(Mixing up the readings today…….)

Book of Proverbs, Chapter 5 (ESV)

Pro 5:1 My son, be attentive to my wisdom; incline your ear to my understanding,
Pro 5:2 that you may keep discretion, and your lips may guard knowledge.
Pro 5:3 For the lips of a forbidden woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil,
Pro 5:4 but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.
Pro 5:5 Her feet go down to death; her steps follow the path to Sheol;
Pro 5:6 she does not ponder the path of life; her ways wander, and she does not know it.
Pro 5:7 And now, O sons, listen to me, and do not depart from the words of my mouth.
Pro 5:8 Keep your way far from her, and do not go near the door of her house,
Pro 5:9 lest you give your honor to others and your years to the merciless,
Pro 5:10 lest strangers take their fill of your strength, and your labors go to the house of a foreigner,
Pro 5:11 and at the end of your life you groan, when your flesh and body are consumed,
Pro 5:12 and you say, “How I hated discipline, and my heart despised reproof!
Pro 5:13 I did not listen to the voice of my teachers or incline my ear to my instructors.
Pro 5:14 I am at the brink of utter ruin in the assembled congregation.”
Pro 5:15 Drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own well.
Pro 5:16 Should your springs be scattered abroad, streams of water in the streets?
Pro 5:17 Let them be for yourself alone, and not for strangers with you.
Pro 5:18 Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth,
Pro 5:19 a lovely deer, a graceful doe. Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight; be intoxicated always in her love.
Pro 5:20 Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?
Pro 5:21 For a man’s ways are before the eyes of the LORD, and he ponders all his paths.
Pro 5:22 The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him, and he is held fast in the cords of his sin.
Pro 5:23 He dies for lack of discipline, and because of his great folly he is led astray.

1-?) God really hits on the theme of adultery. When we either physically or mentally submit to lust for another woman other than our wife, we are committing adultery. God joins us to be one body. Adultery violates this oath made before God. Not to mention that it would devastate one’s partner if they found out…

18) Sometimes couples get caught up in the “externals” of life and the sex life drifts apart. This is dangerous. As we become more selfish, we become more open to adulterous relationships, masturbation, and pornography - all are acts decried by the Lord and lead to our eventual destruction. We would be amazed at how many marriages are affected by these.

My best advice for men is to get an accountability partner - someone to ask us the hard questions in our lives that we need to answer on a regular basis. “How is our walk with the Lord?”, “Are we keeping our heart pure?”, “Are we keeping our marriage pure?”, “Are we taking the correct steps to be a Godly leader for our family?”. Get the Internet filtered, and do not even go near parts of the Internet where pornography may be - I work in Internet Marketing and can tell you that over 1/4 of all searches through places like Google, Yahoo, and MSN are for pornography. Stay away from time alone with other women than our spouse, and have lots of sex with our wives. (Yeah!)

Women, the advice is somewhat the same, but pornography seems not be as big of an issue. Women’s temptation seems to be more in the emotional realm. Avoid discussing affairs of the heart with other men - just don’t do it. Find a female friend to share your heart and emotions with.

This may sound a bit prudish, but look through God’s word and see what he says about giving the opportunity for sin even a foothold in our lives.

Gospel of John, Chapter 5 (ESV)

Joh 5:1 After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
Joh 5:2 Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades.
Joh 5:3 In these lay a multitude of invalids–blind, lame, and paralyzed.
Joh 5:4 (OMITTED TEXT)
Joh 5:5 One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years.
Joh 5:6 When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?”
Joh 5:7 The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.”
Joh 5:8 Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.”
Joh 5:9 And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked. Now that day was the Sabbath.
Joh 5:10 So the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed.”
Joh 5:11 But he answered them, “The man who healed me, that man said to me, ‘Take up your bed, and walk.’”
Joh 5:12 They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take up your bed and walk’?”
Joh 5:13 Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place.
Joh 5:14 Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.”
Joh 5:15 The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him.
Joh 5:16 And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath.
Joh 5:17 But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.”
Joh 5:18 This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.
Joh 5:19 So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.
Joh 5:20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing. And greater works than these will he show him, so that you may marvel.
Joh 5:21 For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will.
Joh 5:22 The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son,
Joh 5:23 that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.
Joh 5:24 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.
Joh 5:25 “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.
Joh 5:26 For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.
Joh 5:27 And he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man.
Joh 5:28 Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice
Joh 5:29 and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.
Joh 5:30 “I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me.
Joh 5:31 If I alone bear witness about myself, my testimony is not deemed true.
Joh 5:32 There is another who bears witness about me, and I know that the testimony that he bears about me is true.
Joh 5:33 You sent to John, and he has borne witness to the truth.
Joh 5:34 Not that the testimony that I receive is from man, but I say these things so that you may be saved.
Joh 5:35 He was a burning and shining lamp, and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light.
Joh 5:36 But the testimony that I have is greater than that of John. For the works that the Father has given me to accomplish, the very works that I am doing, bear witness about me that the Father has sent me.
Joh 5:37 And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me. His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen,
Joh 5:38 and you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent.
Joh 5:39 You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me,
Joh 5:40 yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.
Joh 5:41 I do not receive glory from people.
Joh 5:42 But I know that you do not have the love of God within you.
Joh 5:43 I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not receive me. If another comes in his own name, you will receive him.
Joh 5:44 How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?
Joh 5:45 Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you: Moses, on whom you have set your hope.
Joh 5:46 If you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me.
Joh 5:47 But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?”

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