Aim Your Thirst
God created humans with a desire for sex that in this passage is compared to our thirst for water. Therefore, God doesn’t tell us to kill that desire; he tells us to aim it.
Resources:
The Book of Proverbs (Chapters 1-15, NICOT), Bruce Waltke
Proverbs: Wisdom that Works, Ray Ortlund
St. John Chrysostom: Commentary on the Sages: Commentary on Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, translated by Robert C. Hill
Proverbs, Charles Bridges
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Sermon Transcript
Experts today recommend that humans drink between two to four liters of water per day, which sounds like a lot to me. Even if you don’t hit that number though, what are the odds that if you had access to water, you’d go a whole day without drinking any of it? Pretty low, I’d guess, because we all have a natural desire for water that expresses itself as thirst when we haven’t had a drink for a while. And, in a developed city like Philadelphia, most of us have pretty easy access to running water. That isn’t true everywhere in the world, though, and certainly wasn’t true in the time in which the passage on which we are focusing today was written. Instead, people at that time typically got their water from wells.
So if throughout your day you went to your well to get some water to drink, nobody would think there was anything wrong with you. But what if you had your own well that provided perfectly good water, and instead of going to it, you were found regularly stealing water from your neighbors’ well? Might we not reasonably say to such a person, “Drink water from your own well”? We encounter just such a command in verse 15 of our passage, though the ESV for some reason prefers the word “cistern” to well. You probably realized though that this passage isn’t about water; it’s about sex. It recognizes that as humans have a natural desire for water, humans have a natural desire for sex; I’m guessing you didn’t need to come to church today to learn that. And yet, just as we’d assume something was wrong with a man’s thirst if he kept stealing his neighbor’s water, something has gone wrong with our desire for sex; probably many of you didn’t need to come to church to learn that either. We’re going to see in this passage that God’s solution to that, though, is not to deny the existence of such a desire nor to even merely suppress it. Instead, in this passage he tells us to direct it toward our spouse. Give yourself to the spouse you have rather than anyone else, and yes, I will do my best at some point in this sermon to suggest what that means for those of you who are single. But more generally, this passage gives four ways to give yourself to the spouse you have rather than anyone else: Perceive the reality, stay away, drink from your own well, and remember the LORD.
Perceive the reality
Our passage begins with the familiar exhortation from Solomon to his son calling on him to be attentive to wisdom, incline his ear to understanding, so that he may keep discretion, and his lips guard knowledge, but in this chapter the reason begins in verse 3 and that sets the trajectory for the entire chapter: Get wisdom and keep it because it will protect you from the forbidden woman. This idea was introduced back in chapter 2, but here in chapter 5 it’s like that passage in chapter 2 was a Wikipedia link, and chapter 5 begins an article that the latter part of chapter 6 and chapter 7 will pick up again.
It’s worth noting as we begin today, then, that one of Solomon’s big concerns for his son is to protect him from sexual sin. And the way he does that is not the way many conservative, religious types do it: By never talking about it. We’ve got a whole chapter devoted to it here, we’re going to see it again, and while a measure of propriety is right and good, you probably already noticed that he’s willing to get somewhat descriptive. We don’t know exactly how old his son was, but most scholars think he’s a teenager or perhaps right on the verge of his teen years. How early should you start talking to your kids about sex? Probably earlier than you’d think. Educating your kids on things like private parts is now generally recognized to be wise even in their toddler years, but especially as kids approach puberty, conversations about sexual sin like the one we have in Proverbs 5 are wise, and are generally best had from a father to a son or a mother to a daughter. And no, you shouldn’t try to cover it all in one dreaded, uncomfortable conversation. Sex is a good thing about which the Bible frequently speaks, and while there is a way to overdo it, many Christian parents underdo it. If you’re wondering how to do that with your kids, I certainly want to make myself available to seek God’s wisdom with you on that, but I would also commend to you the ministry of Harvest USA, which beyond publishing articles and mini-books on the subject, even offers a short class on raising sexually faithful kids. Parents, don’t let your kids learn about sex from kids their age, the internet, or their own imagination. You take the initiative to talk to them about it. And for that matter, especially because many of us grew up with parents who didn’t really pass along God’s wisdom in this area to us, we as members of this church need to be talking about it with one another. If you’re struggling with sexual sin for example, one basic step you need to take in fighting is talking to another same-gender member of your church about it. If you’re in a discipling relationship with someone else, this is one of the topics you need to be talking about.
