Proverbs 7

Our text this morning is found in Proverbs seven. Let us hear the word of the Lord together. 

 

Proverbs chapter seven, 

 

“My son, keep my words and treasure up my commandments with you. Keep my commandments and live; Keep my teaching as the apple of your eye; bind them on your fingers; write them on the tablet of your heart. Say to wisdom, ‘You are my sister,’ and call insight your intimate friend, to keep you from the forbidden woman, from the adulteress with her smooth words.

For at the window of my house I have looked through my lattice, and I have seen among the simple, I perceived among the youths, a young man lacking sense, passing along the street near her corner, taking the road to her house in the twilight, in the evening, at the time of night in darkness. 

And behold, the woman meets him, dressed as a prostitute, wily of heart. She is loud and wayward; her feet do not stay at home; now in the street, now in the market, and at every corner she lies in wait. She seizes him and kisses him, and with bold face she says to him, ‘I had to offer sacrifices and today I have paid my vows; so now I have come out to meet you, to seek you eagerly, and I have found you. I have spread my couch with coverings, covered linens from Egypt. I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon. Come, let us take our fill of love till morning; let us delight ourselves with love. For my husband is not at home; he has gone on a long journey; he took a bag of money with him; at full moon he will come home.’

With much seductive speech she persuades him; with her smooth talk, she compels him. All at once he follows her, as an ox goes to the slaughter, or as a stag is caught fast till an arrow pierces its liver; as a bird rushes into a snare; he does not know that it will cost him his life.

And now, O sons, listen to me, and be attentive to the words of my mouth. Do not let your heart turn aside to her ways; do not stray into her paths, for many a victim has she laid low, and all her slain are a mighty throng. Her house is the way to Sheol, going down to the chambers of death.” 

 

Well good morning. 

 

We had our board of trustees meeting this week. An enormous encouragement about the health of the institution and the support that comes to us. Very encouraging. We had a faculty meeting yesterday. Very encouraging. This is a faculty I compare to no other. This is the faculty with whom I would want to study. It’s a golden time. I’m very thankful for that.

It was in chapel Tuesday when Dr. York preached so faithfully. And by the way, urgently. The preacher who was scheduled for the day could not get here because of the weather. And I know my dear brother is one who can step in a moment’s notice, which is about what he had. 

I read this text to you this day, and I do so because I think we have a unique moment. We have a unique faculty. We have just the right student body. You are who we have been praying for. And this is not just any institution, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Boyce College. We’re not just a school, a college, graduate programs. Without apology, we are those things, but that’s not all we are.

We are servants together of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are Christians. We are gathered together as Christians committed to a common cause to prepare ourselves, all of us, for even greater service and greater deployment to the glory of God in the future. 

But there are snares. I think we should be incredibly thankful that the scripture is so clear about such snares. The snare of sexual passion outside of the integrity of marriage is not a new temptation. Timing a message like this is not easy to think about. I had scheduled myself to preach this message just a few short weeks ago and then we realized we were going to have many guests on the campus and I decided it may not be exactly the right time to have this kind of message. 

And it is because every time you turn to a passage like this, there’s a tendency to ask, “What happened?” Is it like a break glass in emergency kind of–go to scripture when something happened, when there’s a tragedy, when there’s a headline, when there’s heartbreak? Well, it is that, but it’s a lot more than that. This message isn’t timed because of anything recent. Although sadly in the history of the Christian church, there’s always something all too recent to break our hearts. When you read this passage and hear its words, knowing that it is thousands of years old, the message from Solomon to son, this is hardly new.

Proverbs seven is a remarkable passage, and it doesn’t come out of a vacuum here in the Proverbs. It goes as a theme all the way back to chapter two and certainly chapters five and six, the warnings concerning adultery. Chapter five, a great deal to say about adultery and warnings to this son about adultery. And then in chapter six, some practical warnings and then he’s back to adultery in chapter six, verse 20. It is a preoccupation of this father concerning his son, and I think we can understand why. Then of course comes chapter seven. We can understand why this father is so concerned for his son and it is because this is a dangerous world and one of the powers corrupted by sin turned into a worldly pattern. It is human sexuality.

Parents wonder when to have the talk and, especially with first children, they often wait too late. The old adage about the boy and his dad. He finally decides to have the talk and he says, “Son, we need to talk about sex.” The boy says, “Okay, Dad, what do you need to know?” Just an ironic warning that that conversation almost surely needs to come earlier than later. 

