4 Ways to Avoid Sexual Sin

Wisdom from Proverbs

Life has a grain to it. Like paper and wood, it has its own inbuilt directionality. The universe is fashioned in such a way that it has an underlying structure. It follows a certain pattern with certain contours. In order to live well we need to live in a way that runs with this grain and not against it. This is where the book of Proverbs comes in.

Proverbs 5 is all about how committing sexual sin goes against the grain of how we’re made. The primary target audience is the young married man, and the passage warns him against the adulteress. You may not be young or married or a man. But the wisdom of this text applies to you as much as to anyone else. Committing adultery with a woman is not the only form of sexual sin, but it follows a pattern that is common to all. Listening to this passage helps all of us. As the passage unfolds, it presents to us four steps we need to take to avoid sexual sin.

1. Flee from Temptation

The author begins with an exhortation to listen:

My son, be attentive to my wisdom;
     incline your ear to my understanding. (Prov. 5:1)

Pay attention. Listen well. This could save your life. In fact, listen well to this, and you will become the kind of person that others ought to listen to:

that you may keep discretion,
     and your lips may guard knowledge. (Prov. 5:2)

So what’s the big deal? Well, lips can preserve knowledge, and they can also drip honey. Enter the adulteress:

For the lips of a forbidden woman drip honey,
     and her speech is smoother than oil. (Prov. 5:3)

Notice the writer just assumes we will face this kind of temptation. It is assumed that there will be a sweetness and a smoothness to the lure of sexual sin. It sounds good. We sense it will taste good. Being tempted in this way is an indication not that we have failed as Christians but that we are normal ones.

So lesson one is this: sexual sin is attractive. Let’s not deny that. It has a texture and flavor that appeal to broken and distorted hearts like ours. We do ourselves no favors if we pretend otherwise. We need to acknowledge that such sin is not beneath us.

Sexual sin is also addictive. Look at how all this ends:

The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him,
     and he is held fast in the cords of his sin. (Prov. 5:22)

We tend to think that sexual sin is a means of relieving tension. We’re wrestling with temptation, and this is just a way to get it all out of our system. We think we’ll then be able to move on and get back to where things should be. We’ve paid our dues, so the temptation will go away. But it doesn’t. The opposite actually happens. These are deeds that ensnare and bind us. Each time we give in to sexual sin, we are giving it more control over us. We are training ourselves to find sexual fulfillment in this particular way. We are giving ourselves to it. With each step, we tighten its grip on our lives.

So the point is simple. We need to flee:

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. (Prov. 5:7–8)

It is easy to think that we’re the kind of person who can get close to this sin and then stop before it’s too late. We think to ourselves that it’ll be fine to start down this road and then just turn back when we’ve gone far enough. We expect to be able to negotiate with it. Biblical wisdom says the opposite. Run, don’t walk, away from this. Don’t go near it. Don’t even look at it.

Fleeing sexual sin means deliberately keeping as great a distance from it as we can. It means doing all we can to avoid it. The question is not what seems to be enough to avoid sin but what is the most we can do. Proverbs says it is worth taking a long detour to ensure we don’t go near it.

If any of this seems like an overreaction, listen again to how it all ends:

He dies for lack of discipline,
     and because of his great folly he is led astray. (Prov. 5:23)

Sexual sin is attractive and addictive, a lethal combination. It’ll send us into the tall grass and even into the grave. Any action and sacrifice are worth avoiding that.

2. Consider the Future

We’ve been shown something of why sexual sin is so tempting. Now we are shown more of where it all eventually leads. The writer wants us to see what it all comes to in the end:

At the end of your life you groan,
     when your flesh and body are consumed. (Prov. 5:11)

Sexual sin has consequences. However much we talk about it as a “fling” or “one-night stand,” the fact is that sexual sins are not so easily containable. We can find ourselves having to live with the consequences for the rest of our lives. We see what some of these are. So listen to what would be your future self if you chose to go down this path. And notice the dominant note of regret:

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. (Prov. 5:8–10)

Sexual sin costs you your strength. Your energy and vitality go into having to cope with the fallout. It could be anything from acrimony to blackmail, from lawsuits to child support. Your resources—economic, physical, emotional—are all spent on this. It can take many years from you. The warning continues:

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. (Prov. 5:11–14)

Sexual sin seems so attractive now, but fast-forward to the very end, and it all looks different.

So listen to your potential future self. Sexual sin looks good now. But it could cost everything. Your joy, your strength. It could sap the very life out of you. What we do now can either bless us or haunt us for the rest of our lives. I know that, right now, it doesn’t seem that way, but it does. It will. I know people who are a complete mess in their forties and fifties because of how they spent their twenties and thirties.

Don’t be too proud to listen to wisdom. Don’t assume you know what you need to know about all this. Don’t think your instincts are sufficiently developed. However much you might have some of this figured out, the sheer tonnage of what you still need to learn is more than you could even imagine.