Ok, so Solomon talks about it; let’s look at what he says. In verses 3-6 he begins by trying to expose his son to the reality of temptation. Though it’s wise to shelter kids in their younger years, temptation exists, so you can’t shelter them forever. Here’s what it looks like: The lips of a forbidden woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil. We learn throughout the passage that the woman is forbidden because she’s married, but in the Bible sexual activity is forbidden with anyone to whom you are not married. That includes another single person, your boyfriend, your girlfriend, your fiancée, and certainly any man or woman on a screen or in your mind to whom you are not married. The mouth and lips of the forbidden woman look appealing, and the things she says are alluring; her words are sweet and smooth, whether in the form of flattery or more stereotypical “dirty talk”. A father is writing to his son here, so he talks about a forbidden woman, but of course men can allure women by means of their words just as easily.
Whether you are a man or a woman, it feels good to be wanted, doesn’t it? Who wouldn’t rather hear that they’re attractive than that they’re ugly? That’s natural, but when it comes from a forbidden woman or man, here’s the reality this passage exposes: It may appear like honey, but in the end, verse 4: She is as bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Can you imagine that? Wormwood is basically a bitter, like angostura bitters or something used in a cocktail that you add a dash or two of for flavor. Can you imagine eating a mouth full of honey and at first it’s sweet, but in the end, as it goes down your throat, it’s like drinking a whole spoon full of bitters? He goes so far as to say it’s like swallowing a two-edged sword. I get that sword swallowing is the kind of act you see on a show like America’s Got Talent now, but who would even consider swallowing a sharp, two-edged sword that would cut your throat up on the way down?
No one would do that, but of course, that’s not what the forbidden woman appears to be when you first encounter her. She appears to be all sweetness. But wisdom is the art of perceiving reality and living in accordance with it. When you go to that website, when you open that app, when you get that DM, it seems sweet, so what must you do? You must perceive the reality of where it ends. Verse 5 goes further to say that her feet go down to death, her steps follow the path to Sheol. Sheol in the Old Testament refers to the realm of the dead, and it generally carries with it the connotation of divine judgment, especially when one goes there early. Messing with a forbidden woman may feel good in the moment, but if you do it, you are putting yourself on an escalator down to Sheol. Perceive the reality. Don’t get stuck on how good it feels now; think about how it will feel later. If you’ve ever sinned sexually, how did it feel after it was over? Remember that when you’re tempted to open the app. That’s wisdom. And, next, stay away.
Stay away
Ok, so if you know the steps of the forbidden woman follow the path to Sheol, what should you do when she starts talking all sweet and smooth? Verse 8: Keep your way far from her, and do not go near the door of her house. Delete the app, delete the text and block the number, stop going to the gym at that time, whatever you have to do, but keep away from any situation in which you know you have the opportunity to engage in sexual sin. We need to talk about the heart and cultivate a greater love for Christ that will expel from your heart the love of sin, but notice that isn’t the first place Solomon goes here. He doesn’t say when you hear the smooth speech of the forbidden woman, start examining your heart. Here’s a wiser first step, though an insufficient one: Get away from her! Sometimes I talk with dating or engaged couples who want to fight sexual sin, but they regularly spend time alone in one another’s apartments. If you’re dating or engaged and struggling with sexual sin, here’s a wise first step: Get out of each other’s apartments!
If that seems extreme to you, consider these words of Jesus: “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. 45 And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell. 47 And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, 48 ‘where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched” (Mark 9:43-48). Jesus’ point is that just as cutting off a limb or gouging out an eye seems extreme, you must be willing to take measures that seem extreme to you to fight all sin, and that includes sexual sin.
