like, and behold, as in what did we expect would happen? Of course this is gonna happen. Or is it like, behold, like a National Geographic documentary of a gazelle laying there and gonna get pounced on by the lion and behold, ah, the lion got her, got her. I don't know what the tone is, but here we are to draw attention. Here he is thinking nothing wrong, nothing bad's gonna happen, and all of a sudden, here's this woman. This woman comes out to meet him. And verse 10 says, she's dressed as a prostitute, wily of heart. She's wearing a disguise, just like Tamar in Genesis 38. She dressed up this way, although she was not one, but she dressed that way to hide her identity. And so we know later on that this is a married woman, and yet she dresses this way. But there's more to just talking about the way she dresses. It's talking about her deceitfulness. Everything about this woman is deceitful. She is trying to hide her identity. She's a married woman. Probably her husband was rich based on the things that she mentions later on. And so she would be known around town. Her husband would be known around town. So she's trying to hide who she really is. But she's also, it says, wily of heart. She's a deceitful person. And so we could say in a sense that she's dressed in camouflage. This camouflage is to hide who she really is. She's a hunter. That's what we know. She's a hunter hunting for prey. And so everything about her is deceitful. She says that she loves him. She uses the word love later on. Does she really love him? Of course not. She says her husband is gone. Do we really know that her husband is gone? We don't know. Maybe she's just saying that to try to get him to come. She claims to be religious in verse 14. She says she offered sacrifices. Did she really do that? Or is she just trying another tactic to win him over? We really don't know because she's a deceiver. And then we find out more about this woman in verse 11 and 12. 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. And this is where we see her described in a sense like a lion on the prowl. It's like a lion has his territory and he waits for the gazelle to walk in his territory and then stalk the gazelle and prey upon the gazelle. That's what this woman is doing. The young man is out on the town And she is walking around that area of town and those streets at every corner. She lies in wait. She's like a lion waiting to pounce on a young man. So these are the kinds of things that you need to be aware of that you need to understand. But first we see her described as loud and wayward and not staying at home. And this is a verse for women to think about the kind of woman that you don't want to be. You don't want to be loud and wayward and not staying at home. In the New Testament, we have instructions that teach the opposite of what a woman, they teach what a woman should be using a lot of the same kind of words. 1 Peter 3 talks about a gentle and quiet spirit with a woman, so not loud. Titus 2 talks about how women are busy working at home, so as opposed to this woman who does not stay at home. And then 1 Timothy 5.13 talks about young women who are idlers and gossips and busybodies. And so all of these things They are kind of put together in the Bible as a picture of womanhood and femininity. You don't want to be loud and wayward and not staying at home. And basically what it comes down to is discretion. Discretion is a word that kind of summarizes all of this. Discretion in your words, the types of things that you say. Not being a gossip or a busybody, or not being loud and drawing attention to yourself all the time, but discretion in the things that you say. Discretion in your appearance. That's what 1 Peter 3 is about, that a woman would be modest so as to not draw attention with her dress, but also to have a gentle and quiet spirit. And so it relates to the appearance. It relates to your activities and the things that you do, 1 Timothy 5. Basically, Paul is saying that women should mind their own business. Don't go from house to house gossiping and being a busybody, but mind your own business. And that's what he means by working at home. Be concerned about your home. So this isn't about a personality or your physical makeup. As in, some people might have, some women might have a louder voice and some might have a quieter voice. Or some women might have more stamina to do certain works and some women have less stamina. This is not about your personality or your biological makeup. It's not about whether you're married or whether you're single. It's about a character. a godly character of femininity, which is a character of meekness, of discretion, of submission to the husband, rather than wanting to argue and fight everything that he says. And it's about contentment. Women can find contentment in being women, the way that God designed women to be. Find contentment, as the hymn says, content to fill a little space if God be glorified. Content that you're not gonna be the girl boss, you're not gonna be breaking glass ceilings, but you're gonna be caring for your home. And you're gonna be discreet and not be drawing attention to yourself because you don't have this pride that has to draw all the attention to you. but you're content to fill a little space because it glorifies God. Well, that is this woman who is not being like this. And then we see her, in a sense, pouncing on her prey in verse 13. She seizes him and kisses him. And with bold faith, bold face, she says to him, we'll see what she says later. She says, verse 15, I have come out to meet you, to seek you eagerly, and I have found you. It seems that she is, she is drawing attention. She is attacking the weakness of his pride. I've come out just to meet you. Now we know that's not true because she's just walking around town looking for easy prey. And she sees a young, simple young man, a naive young man, and she knows she can get him. And so she says, I've come out to meet you. I have found you. And the young man might think, oh, well, aren't you so lucky? Aren't I such