3. Uphold Your Marriage

So far we have been given negative reasons for avoiding sexual sin. But for the young man tempted to commit adultery, the writer has something positive to say as well. He needs to see that it’s overwhelmingly positive to uphold his marriage. And so the passage counsels him to enjoy sexual fulfillment within it:

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. (Prov. 5:15–19)

The Bible is not at all embarrassed by the enjoyment of sex in marriage. “Cistern” and “well” are both images of female sexuality, as the fountain is of male sexuality. We shouldn’t be surprised to see such imagery in the Bible. After all, God is the one who invented sex. He was the one who designed human sexuality and enabled the husband and wife to enjoy their sexual union. It is to be rejoiced in and celebrated. He didn’t give us a purely functional means of procreation, but one that is meant to be deeply pleasurable. It is, we could say, to be expected. God is triune, eternally Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We know these three persons of the Trinity delight in their deep union with one another, and this love then overflows into the creation of new life. Perhaps it is no surprise that he has created us with a capacity for such a deep and joyful union that is also the means of bringing new life into the world.

It is important to remember that delight in sex is meant to be entirely mutual. This passage is addressed to a man, so it is spoken from his perspective. But it is equally true of the way in which the wife is to be delighted and intoxicated by the sexual love of her husband.

Both the wife and the husband are to uphold their marriage by delighting in their sexual union. So the writer concludes:

Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman
     and embrace the bosom of an adulteress? (Prov. 5:20)

I love the realism of the Bible. There is alternative intoxication on offer. Again, he’s not telling us to avoid adultery because it won’t be in any way pleasurable. The truth is the opposite. It won’t help us to resist temptation by pretending otherwise. But it is only fleeting. Some moments of intoxication, yes. But ruin afterward. So, married friends, uphold your marriage. Work at your sex life.

But what about those of us who are single? This kind of language can be painful. It’s hard to hear of the intoxication of sexual satisfaction. This is something many of us long for but have never had, or previously had and now fear we will never have again. But we too need to heed this teaching in Proverbs. We need to pray for the marriages around us, for their protection and flourishing. We have a stake in their being strong. It may mean asking married friends how we can support them as a wife or a husband. We need to uphold the Bible’s teaching in our own lives, honoring the marriage bed by living lives of purity. And we need to uphold the marriage we have in Christ. The language of intoxication that can be so hard to hear is a picture of what we will experience in eternity with Christ. We are pledged to him and need to honor our relationship with him by remaining faithful to him.

We may be able to deceive other people; we will never deceive God.

4. Remember That God Is Watching

All we do and say and think takes place in the full view of God:

For a man’s ways are before the eyes of the Lord,
     and he ponders all his paths. (Prov. 5:21)

The eyes of God miss nothing in all we do. And lest we think he has a somewhat glazed look when it comes to what we do, the second part of Proverbs 5:21 reminds us that all God sees, he takes in and ponders. All our paths he reflects on and weighs in his mind.

This is a warning to us.

Some of us are good at getting away with all sorts of things. Even in such a connected world, it is possible to lead a double life. Affairs can be concealed and addictions carried out entirely in private. We may be adept at looking at all sorts of material on our devices that no one else knows anything about. There will be some reading this who have no idea that their spouse is being unfaithful or that their child is viewing horrific porn on their phone.

But nothing will escape the scrutiny of God. It just isn’t possible.

We may be able to deceive other people; we will never deceive God. There is simply no thought he hasn’t seen and doesn’t know everything about. He knows every webpage we’ve viewed and every fantasy that has drifted across our mind. The very secrets of our heart are entirely open to him. Things we don’t even know about our motives and lusts, he understands fully. He misses nothing. He is impossible to fool. The book of Hebrews reminds us:

No creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account. (Heb. 4:13)

There is no ultimate security in incognito web browsing. God sees every word we type into our search engines. God sees. God ponders. And one day we will give an account to him for each and every thing we have thought and done.

But there is also encouragement in these verses. God sees our sin. He also sees every striving to be pure and godly. He knows when we are battling; he knows what we are going through. There are times when we are assaulted by sexual temptation, and it can be distressing. We are devastated by some of the inclinations of our own hearts. We long for our desires to be pure and godly rather than disordered and base. We flee and we fight but are left discouraged and weary. God sees all this too.

It may well be that no one really seems to understand the kind of struggle you face or knows the pain you go through as you fight temptation. But Jesus does. He suffered with us. And he suffered for us. That makes him a great Savior to pray to. As we collect wounds from the battles of life in this world and come to him desperate for his help and protection, he does not roll his eyes. When we come in heartfelt repentance for the times when we have failed, he does not step back with his arms folded. He draws near to us as we draw near to him. As we strive to be faithful to him, often in the midst of an unsympathetic and scornful world, he sees us. Our labors for him are never unnoticed.

This article is adapted from 7 Myths about Singleness by Sam Allbery.

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