What fences do you need to put up to stay away from sexual sin? That’s a great conversation to have in a discipleship group. In Christian circles sometimes “accountability” just means someone to confess to, and don’t get me wrong: That’s vitally important. But with the person to whom you confess the sin, you should also be asking: Now what measures do you need to put in place to keep you away from this in the future? Some ideas, and these are just ideas, but consider them, especially the more severe your struggle is: Resolve to never be alone in a private place with someone of the opposite sex, delete any apps through which you can access sexually explicit material, and ask a trusted brother or sister in Christ to password protect future app downloads, get accountability like Covenant Eyes on your computer and devices; if you’re married, don’t go beyond one or two business type text messages with anyone of the opposite sex to whom you are not married; include your spouse in further communication. Again, just some ideas.
If you struggle with sexual sin and you refuse to take these kinds of steps, the question I’d encourage you to consider is do you really want to put the sin to death? If you’re in a discipling relationship and the person you are discipling is struggling with sexual sin but won’t take these kinds of steps, that’s the question you need to ask them. Part of you may want to put this sin to death, but when push comes to shove, if you aren’t willing to take seemingly extreme measures against it, it suggests part of you also wants to keep it around. An unwillingness to keep your way far from the forbidden woman reveals a heart that still at least partially wants the forbidden woman. Can you be that honest with yourself? Can you be that honest with a trusted brother or sister? Because pretending it’s not the case isn’t helping anyone.
And furthermore, it’s nearly impossible to do the real heart work that is necessary for lasting change if you’re still frequenting the forbidden woman’s house, as it were. Some professing Christians are so awash in sexual sin that it’s like a house on fire, and instead of getting out of the house and putting the fire out, they’re trying to discover what caused the fire. Step 1 in firefighting is to put out the fire, then we can do the essential work of identifying what caused it and fixing it so the fires don’t reoccur. Assessing your motives and applying the gospel to your heart is essential to fighting sexual sin, but first, put out the fire. Keep away from the forbidden woman.
And the reason given to do so in this passage again helps us perceive the reality of where following her way or going near the door of her house leads starting in verse 9: You give your honor to others and your years to the merciless, strangers take their fill of your strength, your labors go to the house of a foreigner, and at the end of your life, you will regret it. We’re far enough removed culturally from the time this was written that it’s hard to know the exact scenario he has in mind here, but the point clearly is that the consequences are dire. It can lead to marital strife, divorce, children out of wedlock, legal consequences, financial cost, disease, and more. Take pornography for example, a sin that seems to many to have no real negative consequences. Part of perceiving the reality of sexual sin is realizing that it operates on the law of diminishing returns. It keeps promising more, delivering less, and taking more from you. You need more deviant and sinful versions of it over time to produce the same pleasure, so you go from free viewing to paid viewing to even paying for live activity, and now someone else enjoys the money from your labors while you and your family suffer. You say, “that’ll never be me,” but do you know who becomes that guy? People who started by saying, “that’ll never be me” and so didn’t stay far away from sexual sin.
That’s hating discipline and despising reproof; look at what that guy says at the end of his life in verses 12-14: How I hated discipline and my heart despised reproof! By verse 14 he’s saying he’s even on the brink of utter ruin in the assembled congregation. The assembled congregation is basically the church, especially acting its role as judge. Another consequence of unrepentant sexual sin is church discipline, in which the congregation assembles and removes you from its membership. Instead of thinking about how good it will feel, think about these consequences of sexual sin so that you stay far away from it. Imagine yourself old, diseased, impoverished, excommunicated from your church, divorced from your wife, living in an apartment by yourself while someone else raised your kids from whom you are now estranged. The wisdom being offered to us here is to help us perceive the reality that is where sexual sin leads; don’t despise it. Receive it, and stay away from sexual sin. And next, drink water from your own well.