a good catch that you found me here? In verse 14, she is blasphemous, and she says, I had to offer sacrifices, and today I have paid my vows. So in other words, she's using religion as a cover-up for her sin. You say, oh, well, I just came home from Mass, and I had all my sins absolved, and we can just go to Mass tomorrow morning, too, and get our sins absolved again. We can just pray to God and God will forgive us of our sins. I've heard of situations where adultery has been committed and there are times when the person might even bring God into the picture and that the man might even pray like pray to God, they commit adultery and then say, well, let's pray now as a way to just manipulate and bring God into this equation. And this just shows the blasphemy and the wickedness of the heart that people would even use God as a means and an excuse to sin. But this is something that young people need to be careful about. There are people who can talk the talk. They can use God language. They can talk about being Christians. They can say that they go to church. It doesn't really mean anything. Talk really means nothing. What you wanna see in a person that you're thinking about for a relationship and for marriages, you wanna see a genuine Christian salvation, involvement in a good church, and a person that is seeking Christ and seeking holiness. And I understand that that's a pretty high bar in our day. That's a small pool in our day. There aren't a lot of those people out there. Because there are a lot of people who will claim Christ, who will say they just go to some random church, and yet their lives are not different. They're not transformed. So you don't just want someone who claims and talks the talk of Christianity. You want the real thing in a relationship that you have with someone. Well, she goes on to explain in verse 16 to 17, the spices and everything that she's bought. It shows off her wealth. It again flatters the young man. I brought these things from Egypt just for you. I got this cinnamon from Sri Lanka, special order just for you. And it's all a way to get at the young man's pride. But then she says, there's no danger. Verses 19 and 20. 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. So she says, look, here's all this great things and it will cost you nothing. There will be no consequences. Remember the consequence at the end of chapter six of the jealous husband who will come and have vengeance and will not let up. And she says, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's going to happen. He'll never get caught because he's gone for a few weeks. But we have no idea if that's even true. And so it is that Satan lies. He lies by telling you that there will be no consequences, that you'll escape, that it'll be no big deal. And in our culture today, that's what people say. It's no big deal. What can really happen? What's the worst that could happen? So he goes down the street. This woman comes and meets him. But now we find out that he goes next down to the house. Verse 21 says, with much seductive speech, she persuades him. With her smooth talk, she compels him. Her words worked. Her lies, her deceit, her religious reasonings, her trying to convince him of no consequences, it all works for the young man. He falls for it. And he goes to her house. So he goes in the house and opens the door. And when he walks into the house, we can picture a stab through his belly. And he holds his hands up to the wound in his belly. He sees blood on his hands. He falls. starts to twitch, and then he's dead. That's what verse 22 says. All at once he follows her, as an ox goes to the slaughter, as a stag is caught fast till an arrow pierces its liver, as a bird rushes into a snare, he does not know that it will cost him his life. like the proverbial deer in the headlights who stares at the Mack truck and then the Mack truck runs him over. And he just had no concept that this was gonna happen. It was gonna wipe him out and totally demolish him. This young man, in one sense, he's like the deer in the headlights and only in the sense that he doesn't know that this is gonna be his fate. He's not like the deer in the headlights because he's in control the whole time and he could have said no at any time, but he does it. He walks into the house and he walks into the trap where then the spear comes and pierces him through his belly and pierces his liver. So you go to that young man and he's there lying on the floor and he's got a spear in his belly and he's got blood coming out and he's about to breathe his last. And you walk up to him and you say, was it worth it? Did you make the right decision? He would say, no. How dumb could I be? How could I have fallen for that? such destruction for such foolish gain. So it leads him to the slaughterhouse. And then verse 24 to 27, the last part, it leads him into the grave. Verse 24, he says, now, sons, listen to me. Be attentive to the words of my mouth, connecting To the first few verses where he said, listen to me now, he says, now listen to me after you've heard the story, listen up, here's the lesson. Verse 25, let not your heart turn aside to her ways. Do not stray into her paths. And you see, again, another connection to the first few verses. Of course, we don't want people to stray into her paths. We don't want people falling into this immorality and committing this type of sin. Don't stray into her paths, but how are you gonna avoid that? Don't let your heart turn aside. This is an issue of the heart that you need to deal with. You need to guard and watch over the heart. See, over and over again, the Proverbs are telling the young man to guard his heart. This is what you need to keep with all vigilance. This is the root of the matter. Yes, we care about the sin and the outward sin, and we don't want you to fall into outward sin. But the way to avoid the outward sin is to deal with the matters of the heart. Guard your heart. Because, verse 26, here's the consequence, here's the effect of not doing this. For many a victim has she laid low, and