Intoxicated – Proverbs 5

I have often wondered why it is that sexual sin is the downfall of so many people.  I believe in part the answer stems from how sexuality is so central to who we are.  We have a sexual drive and beyond that a personal drive to feel loved and appreciated, and to feel utterly male or female, and sexuality seems to fill that need.  We find intimacy hard to maintain with a spouse after so much time, and that would be where our greatest need would be met, but we reach instead for a false intimacy rather than doing the hard work of maintaining real intimacy.  Solomon was acutely aware of this and warned his son of the consequences of failing to be disciplined in this area and being intoxicated with the right person.

My son, be attentive to my wisdom; incline your ear to my understanding, that you may keep discretion, and your lips may guard knowledge.  For the lips of a forbidden woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil, but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.  Her feet go down to death; her steps follow the path to Sheol; she does not ponder the path of life; her ways wander, and she does not know it.

Not everyone’s lips guard knowledge, making sure nothing but wisdom leaves their mouths.  There are those who would tempt you with words that seem like sweet honey or smooth oil but that lead you into actions that only bring bitterness and a sword-like stab to the heart.  Listening to their voice instead of the voice of Wisdom, often spoken through the important people in our lives, hastens your own death.

And now, O sons, listen to me, and do not depart from the words of my mouth.  Keep your way far from her, and do not go near the door of her house, lest you give your honor to others and your years to the merciless, lest strangers take their fill of your strength, and your labors go to the house of a foreigner, and at the end of your life you groan, when your flesh and body are consumed, and you say, “How I hated discipline, and my heart despised reproof! I did not listen to the voice of my teachers or incline my ear to my instructors.  I am at the brink of utter ruin in the assembled congregation.”

To toy with the excitement that comes with sexual temptation is to ask for trouble.  It increases the likelihood that you will give in.  So you must count the cost of giving in.  Play out the scenario of yielding.  The honor you might have had from others will be spent, your strength will be given to others instead of to the goals you had for your life, your wealth will be depleted, and your body and soul will suffer.  Then it will be too late to say, “I wish I had listened.”

Drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own well.  Should your springs be scattered abroad, streams of water in the streets?  Let them be for yourself alone, and not for strangers with you.  Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely deer, a graceful doe.  Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight; be intoxicated always in her love.  Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?  For a man’s ways are before the eyes of the LORD, and he ponders all his paths.  The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him, and he is held fast in the cords of his sin.  He dies for lack of discipline, and because of his great folly he is led astray. (Proverbs 5, ESV)

The relationship that God gives us for sexual fulfillment is marriage.  If our spouse betrayed us, how would we feel?  His or her “flowing water” is meant only for us, not for strangers.  We may be intoxicated with another’s offer of love but that will only lead to slavery.  We can choose to keep our relationship to our spouse intoxicating.  That is God’s standard, in fact, for how a marriage should be.

Father, teach me proper intoxication.