Drink from your own well
Ok, so we’ve seen that the forbidden woman seems great, but ends poorly, and we’ve seen what to do with respect to her: Stay away from her. What, then, does Solomon expect his son to do if and when he does feel a desire for sex? What does God expect us to do with such a desire? Look at verse 15: Drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own well. Verse 18 clarifies that the illustration here is of the wife of your youth. The passage acknowledges that a human will desire sex in a way at least analogous to the way a human desires a drink of water. And just as the desire for a drink is not sinful in and of itself, so the desire for sex is not sinful in and of itself. Let me just say that again because it’s a common misconception of the Bible’s teaching on sex: The desire for sex is not inherently sinful. In fact, sex appears in the Bible before sin does. In Genesis 2:24-25 we read that before sin entered the world a man should leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. Then we read that the first man and his first wife were naked and were not ashamed. That is part of God’s creation, not part of the fall, and when God saw all that he had made, he declared it very good. Sex is a very good part of God’s very good creation.
And Genesis 2 shows us for what good purpose God gave the man in particular a sex drive: That he should leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife. As a man’s thirst is meant to drive him to his well, so a man’s sex drive is meant to drive him to his wife. Thus the command of verse 15: Drink water from your own well. The desire is good, but God cares about how we satisfy the desire. The desire for water is part of God’s very good creation of man, but the desire for water is no better an excuse for stealing water than the desire for sex is for sinning sexually.
Why then do we accept a person’s desire for sex as an excuse for their sexual sin? Isn’t it because we’ve lost sight of the purpose for which God gave us that sexual thirst, and instead of letting it drive us to a specific spouse, we’ve, in the words of verse 16, scattered it abroad? Elsewhere in scripture God is described as a fountain of living water (Jer 2:13). The God of the Bible, the God who is, is a Father eternally begetting a Son, from whom a Spirit eternally proceeds. Before God made anything else, God was within himself an ever-flowing fountain of life. And what does a fountain of life tend to do? It tends to overflow. So in the beginning, God made the heavens and the earth, and God made humans in his image, that we too might be fountains of life. What did he tell the first humans to do? “Be fruitful and multiply” (Gen 1:28). What is God’s intended outcome for a man leaving his father and mother, holding fast to his wife, and the two becoming one flesh? We read of it in Genesis 5:3 – “[Adam] fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image.” God made men and women in his image, and what’s one way men and women image God? They have children in their image!
Women, why is that sex drive in you? To drive you toward your husband, that he might drink from that well. Men, why is that sex drive in you? To drive you toward your wife, that together you might give life and pleasure to one another, and from that union, give life to a brand new human life. You don’t need to kill that desire, but you do need to aim it at your spouse. Can you see now why you should not only try to satisfy your sexual thirst with a forbidden woman, but why you should also not try to satisfy it by yourself? That’s like getting dehydrated and trying to drink your own urine to survive; it doesn’t work. God created fountains to go out and give life to others; when you please yourself, you contract all that and confine it to your pleasure alone in a way that gives no joy and no life to anyone but you.
So, verse 18, let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth. The assumption here is that the son either will marry young or did marry young. Single men, if the normative pattern in creation is that a man leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, what are you waiting for? Verse 19 goes so far as to tell men to let their wives’ breasts fill them at all times with delight, and to be intoxicated always in her love. What’s the best defense against sexual sin in this passage? A good offense. Give yourself to the spouse God has given you rather than to anyone else. Yes, God himself is telling you in this passage to not only have sex with your wife, but to enjoy sex with your wife, like really enjoy it! The language of drunkenness is even used here, something generally sinful in the Bible, but the one thing it’s ok to get drunk on is the love of your wife! Enjoy even the parts of your wife’s body that aren’t strictly necessary for reproduction! Just as God could have met our nutritional needs with pills but instead gave us foods with beautiful appearances and smells and colors and tastes, so God could have made us to reproduce asexually or without the slightest pleasure in it, and instead he gave us the wonderful gift of sex! Enjoy it…with your spouse!
Brothers in the room, are verses 18-20 descriptive of your relationship with your wife? If not, before you start blaming your wife for that, consider: Are you directing all of your sexual thirst toward your wife, or is some of it getting scattered abroad to a tv show, an app, or a girl in your mind? Consider furthermore, would your wife describe you as a fountain of life generally in your marriage and home? Are you pouring yourself out for her like that? Don’t spend 95% of your days pouring yourself into your job, hobbies, and friends, then expect your wife to satisfy you with the left over 5% you spend with her. Rejoice in the wife of your youth. Give yourself to the spouse gave has given you.