all her slain are a mighty throng. This is where we get the image of the slaughterhouse. Verse 22 talked about the animal being caught like a hunter would catch the animal, but verse 26 says, the slain are a mighty throng. It's a meat packing plant. There's a whole factory filled of men who have fallen into this sin. They've fallen into this graveyard. It's a throng of men. Many men, not all, but many, are like Achilles. Achilles was a mighty warrior, and he had been dipped in this river to give him great strength. But when he was dipped into the river, I think it was his mother that was holding his heel. And so the heel did not get the powers of the river on it, and so it did not get that mighty strength. And so in the myth, Achilles had this great strength, but his weakness was his heel. And that's why it's called the Achilles heel. And there are men who outwardly are very strong in the sense that they might have big muscles, men who can fight battles, who can get into a UFC octagon and pummel people and get pummeled. And they seem very tough, macho, and strong. But they have this Achilles heel. They are slain when someone just shoots an arrow in the heel like Achilles. They are slain by a forbidden woman. They are slain and led to the slaughter simply because they cannot control the lust of the heart. Satan knows this. And the world makes billions and billions of dollars preying on men's foolishness because they do not keep the heart. Millions of men have this weakness. They are not strong. And this is what I want to say is that this is not manliness. This is not strength. It is not strength to fall into this sin and be led like a little sheep to be slaughtered. Young men, if you want to be a real man, if you want to be a strong man, it's not about getting into an octagon. It's not about getting big muscles. It's about. Being able to control the desires of the heart. It's about being able to say no to sin. It's about taking up your cross and following Jesus. These are the men who are like Christ. This is what Christ was like. Physically weak, physically helpless, yet who knew how to resist temptation and knew how to please his father. The manliest man did all, all of his life lived to please God, his father. This is what a real man is. Don't be led to the slaughter. Well, as we read this last verse, and we read about how the young man not only walks the grave, but he walks into Sheol, and he faces the judgment of God and the consequence of his sin. It reminds us also of this man, Christ Jesus. You think of Christ. pierced for our transgressions. Christ, the Bible says, was led like a sheep to the slaughter. Christ was doing this because he was being punished as a sinner. Here in these verses, we have a picture of what happens when you sin. It's like you're pierced and you're slaughtered and then you go to the grave and you experience the judgment of God in hell. And this was all what Jesus went through as one who is taking the place of sinners as one who was dying as a substitute. He was pierced not because of his lust. He was pierced for our transgressions. He descended into the grave for our iniquities. Jesus never looked upon a woman this way. Jesus was able to talk to the Samaritan woman who was with six men and he talked to her about how she might have eternal life because he himself experienced the punishment that that kind of woman deserved. And so there is grace. There is forgiveness in Christ for immorality and for sin. Anyone can come to Christ and find salvation. Anyone can be like that Samaritan woman who would come and see Christ and believe in him and receive eternal life. But it's not cheap grace. The only way that Samaritan woman could be saved was because Jesus was pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities, and he descended into the grave himself, and he experienced all of the wrath of God in the place of sinners. And that's why Paul can say two things in 1 Corinthians 6. He can say, number one, the sexually immoral will not inherit the kingdom of God. Sin is serious, and this is an especially serious sin, such that if you continue in this sin without repentance, then you will not inherit the kingdom of God. It will keep you out of heaven. And so none of this talk about grace should ever be an excuse for you to think it's okay for you to sin and just offer sacrifices the next day, like this woman says. Paul says, you will not inherit the kingdom of God. But Paul can also say such were some of you, but you were washed and you were sanctified. Yes. This sin will keep you out of the kingdom of God. But if you trust in Christ and you call upon God to wash you and cleanse you and make you new and write these words upon your heart, then you can receive the forgiveness of sins and you can be changed. So that you will not fall into these sins anymore. So the father takes his son. He says, son. You see that young man down there? One night going out on the town, he thought nothing would happen. But he ended up in the slaughterhouse with the other pile of men, the mighty throng who lay there slain. Look at that young man. Don't be like that young man. Don't be simple like him. But you know, we can also say, son, You see that young man, what happened to him? But also, son, we want you to look at Christ. Look at Christ slain and pierced. Look at Christ down there laying in the tomb. And it wasn't because he was simple, not because he was a fool and not because of his sin. It was because Christ did this to save sinners like you, son. Look at Christ and His death. Look at Christ, trust in His death to forgive you of your sins. Let's pray. Our God, we pray that your word would be perfect guide for your people. We pray that the young will direct their way and guard and cherish your word in their hearts. Lord, we pray that your eternal truth, your commandments would be written upon the heart. And may each one of us know Jesus Christ. Know the grace that is in him. And remember his grace in being slain for us. Help us now to walk in your ways, we pray in Jesus name. Amen.