In an institution like this, in a school like this, there’d be a temptation not to come anywhere close to a passage like this. But it’s out of concern and a sense of stewardship, I didn’t want to let this term pass without a confrontation with this text. And in the background of course are heartbreaking headlines, a sadly repeated conversation. Reputations ruined, ministries crashed, God’s people traumatized, sheep scared, sometimes even sheep scattered.

So here we are, we are confronted with Proverbs chapter seven. The context of this is also the theme and structure of the book of Proverbs as not merely the wisdom of the world, but the wisdom of God coming from this father. And we’re not just reading here some kind of etiquette book or ethical manual from ancient history. We’re reading what is the inerrant, infallible Word of God.

The candor of these chapters is shocking to us. I don’t remember anyone covering this with me in Sunday School. I don’t know of any denomination or church that’s decided, “We’re going to take Proverbs five, six and seven for our Vacation Bible School theme this year. But we come to this text because it is one of the most honest, direct, compelling admonitions to us concerning something that is so much a part of humanity, so deadly a snare, as well as so beautiful a blessing in its right context.

The context here in Proverbs is what is sometimes referred to as the tale of two women. The structure of Proverbs–you have Lady Wisdom and you have Lady Folly, and they are both visible. they are both accessible, they both use language, they are well identified. Lady Wisdom comes with the word of wisdom. The wise listen to Lady Wisdom. Lady Folly is the opposite. She comes with smooth words as we shall see. Her way, the scripture makes very clear, as we saw at the end of chapter seven, is the way to Sheol, the way to death. 

Except before us in the Proverbs, wisdom and folly, life and death, blessing and curse. The classical place to see the distinction between these two women is Proverbs chapter nine, just two chapters over. First wisdom. 

“Wisdom has built her house. She has hewn her seven pillars. She has slaughtered her beasts; she has mixed her wine; she has also set her table. 

She has sent out her young women to call from the highest places in the town, ‘Whoever is simple, let him turn here!’ To him who lacks sense she says, ‘Come eat of my bread and drink the wine I have mixed. Leave your simple ways and live, and walk in the way of insight.’”

Then we have wisdom defined. Look at verse nine. 

 

“Give instruction to a wise man and he will be wiser still. Teach a righteous man and he will increase in learning, for the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.”

 

But then beginning in verse 13 is the Woman Folly. 

 

“Lady Folly is loud; she’s seductive and knows nothing. She sits at the door of her house; she takes a seat on the highest places in the town, calling to those who pass by, who are going straight on their way, ‘Whoever is simple, let him turn in here!’ And to him who lacks sense she says, ‘Stolen water is sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.’ But he does not know that the dead are there, that her guests are in the depths of Sheol.

 

Two women. Two trajectories. Two forms of language. One instructive. One seductive. There’s a way that leads to wisdom. There’s a way that leads to folly. There’s a way that leads to life. There’s a way that leads to death. There’s a way that leads to blessing and there is a way that leads to curse.

In chapter seven, we find a father’s instruction, and he speaks of this candidly to his son in the introduction to this chapter, “My son, keep my words and treasure up my commandments with you. Keep my commandments and live.” Biblical principle. Obey and live. 

“Keep my commandments and live. Keep my teaching as the apple of your eye.” That is a constant wisdom. It’s always on the mind. It is that which the son learns to prize wisdom rather than folly. This is the law of God, the commandments following the very covenant that God made with his people. Choose life and live. Obey and live and be blessed. Disobey, it is the way of Sheol. 

He speaks of wisdom and consistently with what he has said in the rest. He is to keep the Scripture before him. He is to have the Scriptures on his fingers, written on the tablet of his heart, and then he is to incline himself to wisdom. He has to choose the voice he will hear. 

And this is the basic principle for all of us, the entirety of our lives. We have to choose which voice we will hear. There are competing voices in our ears. There are competing voices to our hearts and, here’s the thing, this text makes clear there is responsibility in our ears. We’re going to decide to whom we will listen.

“Say to wisdom, ‘you are my sister.’” It’s a very sweet thing. You have the personification of wisdom and the personification of folly, foolishness. Call wisdom your sister. The sweetness of the relationship with the sister. She will be a companion for life and for blessing. “Call insight your intimate friend.”

