Turn with me in your scriptures to Proverbs chapter two. Proverbs chapter two. We have in chapter two a beautifully structured poem that the spirit inspired by the pen of Solomon. And here he sets out, as it were, an outline. And he will return to these themes again in these introductory chapters. we are working our way through as he has taken up the language of the loving father, guiding his son, and we have worked our way to verse 16. And so if you'll stand with me, I'll read this section of the poem from verse 16 through verse 19. A deliverance that is brought about by the work of wisdom in the heart of those who will pursue wisdom on God's terms. This is God's very Word, holy, infallible, and inherent in all its parts. Let us hear and heed Proverbs 2 at verse 16. To deliver you from the immoral woman, from the seductress who flatters with her words, forsakes the companion of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God. For her house leads down to death and her paths to the dead. None who go to her return, nor do they regain the paths of life." Let us beg God's mercy in breaking to us the bread of life as we hear and heed his word. Most Holy Father, we pray that we may be nurtured, nourished on this, the very Word of Almighty God. We pray that we may have much of your wisdom as you open to us that wisdom from your Word. We pray it for the glory of Christ. Amen. You may be seated. Here in chapter two is we have the earnest guidance of a father to his son in the pursuit of wisdom. Wisdom is to be sought on God's terms, in God's way, and from God's sources. And so doing, that pursuit will be blessed. There are assurances here of an inward and outward work. that God will do when wisdom is pursued on God's terms. And the father is lovingly describing this to his son and giving such precious assurances to his beloved son as he describes the pursuit of wisdom. Inwardly, the Lord will prepare us, if we pursue on God's terms, for growing in wisdom. He will nurture us. in a saving relationship and bring about a growth in wisdom by shaping the soul for it. and pouring out that wisdom from his bountiful storehouses as he reveals himself to us in that saving relationship. And that will have an outward effect. There will be an outward transformation. The Lord will give us an ethical clarity as we face and approach the world around us. Given that inward transformation, Our outward perspective is radically transformed. As we grow in the training of God's wisdom, we internalize an understanding of God's ways as He protects us. We have the assurance that while He's training us in our simplicity, He sets a guard over us, and He works in us the wisdom by which we'll have insight into how God protects from destruction. We begin to discern and understand how to avoid evil and destruction. Discretion is wrought within us by wisdom and preserves us. Understanding keeps us. This inward and outward transformation, as described earlier in Chapter 2, brings deliverance from destruction. The work of wisdom in the soul delivers from the path of evil. And we looked at that last week as Solomon, in the words of the nurturing and caring father, describes all that work of wisdom and all that inward and outward transformation and then says that there's a result, there's deliverance that will be granted, first in verses 12 and following, to deliver from the way of evil, the ones who entice away from the path that the father is setting out for his son. And we saw last week that this is especially addressed to a son who is brought up in covenant relationship. He is one who should have set before him in his family context, the way of life and the way of wisdom. And yet the father warns in this Solomon's beautiful poem that there are still dangers. Indeed, dangers for those who are brought up in the way that should lead to life in the way that should cause wisdom to come naturally. There are those in the pathway of evil who speak perversely, who entice, who call out and market the path of evil. We're vulnerable to those snares during the time of our upbringing. And indeed, every soul should be warned and the description of how the soul shaped by wisdom is delivered from the path of evil is very insightful. It builds as the description of those on that path is set forward in Solomon's beautiful poem, Through the Words of the Father. There is the one inviting to the path, marketing, speaking perversely. You're stupid, you're foolish there. You're such a fool. Here we have all these delights, all these ways of enjoyment. Don't be a fool. Don't listen to your parents. Don't listen and walk in that way. We have true freedom. You're in bondage. Free yourself. Walk in these ways. There's a perverse marketing, an invitation to step off the path of godliness and into the path, the way of the wicked. who have left the path of wisdom, persuaded by the perverse marketing, they are described by Solomon's poem here as abandoning their heritage and turning to evil. Now, as they've abandoned that path of their heritage and started down the path of wickedness, having been persuaded by the perversity of the one marketing it, the evil man, enticing, now that they're on that path, A transformation takes place. They begin to rejoice, not in godliness, but to rejoice in evil. And in doing evil, there's a progression. They delight in that which is perverse. And as that is the delight of the soul, the soul is described as becoming misshapen, crooked, perverse. no longer pure, no longer how God intends the soul to be. The soul that has stepped into that path, persuaded by the marketing, and begins to walk the path of evil, and then delights in it, and practices it, will be misshapen by it, made crooked and perverse. The work of wisdom to deliver the soul is put forward boldly. You will be rescued from that, snatched as it were, out of a snare. The work of wisdom also delivers, as we look now, it's marked out there, that first set of