And sisters, there is something for you here too. A good general principle to keep in mind is any time we see commands in the Bible directed to someone else, love should incline us not to first think about how to correct them on it, but how to help them with it. So when I as a pastor see members of churches commanded to obey their pastors and submit to them (Heb 13:17), the first thing I should be thinking of is how to lead in such a way that it’s easy for members to submit to me. When members of a church see that pastors will one day give an account to God for our souls, the first thing we should be thinking of is how to follow in such a way that it’s easy for them to keep watch over our souls (Heb 13:17). When wives are told to submit to their husbands, the first thing a husband should think of is how to lead in such a way as to make it easy for his wife to submit to him (Eph 5:22). So here, wives, husbands are told to rejoice in their wives, to let their breasts fill them at all times with delight, and to be intoxicated always in their love. How could you make that easy for your husband?
Chad and Emily Van Dixhoorn have been happily married for decades while parenting 5 children and they taught a marriage seminar here earlier this year; you can find the audio of most of it on our website. They also wrote a book on marriage entitled Gospel-Shaped Marriage and their chapter on sex is particularly helpful. I’m tempted to read the whole thing to you, but instead I’m just going to relay to you some of the suggestions they make on a practical level to help couples move closer to the ideal of verses 15-19. Men, speak and relate to your wife gently, and be as helpful as you can be throughout the day. Shower and shave. Work to stay fit–not forever young as the Van Dixhoorns say, but fit for your age. For ladies, they say, “Since many men are visually stimulated, attractive pieces of clothing will usually go a long way. Some kinds of evening wear are cozy but do not inspire the imagination.” They also suggest that verbal requests can be helpful, sometimes even in surprising times or locations.
Again, if this is not the present reality of your marriage, it is worth addressing. I remember counseling a couple once and a few sessions in I discovered they’d only had sex once or twice in the past year. After I picked my jaw up off the table I tried to help them see just how abnormal and unhealthy that was for their marriage. Talk to one another about it, talk to God about it, and talk to a pastor or wise brother or sister about it, but don’t accept infrequent or unenjoyable sex as the status quo. Give yourself to the spouse God has given you rather than anyone else by drinking from your own well.
Now before I move on, I want to make good on my promise to apply this passage to the many of you in the room today who are single. For men in particular, let me just say that one thing it means is that unless you plan to devote yourself to serving the Lord in singleness and you can do so without a significant struggle with sexual sin, you should be trying to find a wife and get married. If you were thirsty and didn’t have a well, what should you do? Start digging. Matt Cohen came and taught a dating seminar for us last year; the content from that is on our sending church’s website, citylightphilly.com, and that’s not the focus of this text, but let me just say that it may mean renewing your mind so that you are actually looking for a wife, not just dates, and that you are looking for what God values in a woman rather than someone who will satisfy all your personal tastes. If she sincerely loves Christ, if there’s an appropriate level of physical attraction there so that things like verses 15-19 are things you’d actually want to do with her, and if you enjoy being friends with her, you should consider evaluating marriage with her. And single ladies, I understand part of your frustration may be that men simply don’t seem to be doing that. I’d discourage you from doing it for them; that’s the kind of quick fix that tends to just perpetuate the problem further. Instead, pray for men, encourage men to act like men, and be open to the pursuit of imperfect men. They’re the only ones who exist.
And, finally, men and women, remember the LORD.
Remember the LORD
When we come to verse 21, we come to the conclusion of the whole passage, the reason to give yourself to the spouse God has given you, rather than anyone else: For a man’s ways are before the eyes of the LORD, and he ponders all his paths. The LORD’s involvement has been implicit throughout the passage, from his design for sex to the consequences of going after the forbidden woman. But this is the first time his name comes up. Thus far, the wisdom has focused on helping us to perceive the reality of God’s world: Sexual sin starts sweet but ends bitter. Just stay away from it. If you don’t, you’ll end up at the end of your life unhealthy, alone, poor, excommunicated, and regretful. Enjoy sexual intimacy with your own wife. There’s wisdom on that plane.