Then all of a sudden the shift in verse five, “to keep you from the forbidden woman, from the adulteress with her smooth words.”

This father is very aware of the power of sexual temptation. This father is very aware partly because he was once a son–young, needing the same instruction from his father. This is something that is contextualized in a message from father to son. It is for the entire church, men and women, young and old, but the context here is of the father speaking to his son. He warns him about the forbidden woman, the adulteress with her smooth words.

The father’s warning is very direct. This is not a beat around the bush conversation. This is not one of those conversations you have when you’re not sure what the conversation was about. A friend of mine told me not when he was young, but when he was older, we were talking about some things. 

He said, “My father decided to have the talk with me.” 

He said “I was 13, and I knew it was unusual because my dad set aside special time for a conversation.” 

He said, “I didn’t have any idea what it was about.” 

I said, “how did it go?” 

He said, “Well, my dad was clearly embarrassed. I was embarrassed because he was embarrassed.” 

And I said, “Well, how did it go?” 

He said, “I didn’t understand it before he said it. I didn’t understand it after he said it. Looking back, I’m not particularly sure what he was talking about.” 

He was afraid to get to the core issue and be very specific and for a 13-year-old that meant I have no idea what you’re talking about. 

You’ll notice this Father knows what he’s talking about. This father is not evasive. He’s speaking directly. Listen to wisdom, not to folly.

He will tell the tale of this young man that follows as a tale of warning. Bruce Waltke excellent insights on the Proverbs. He says, “This young man should be theologically defined as a gullible dimwit.” He is in one sense, kind of a literary figure of, well, gullible dimwittedness. The father is presenting this picture to his son clearly to demonstrate just how dimwitted and gullible the young man he sees is. 

Now, why did the father speak this way to the son? It is because every young man at the wrong moment given the opportunity will be this gullible dimwit. Every young man.

But it’s not just young. It just becomes more dimwitted when a man of any age gives himself to such folly, such sin. Among the young, the sin often burns with passion. Among the older, it’s a mix of that plus vanity, ego. An attempt to regain youth, conquest, entitlement. It’s just all deadly sin. It’s a path to Sheol. 

What about this young man? The father sees him out the window of his house. He looked through the lattice and he saw this. “I have seen among the simple, I have perceived among the use, a young man lacking sense.” And what we have in chapter seven to the proverbs is a descent into sin. It is a progression. I think it’s incredibly helpful that scripture is so clear about this progression. Because this progression helps us to understand not just the pattern of this sin but the pattern of sin.

But this sin is so illustrative because its dangers are so clear, and the context is so understandable. If we’re honest, we can see this happening even as it is described in this chapter. His descent is predictable, the temptation is progressive, the desire is flammable, the trap is set, and then the rest of the story. 

We read the text together. I just wanted, I want us to look at the central verses here together. I want to suggest a very simple outline for understanding this descent, understanding this proverb, understanding this message from a father to a son, from God to his church. 

The first thing I want to see, I want us all to see about this young man, is that he went where he was not to go. It starts somewhere. It starts with the fact that he went where he was not to go. This is in verses six and eight all the way through eight 

“For at the window of my house I have looked out through my lattice, and I have seen among the simple, I have perceived among the youths, a young man lacking sense, passing along the street near her corner, taking the road to her house in the twilight in the evening at the time of night and darkness.”

So this young man has not just accidentally come across this temptation, he’s taken himself into this temptation. He’s walked right into this trap. He knows exactly what he’s doing. Look at the timing. It’s in the twilight, in the evening, in the time of night and darkness. One of the themes of Scripture is that nothing good takes place at night. When you walk intentionally into the darkness, the deeds of darkness are made very clear in Scripture as compared to the deeds of light and the theme of sin is made very clear and God’s judgment is made very clear in the fact that when the light comes, the things are revealed. The things done in darkness will be revealed in the light. 