deliverances from the evil man with the evil path at verse 12. Now, a very powerful snare deliverance at verse 16 from sexual immorality and the one used to typify that, the immoral woman. As we mature in wisdom, that protection that wisdom brings through discretion and understanding will deliver us, not only from that way of evil, but now also, secondly, from an even more deadly way of destruction, the path of sexual immorality. And as we mentioned before, Solomon is in this beautiful poem setting out things he will come back to. He's giving a concise structure in this part of his introduction. He'll come back to this, and he will spend a lot of time on the power of the destruction of sexual immorality. Chapters 5 through 7 of his introduction, he comes back to this, and he hammers it home. He expounds upon this. So this brief description of deliverance by wisdom from this deadly destruction is just an introduction. Now, in both sets of deliverance, there are parallels. The path of evil was a snare that transformed those who took that path into the image of that path, crooked and perverse, the way of sexual immorality. also transforms and Solomon describes what happens to the soul on that path. The poetic form here used to describe this is of the young man enticed by an immoral woman. Clearly, that's not the only direction that sin can take. It can go in the other direction as well, but this is the most familiar direction of sexual immorality, and it's the most common. So it's quite natural that Solomon would take up this to typify that way of destruction from which wisdom will deliver us. In a sense, sexual immorality, we might say, is personified here by the immoral woman. And that immoral woman is put in terms of one who is committing adultery and enticing to adultery. And Solomon's reason is that that's the most heinous form and the most destructive form of sexual immorality. Poetically, why that's so, and we'll look at that here as we consider wisdom's deliverance from sexual immorality. The woman described is the literal language. I mean, she's the immoral woman, and she's described as an adulteress. The literal language is the foreign woman, the stranger. It's important that we understand why that's the literal language. She is in the same way that a foreigner is out of place in a land where he may wind up. If you drop somebody from the Far East into the middle of Ringle, Georgia, it's going to be immediately obvious. Nothing is right here. This person not only will have a difference in appearance, but can't speak the language, will be confused, and those interacting with that person will also be confused. This is strange, foreign, completely out of place. What Solomon is getting at here is that God has possession of sexuality as his design, and any corruption of it is foreign, out of place, completely out of place. It's like dropping that foreigner in the middle of an unknown place. It has no context. It's completely foreign. It's completely out of place. The corruption of sexual immorality personified here. goes through a progression of intensity, just like the evil path did. So we see it here in the description of the corruption of sexual immorality, that which wisdom should deliver us from in this path. The immoral woman, this foreign woman, the one enticing to adultery, seduces, verse 16 says, and flatters with words. The literal terminology there for the flattery is smooth words. The metaphor is used to describe one who deceives. One is using smooth words like oil. That one is deceiving. And indeed, the enticements to adultery make all sorts of claims that are entirely false in the end. In a clear-eyed view, They're nothing like what the enticements say they are. They are deceptive words, seductive words of flattery. What's being presented is not real. Now, consider how numb we get to those enticements in our own day. There is, in the modern world, the epitome of a purpose to redefine everything about sexuality apart from the one who made it, owns it, designed it, and puts it in place. The enticements are that it's nothing like that, that that like the enticements of the one marketing the way of evil, that that's just bondage. And that is, in fact, corruption. That design and way of experiencing and knowing sexuality is completely the opposite of what you think. No, no. That's a way of bondage. That's a way of corruption. That's a way that is not free, is not full of delight, and so on. The words of the adulteress here are slippery. They are enticing with deception. They seek to present what is not real. It presents a vision for sexuality that is at war with God's moral design in the world. It's a deceptive invitation to make of sexuality whatever we want it to be, whatever the self-centered, sinful soul decides to make it. That's to be at war with God by stealing from Him what is His and pretending to do with it as we see fit. And the words of the immoral woman are saying that it's the exact opposite of that, that it's the way of freedom, it's the way of delight, it's the way to pursue fulfillment, She is, in this poetic description, at war with God's moral design in the world, and she's lying to entice the unguarded son. He needs wisdom so that he sees clearly, with ethical clarity, God's design, and rejects the lying offer of the adulterous woman. She is described in verse 17 as forsaking and forgetting. She forsakes the companion of her youth, her husband, who forsakes the companion of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God. Again, adultery being the epitome of the corruption, wickedness, and destruction of sexual immorality, it is completely at war with God's perfect and pure design. There is a context God designed for the expression of and experience of marital intimacy. It is in that marriage context. Any other expression is taking and destroying the design of God as theft and believing a lie. The one enticing is described as the adulterer or the