“The God Who Sees” Proverbs 5:21-23 For most of Proverbs 5 Solomon has laid out all the natural consequences of fulfilling our sexual desires in the wrong way. With verses 21-23, however, he brings God into the picture. His point is that when we give into sexual temptation, it is not only the physical, emotional, and relational dimension of our life which will suffer. So also, our relationship with God will suffer. Why should we honor God with our sex life and with our thought life? We find the a...
“The God Who Sees”
Proverbs 5:21-23
For most of Proverbs 5 Solomon has laid out all the natural consequences of fulfilling our sexual desires in the wrong way. With verses 21-23, however, he brings God into the picture. His point is that when we give into sexual temptation, it is not only the physical, emotional, and relational dimension of our life which will suffer. So also, our relationship with God will suffer. Why should we honor God with our sex life and with our thought life? We find the answer to this question in our text today.
I Many times in the Bible the marriage relationship is used to illustrate our relationship with _______________.
A. Why?
1. The marriage relationship and our relationship with God are the most intensely p__________________ relationships we can have.
2. Our relationship with God and our relationship with our spouse are the only mutually e____________________ relationships that human beings can have.
B. God’s concern is not blind; God sees, not only our actions, but even the t_________________ which lie behind our actions.
II Why should we be concerned, not only about our actions, but about our thoughts and everything that makes up our p______________ life? Why? Solomon gives us three reasons:
A. First, we should honor God with our sex life, and with our thought life, because all of our life is lived in f_________ v___________ of the Lord (5:21).
1. The best reason for saying No to sexual temptation is because God’s e________ are always on us and he sees all we think and do.
2. If this life is all there is, then our sex does not have to be m_______________, it only needs to be s_____________________.
3. When Solomon says, “He examines all [our] paths,” the Hebrew word which is translated “paths” actually means w_______________ t________________ - which is another way of saying that God sees all our h_____________________, both the good and the bad.
4. Knowing that God sees us should not only motivate us to avoid w____________, but it should also motivate us to do r______________.
5. There is an inverse relationship between faith and sexual temptation: faith can motivate us to say __________ to sexual temptation, or the desire to say _________ to sexual temptation can motivate us to say No to faith.
B. Second, we should honor God with our sex life, and with our thought life, because repeated disobedience locks us in a p____________________ from which it is very hard to e__________________ (5:22).
1. One of the greatest ironies of life is that we see sin as the means by which we can gain f___________________________.
2. When we look to anything or anyone other than God to make us free, we turn that thing into an ____________________.
3. When we give our w____________________ to things that are not God, it drives us away from God, and since God is the only source of freedom, this idolatry enslaves us even ________________.
C. Third, we should honor God with our sex life, and with our thought life, because lack of discipline is d__________________________ (5:23).
1. Old Testament scholar Bruce Waltke says discipline includes two things:
a. First, discipline requires t_________________________.
b. The second part of discipline is the difficult work of l______________ in the way we have been taught to live.
2. When we listen to the truth of God’s Word, and we live it as we were taught, we experience spiritual w___________________________.
-But when we know the truth, and we do not live in harmony with that truth, then we experience spiritual b______________________________.