And this is just not all that different than the context of similar sin, even today. There are parts of towns, cities where you ought not to go. A young man ought not to be found. When I was elected president here a long time ago, I had a strange period in which I was the President-Elect. Several extremely awkward months. I wasn’t president yet. I had an office on campus but I had no power or authority whatsoever. It was like the rest of the campus saw Darth Vader sitting in a small office. That’s the way I felt. One of the things I did, by the way, some of the most profitable things I did during that time was I decided I’m going to go and travel to other theological seminaries, especially where presidents have been at this for a long time and see what I can learn from them. Just some phenomenal conversations with some wonderful men. Now along with the Lord. The other thing I did was I took the faculty minutes for this institution and read–I know this is going to sound insane, but it was helpful–I read every word of the faculty minutes from the first meeting of the faculty in 1859 to the present, all that we’ve got. Took a little bit of time.

There’s a lot of stuff in there you don’t need to read. A lot of motions have absolutely no contemporary relevance. The original faculty were four and you know how that worked? It was a small group and then it grew slightly larger. The move to Louisville meant that by the late 1870s the seminary was fully relocated and the faculty is again, the student body is growing and growing and the context was a shift from Greenville, South Carolina to Louisville, Kentucky. What made Louisville different is that this is a river city. Alright, the musical, the music man, you got trouble in river city.

I found a very strange motion adopted by the faculty. It was the faculty of this institution instructing the students that evangelism was not an adequate excuse for being found on the riverfront at night. Right…you’re here for evangelism. Well, no you’re not. 

And I thought it’s very interesting. You go that far back and you see all the things they did about doctrine and confession and curriculum and then no excuse to be found at the riverfront at night. This young man went where he wasn’t supposed to go. 

And so you see the progression in sin and you notice it is his volition. It is his will. He knows what he’s doing. He knows where he is going. He may not know everything that will come, but he takes himself to the proximity of temptation. He is responsible for going where he was not to go. 

In verses 10 through 12, we also see that he saw what he wasn’t supposed to see. He was not to see. He saw what he was not to see. 

 

“And behold a woman meets him dressed as a prostitute, wily of heart. She is loud and wayward; her feet do not stay at home; now in the street, now in the market, and at every corner she lies in wait.”

 

He sees her. And she takes initiative here. She meets him. She’s dressed as a prostitute. Okay, one of the difficulties in looking at a text like this is how much we allow our imaginations to imagine the text. Let me just say, evidently you could tell a prostitute by how she dressed. Evidently it was visible. And evidently she is not dressed so as to decrease sexual interest. She’s evidently dressed so as to increase sexual interest, and that is because she wants to sell sex. It’s the essence of being a prostitute. 

So just notice again the progression. This young man went where he wasn’t to go and then he saw what he wasn’t to see and the progression goes from just the going to now, the seeing. We know full well the pattern of sin that comes from seeing things we are not to see. It also reminds us of a biblical truth, a central inference in terms of Christian moral understanding based upon both the Old Testament and the New. No man has the right to see the nakedness of a woman not his wife.

That is not a right. This is the scourge of course of pornography that is now so much more pervasive and nearly universal and, frankly, so much more horrifying in its content, its accessibility. So now to the young, younger and younger. The pathology of pornography is this way. But this isn’t pornography on a website. This is pornography in the darkness, the woman on the corner. So he went where he wasn’t to go and then he saw what he wasn’t to see.

In verses 13 through 21, he heard what he wasn’t to hear. 

 

“She seizes him and kisses him, and with bold face she says to him, ‘I had to offer sacrifices and today I have paid my vows; so now I have come out to meet you, to seek you eagerly…”

 

Let me just point out something. She didn’t seek him first. He went where he wasn’t to go. This is the sought who was seeking to be sought.

 

“…So now I have come out to meet you, to seek you eagerly, and I have found you. I have spread my couch with coverings, colored linens from Egyptian linen; I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon. Come, let us take our fill of love till morning; let us delight ourselves with love…”

 

Before we go any further. It’s not love he’s after. It is not romance he’s after. It is not covenant marriage he’s after. He’s not after love, he’s after lust. But you’ll notice how the words are smooth. That’s exactly what we’re told here is smooth words. You redefine things. You create euphemisms in a seductive pattern. 

 

“…Come let us take our fill of love till morning; let us delight ourselves with love…”

 

And then this is not incidental, “…For my husband is not at home; he has gone on a long journey; he took a bag of money with him; at full moon he will come home.’ With much seductive speech she persuades him; with her smooth talk she compels him.”

