Tag Archives: Proverbs 5

Posted on

The Sweet Poison of the False Infinite

Read: Proverbs 5

“The seductive woman is dancing down the primrose path to Death; she’s headed straight for Hell and taking you with her. (Proverbs 5:5, MSG)

“Sex, sex, sex!” Have you noticed how much our culture worships sexual gratification—sexual fulfillment achieved with anyone, any time and in any way you want?  My guess is that any alien who landed on Planet Earth to research our species would have to conclude one thing just from the 372 million pornographic pages available on the Internet (according to Rita Cosby, MSNBC): The human race bows in worship before its chief god, Sex.

Proverbs warns us repeatedly that when we ignore God’s promise to fully satisfy our sexual desires through a loving, life-long and faithful relationship with the person to whom we are married, we will end up elevating the world’s promise of sensual satisfaction to god-like status—at our own peril. You see, money, power, fame, relationships, possessions and sex—especially sex—are what C.S. Lewis referred to as the “sweet poison of the false infinite.” These are what we might call substitute sacreds—the surrogates we desperately use to fill the emptiness of our dissatisfied lives.

In reality, however, no substitute sacred ever fulfills what it so brazenly promises. Only the one true Sacred can do that! St. Augustine said, “Sin comes when we take a perfectly natural desire or longing or ambition and try desperately to fulfill it without God…All these good things, and all our security, are rightly found only and completely in him.” God longs for us to come to him with our needy souls so he can graciously and abundantly and unendingly satisfy our deepest longings and most powerful passions—in his way and in his time. As Augustine said, God has created us for himself, and we will only find satisfaction when we find our satisfaction in him. Again, that includes our sexual needs fulfilled according to God’s design.

Annie Dillard tells of an experiment in which entomologists enticed male butterflies with a painted cardboard replica larger and more enticing than the females of their species. These male butterflies would repeatedly and eagerly mount the colorful cardboard cutout to mate with it, while nearby, the real, living female butterfly enticingly opened and closed her wings in vain.

Friend, the real, living God is near, longing to cover you in the shadow of his wings, where he will provide for you soul-satisfaction in every dimension of your being—even the sexual.  Why settle for a substitute sacred when the real Divine awaits!

In reality, sin is our attempt to fill a void that only God can fill.

Winning At Life:

Make a conscious effort today to identify all the substitute sacreds along your path.  My guess is that you’ll probably lose count before the day is out, since there will be so many.  Each time you are enticed with money, sex or power, stop and give thanks to God that he has instead given you eternal wealth, true satisfaction, and spiritual authority—far more gratifying than the sweet poison of these false infinites.

Posted on

Choosing To Stay Married—And In Love

Read: Proverbs 5:18

May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth.

Mystery author Agatha Christie, who was married to an archeologist, once said, “An archaeologist is the best husband a woman can have; the older she gets, the more interested he is in her.” Solomon said essentially the same thing in Proverb 5:18: “Enjoy the wife you married as a young man.” (The Message)

But how many times have you seen it the other way?  You see a middle-aged man with a beautiful young woman, and you realize that he’s a guy who came to a point in his life, perhaps a mid-life crisis, where he dumped his faithful, but aging wife, for a bombshell secretary.  Or the wife who has been married for 30 years and suddenly announces to her confounded and clueless husband, “I’m leaving you.  I’m not happy and haven’t been for a long time.  I don’t love you, and as a matter of fact, I don’t think I ever really did love you.  So we’re through!”

Too many people have come to see the experience of marriage as unendurable, like the German poet Heinrich Heine, who bequeathed his entire estate to his widow on the condition she remarry, “so,” in his words, “at least one other man will regret my death.” That’s a far too common view of the most sacred and satisfying union of all, marriage.

What we need is a renewed view of marriage—a Biblical view. You see, God’s plan isn’t for marriage to be something that has to be endured over time; he has designed it so that love and satisfaction will increasingly flourish between you and your spouse as you grow old. That new and higher view will require you, for one, to see through one of Satan’s ugliest deceptions, the myth of the greener grass, which fosters the lie that you cannot be satisfied with the spouse of your youth. For another, God’s view also requires you to choose satisfaction and decide to love instead of leaving it the changing tides of your emotion at the moment.  Finally, God’s view means that despite the intervening years, the graying (or loss) of our hair, and the reconfiguring of our body weight, you must understand that your spouse is still that same person you fell in love with and married.