But verse 21 lifts our eyes to a higher plane. You aren’t just living for you. When you go to the forbidden woman’s house and it feels like you are all alone, with no parents telling you you can’t do it, no spouse who can see it, when you open that app, and it feels like it’s just you and the screen, when you respond to that text and it feels like no one else knows, remember the LORD. There is a real, invisible, present everywhere, all knowing being named the LORD, and all your ways are before his eyes. Sometimes this line of reasoning can get a bad rap among Christians today. They’ll say, “God’s not up in heaven watching you waiting to zap you when you mess up,” and there’s an element of truth in that: The LORD is gloriously slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. But it’s hard to imagine how it would not help you to consider that in every moment of every day, your ways are before the eyes of the LORD, including the moments no one else sees, including the thoughts that run through your mind, including the apps you open, the people you see, the shows you watch, and so on. God sees the reality of verse 22: The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him, and he is held fast in the cords of his sin, held fast to a path that leads astray right into death. Every time you sin sexually it is like you are tying another rope around your body, fastening yourself further to a cart on a one-way track to death. And all your ways are before the eyes of the LORD.
How’s that hit you? How’s it feeling knowing that at every moment of every day, an all knowing, everywhere present God is watching you? Why do we feel the need to say things like, “God isn’t up in heaven watching waiting to zap you every time you mess up”? Isn’t it because we know that if God was watching us at every moment, there are plenty of things in us worthy of zapping? Why do we look to satisfy our thirst from our neighbor’s well instead of our own? Why does it not only feel good to be wanted, but why do we feel like we need to be wanted? Why is it not enough to have our spouses’ love? What in us makes us also wonder, “Could I get that person’s love”? We expect someone to drink water when they’re thirsty, but what if after drinking enough to satisfy their thirst, they just kept drinking? Again, we’d have to assume something has gone wrong with your thirst, and that’s the case with us. Sin has warped our thirst, so that now instead of directing that sexual thirst toward a specific spouse to whom we can give joy and with whom we can produce more life, it is contracted and confined to ourselves so that we take from others to gratify ourselves. How can people like that live under the gaze of the LORD who sees all their ways? How can people like that get free from the cords of their sin?
When Jesus Christ was on earth he met a woman at a well who was held fast in the cords of her sin. When he asked her to go and find her husband, she had to admit that she had no husband, because in fact she’d had five, and the one she had now was not her husband. Some of you know all too well what it’s like to have engaged in that kind of sexual sin over the course of your life, and you live with the consequences now. But listen to what Jesus told this woman when she asked him for a drink from the well: “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:13-14). What was Jesus saying there? He’s saying there’s a deeper thirst than sex in every human that only he can satisfy, a deeper union for which we were created, union with God himself, and Jesus came to give us that union, to give it even to those who have repeatedly committed heinous sexual sin like that woman, and to all of us who in some measure live with the consequences of past sexual sin.
He is the image of the invisible God, the eternally begotten Son, who came not to take, but to give himself for his bride, the church. He rejoiced in us, the wife of his youth, when there was nothing in us to fill him with delight, and on the cross, he was held fast, nailed to it, for our sins. One of the seven things he said on the cross was, “I thirst.” He thirsted so you and I could drink of the only water that would never leave us thirsty again, the water that would actually spring up in us into a well of water welling up to eternal life, the very eternal life he entered when he rose from the dead. God doesn’t watch you and zap you for your past sins or every time you sin now because Christ already paid for all the sins of his bride; that’s how you can live under the watchful eyes of an all knowing, everywhere present God, and still have peace. That’s how you can be naked and not ashamed in his presence, even when you’re ashamed of your sexual sin. Turn from it, receive and rest upon him alone for salvation, and he will forgive you your sins and give you his Spirit to remake you into the image of the fountain of life, to reorient you outward most fundamentally toward God, and then in many cases toward a specific spouse.
When that deeper thirst for God is satisfied in Christ, it puts the thirst for sex back in its proper place. It repairs that disordered thirst so that now instead of following it, you can aim it at your spouse in a way that gives joy and life to others. When you are united to Christ as part of his bride, you can give yourself to the spouse God has given you, rather than to anyone else, even if Christ is the only spouse you ever have.