 

Now let’s notice something. He’s responsible. He’s fully responsible. He’s a moral agent. It was the abuse of his moral agency that led him to be where he wasn’t supposed to be and to see what he wasn’t supposed to see. Now to hear what he wasn’t supposed to hear, he is not an innocent victim. He’s an idiot. He’s fully morally responsible, but a trap has been set.

He went where he was not supposed to go. He saw what he was not supposed to see. He heard what he was not supposed to hear. 

Fourth, he felt what he was not to feel. It’s here in the text. It’s here in the text verses 22 and 23. 

 

“All at once he follows her, as an ox goes to the slaughter, or as a stag is caught fast till an arrow pierces its liver; as a bird rushes into a snare; he does not know that it will cost him his life.”

 

It’s a candid statement of the process of sexual sin. It begins with something on this young man’s heart. Just an interest, sinful interest just biblically to find his lust. And he allows lust to take him where he wasn’t supposed to go, to see things he wasn’t supposed to see, to hear things he wasn’t supposed to hear, and to feel things he wasn’t supposed to feel.

The snap of arousal is made very, very clear here. The intentionality of being where this will happen and it does happen, going towards the trap and eventually the trap is set, and he walks right into the trap. Now there is a progression here. We need to know, we need to be thankful for the biblical candor. Brothers and sisters, we need to be thankful that the Lord God Almighty wants us to know this and to know it as he would frame it and to warn us as he would warn us and to speak candidly about exactly how this happens.

He felt what he wasn’t supposed to feel. Now there is a progression here, but a progression is not the same thing as an inevitability. You’d want to think that at some point, at some point this young man would come to his senses, and perhaps even after going where he wasn’t to go and seeing what he wasn’t to see, and hearing what he wasn’t to hear and even feeling what he wasn’t to feel, we could hope that all of that coming together and he knows exactly what is happening, we could hope that some kind of conviction would come into his heart. Some kind of self-preservation instinct would come into his heart, some kind of awareness that he’s like an animal about to walk in a trap. We would like to think that that might happen, and it can happen. It can happen. One of the things I want to say is this progression is not inevitable. And so one of the words of a father to a son here is, “You may go where you’re not supposed to go and see what you’re not supposed to see, and hear what you’re not supposed to hear. But you’re not a victim. It’s you who is responsible then to walk into the trap. And when you do, the trap is set.”

And at that point, it’s not just that he went where he wasn’t supposed to go and he saw what he wasn’t supposed to see and he heard what he wasn’t supposed to hear and he felt what he wasn’t supposed to feel. He does what he wasn’t to do. He did what he was not to do. He is not innocent, but he is stupid. That’s the verdict of the father. Look at this, 

 

“All at once he follows her, like an ox goes to the slaughter, as a stag is caught fast till an arrow pierces its liver, and a bird rushes into a snare; he does not know that it will cost him his life. And now, O sons, listen to me, and be attentive to the words of my mouth. Let not your heart turn aside to her ways; do not stray into her paths for many a victim she has laid low, and all her slain are a mighty throng. Her house is the way to Sheol, going down to the chambers of death.”

 

There’s more to the story. There’s also the word of the New Testament. I want to direct us to First Corinthians chapter six beginning in verse 13, in the context of the New Covenant, 

 

“The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I take then the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For as it is written, ‘The two will become one flesh.’ But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body. But the sexually immoral person…”

You notice that’s larger than just prostitution. 

“…The sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you are bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.”

 

Praise be to God. Do you see the sense of an even deeper imperative? Moving from Proverbs to Galatians, First Corinthians in this passage, from the Old Testament to the New Testament, it’s not just avoid the seductress, it’s glorify God in your body. It’s now the New Covenant context. With whom will you join your body? Flee from sexual immorality. I have to believe that Proverbs seven is in the background. The young man should have fled. The Father instructs his son to flee. So also the Apostle Paul to us.

Alright, the message here is clear–the damages of sexual sin. Practical considerations about those damages. It’s an insult to the goodness of marriage. We need to see the biblical imperative of faithfulness and obedience. It’s a thou shalt not. Let’s be honest, we don’t have time to think about all of this in detail because we don’t need to. The Bible is clear and restricting sexual expression to that between a man and a woman in the holy covenant of marriage. Until death do they part. And the Bible presents that as glorious and as a picture of the covenant, even between Christ and the church, the covenant of marriage. 