adulteress who, to entice this young man, must betray her husband, described in the beauty of God's design, the companion of her youth. There's God's perfect design. She betrays him. She betrays him to entice him with lies. And she forsakes something here. What does she forsake? Again, what we see by implication is that God's design is that the expression and experience, sexuality, is to be covenantal. It's in a marriage bond where God is the witness. See the description in the language there, forgets the covenant of her God. Marriage is not, in the end, the plating of man. Mankind didn't invent it. It's built into what God made human beings to be, and he's the one who formed it, of man and woman in the creation. There's a covenant bond where this expression should exist. The one enticing to break God's design is described as the adulterous, forgets the beautiful companionship of the companion of her youth, and not just betrays him, but also defies God by breaking covenant that he forms in marriage. This is getting more and more serious. There are dire consequences that begin to become clear as we recognize it's breaking covenant, a covenant designed by God. So the context for sexuality is the covenant of marriage. Breaking this is breaking what belongs to God. We are invited to think of sexuality and sexual expression as something neutral, that Christians suggest has to be formed in this way, but hey, sexuality is neutral. Others go in that way. That's not right. That's not the way it is. In reality, in what is actual, what God made, just like gravity, there's only one place for sexuality. God made it, it belongs to him, and it involves a covenant that he owns. And there's no escaping that. That's built into the created order. Whether you're a believer or not, marriage is a covenant relationship owned by God. The lie that's propagated is that it's up for grabs. You Christians are all tied up in knots about this. Okay, you live that. We'll just take sexuality and go a different direction. It's not neutral. It's not like that. It's like gravity. It's built into God's created order. And the defying of that is defying God's covenant. things continue to progress in destruction, and the ends of sexual immorality are described in verse 18. The one who is enticed and then goes in to her house, that's not just something that is a one-off. Solomon uses powerful language. The engagement, finally, the accepting of the betrayal of the covenant, where it is the only right context for sexuality. That betrayal has an end. It leads down to death. And that adulteress, who has drawn away the young man into that, she takes him to the paths of the dead. The language here in the Hebrew is very colorful. It's the idea of a decline, of a downhill slope. And at the bottom is a pit full of dead, rotting corpses. And as you fall down that path, you're stuck in a pool of rotting corpses. And Solomon says, there's no hope of you getting out of there alive. The description he gives is one of a hopeless progression into death. We're reminded of a famous part of Dante's poem, The Inferno, where over the gate of hell, you remember the sign that was posted? Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. That's over the door to her house. No one gets out alive. None return. The language in verse 19 is, though there is a grasping, a reaching for the way of life, immersed in the pool of corpses, That effort is hopeless. None get out alive. No regaining the path of life. Once in the pile of corpses, death is sure. Certainly soul death. But we also know that physical death often accompanies sexual immorality. The modern world has worked hard to undo those consequences. And that death keeps catching up and overtaking. Corruption, physically. Corruption of the soul. What an awful vision. And what a gift to have the Holy Spirit's clear description through the pen of Solomon, describing and warning what's really going on there. The world tells us a lie, as we started. And that lie leads to the pool of corpses. What a relief that wisdom delivers from that, where there was a snare that might drag us in that direction. And it's a powerful snare. Solomon returns to this again because it's such a powerful snare, especially on the young man. What a delight that we have light and truth that shines on that and warns away from it. It is not what it claims to be. The lying words, the slippery words of enticement by the adulteress do not give, in the end, what they promise. What do they give? Finally, they give death. For her house leads down to death, and her paths to the dead. None who go to her return, nor do they regain the paths of life. May God deliver us in every way, in thought, in word, and in action, from the deceptions of the world, enticing like the adulterous, inviting us to view sexuality not as what God made it to be, His possession, embedded alone in the covenant of marriage. The world entices us like the adulterous woman. No, no, look at it as your plaything. That's a lie that leads to death. May God powerfully deliver us by working in us that wisdom that comes from our relationship with Him on His terms. Let us pray. Holy Father, we are warned. How powerful is the description of your sacred poetry through the pen of Solomon, inspired by the Holy Spirit. We pray that we'll be transformed by this powerful word, that we'll not think in the world's way about sexuality, that we'll not believe the enticing and lying words that are offered to us in the world's vision by wisdom. We pray that we'll reject that. entirely, that we'll embrace reality, your design for sexual purity, that we'll walk in what you made sexuality to be. We'll maintain ourselves in holiness by the power of the Spirit because we love what you made and we honor you in it. How contrary to the world that is, we pray that we'll walk in that contrary way. Empower us to that end for your glory and the beauty of your design. We pray it in Christ's name. Amen.