It’s one of the horrible things about the sexual sin here. It destroys the soul. But in every form, I don’t know if you’ve thought about this before, but in every conceivable form, sexual sin undermines the sanctity of marriage. Marriage is a creation order institution. The first thing we are told after we are told we are made in the image of God.

What we have here is the imperative of faithfulness. And what is at stake is the glory of God and also the destruction of life. Sexual sin is not the unforgivable sin. But saying that, we must make very clear that sexual sin is horribly destructive to the body and to the soul. Life and death hang in the balance. 

But in reaching this point, there’s something more I have to say. This text gives us no permission to see women as inherently the seductress and men as morally victimized. It happens, but the scripture makes very clear there is more to this story. This is in particular a warning from a father to a son. And this is for the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. We all need to know this. And I would say to women as well as to men, you need to know the progression here and what is going on. We are informed and instructed by this. And for the glory of God, we must all hear this and understand exactly what is taught here. But remember in Proverbs you have the two women presented as paradigmatic opposing voices. You have the Woman Wisdom and the wisdom and the Woman Folly. And the voice of the Woman Foolishness comes with such seduction and smooth words.

But you know this young man is fully absolutely responsible. He is a responsible moral agent. He has exercised that in the most sinful way in that progression from going where he wasn’t to go, seeing what he wasn’t to see, hearing what he wasn’t to hear, feeling what he wasn’t to feel and doing what he wasn’t to do. He is not presented here without moral agency. The animal caught in a snare. We don’t blame that animal in moral terms. The stag caught in a hunt. We do not blame in moral terms. The young man caught in this situation we blame for knowing the trap was a trap and intentionally going into the trap, step by step. 

Not only do we have here a picture of sexual sin and temptation and the progression of sin, we do have a dimwit who destroys himself with sexual sin. There’s more to it than that. When it comes to sex, there are dangerous women and dangerous men. There are male and female patterns of sexual sin. This one’s very candid about the male pattern of sexual sin, even right down to the seeing and the hearing and the feeling. But in both cases there is a progression in both cases, sin is a distortion of a longing. In both cases it leads to predation.

And I think I’m responsible to say at this point, this parable, this picture from the Proverbs is of a seductive woman. But let’s be honest, the world is filled with manipulative men. They manipulate the very situation that is described here. And it is they who take advantage of the uniqueness of the longings of a girl or of a woman. They know exactly what they are doing to lead her to go where she is not to go, to see what she is not to see, hear what she’s not to hear, feel what she is not to feel, and then do what she is not to do. In a world of sin, both men and women can be exploiters and the exploited.

Sin is sin and devastatingly so. So what now?

We got nowhere to go. We have nowhere to go but to the gospel of Jesus Christ. We have nowhere to go but repentance and faith. We have nowhere to go but what the Puritans called “godly detestation of sin.” We’re meant to look at this and not just say “What an idiot.” We’re to look at this and say, “Oh my goodness, my God. How horrifying is this picture? Lest we follow in that same pattern and path.” 

We have nowhere to go but the gospel of Jesus Christ, the mercy of God and the promise of forgiveness. We’ve got nowhere to go with sin but to the cross. And we have nowhere to go as Christians but to repentance and then to faithfulness.

And so, every single one of us will hear this passage with a different set of ears. But we need to receive it with a common heart for Christ. And, let’s be honest, a common concern for each other lest we sin. 

 

Our call to worship this morning was Micah chapter six, verse eight. “He has told you, O man, what is good and what does the Lord require of you? But to do justice and love kindness and to walk humbly with your God.”

 

By the grace and mercy of God, to walk in wholeness and in purity, committed to receive every gift God gives us to His glory as he has given it to us. And to walk no other way, to see no other thing, to hear no other voice, to feel no sinful passion, lest we do what we are not to do. Let us do what we are to do, to do justice and love kindness and walk humbly in purity with our God.

Let’s pray. 

 

Father, we’re just so thankful for all you’ve given us in this text. Father, we pray that your word will do what you have promised. It will do that it will reside in our hearts. And so Father, I pray that this word will reside in every one of our hearts, every person in this chapel, every person as a believer hearing this message, I pray that your word will reside in our heart so that we will not go, we will not see, we will not hear, we will not feel, we will not do that which would dishonor you and rob you of your glory. May you show your glory in a faithful church. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.