A New York executive search firm, in a study of 1365 corporate vice presidents, discovered that 87% were still married to their one and only spouse and that 92% were raised in two-parent families. The evidence is overwhelming that the family is the strength and foundation of society.  (Zig Ziglar in Homemade, March 1989)

Strengthen your family ties and nurture your marriage over the course
of your life, and you will enhance your opportunity
to find happiness and be successful.

Your Assignment, Should You Choose To Accept It:

Make a list of five character qualities that attracted you to your spouse.  This week, find an opportunity to express to your spouse your appreciation for those qualities—one at a time, and in a natural and genuine way.

Posted on

No Regrets

Read: Proverbs 5:11 (The Message)

You don’t want to end your life full of regrets,
nothing but sin and bones.

“R.I.P.”

Unless Jesus returns sometime in the next 50 or so years—which I hope he does—you and I are likely to have a headstone that marks our final resting place. Rest In Peace!

I know, that’s kind of a morbid thought to start off a devotional, but it’s true.  It’s a sobering and inescapable reality for all people, since the last I checked, the human mortality rate was hovering around, oh, about 100%.

I think one of the healthiest things a person can do is to take a look ahead to that fateful day and envision what will be engraved on our tombstone.  That little inscription really is the summation of our lives, isn’t it—those half dozen words carved into granite by our surviving loved ones.

What do you want yours to say? Well, here’s the thing:  Start living that way now so that what you want your epitaph to say then will be a no-brainer for your family.  If you want to be known then as a loving husband—starting loving your wife now!  If you want to be known then as a good friend—start being the kind of friend now that you would want to have!  If you want to be known as one who served God wholeheartedly—well, get with it right now.  Whatever it is you want said of you then, start living that way now!  As Solomon said in Proverbs 5:7,

“So, my friend, listen closely; don’t treat my words casually.”

Seriously, this is no casual concern.  So give that some thought, and then just get after it!

By the way, the following line is from the life of a young man who died on his way to the mission field—William Borden.

You can read his incredibly moving story at http://home.snu.edu/~HCULBERT/regret.htm.  This was the summation of his brief life, and it’s how I’d like to be remembered, too.

No reserves! No retreats! No regrets!

Your Assignment, Should You Choose To Accept It:

First, give this blog some serious contemplation; then write out your epitaph.  Make it three or four lines at the most, and put it in a place where you can regularly review it.  Most of all, make sure you are living in such a way that it will be true of you.

Posted on

Sweet Poison

Read: Proverbs 5:5
(The Message)

The seductive woman is dancing down the primrose path to Death; she’s headed straight for Hell and taking you with her.

“Sex, sex, sex!” Have you noticed how our culture worships sexual gratification—sexual fulfillment achieved with anyone, any time and in any way you want?  My guess is that any alien who landed on Planet Earth to research our species would have to conclude one thing just from the 372 million pornographic pages available on the Internet (according to Rita Cosby, MSNBC): Sex is god of the human race.

Proverbs warns us repeatedly that when we ignore God’s promise to fully satisfy our sexual desires through a loving, life-long and faithful relationship with the person to whom we are married, we will end up elevating the world’s promise of sensual satisfaction to god-like status—at our own peril. You see, money, power, fame, relationships, possessions and sex—especially sex—are what C.S. Lewis referred to as the “sweet poison of the false infinite.” These are what we might call substitute sacreds—the surrogates we desperately use to fill the emptiness of our dissatisfied lives. In reality, however, no substitute sacred ever fulfills what it so brazenly promises. Only the one true Sacred can do that!

St. Augustine said, “Sin comes when we take a perfectly natural desire or longing or ambition and try desperately to fulfill it without God…All these good things, and all our security, are rightly found only and completely in him.”


God longs for us to come to him with our needy souls so he can graciously and abundantly and unendingly satisfy our deepest longings and most powerful passions—in his way and in his time. As Augustine said, God has created us for himself, and we will only find satisfaction when we find our satisfaction in him. Again, that includes our sexual needs fulfilled according to God’s design.

Annie Dillard tells of an experiment in which entomologists enticed male butterflies with a painted cardboard replica larger and more enticing than the females of their species. These male butterflies would repeatedly and eagerly mount the colorful cardboard cutout to mate with it, while nearby, the real, living female butterfly enticingly opened and closed her wings in vain.

Friend, the real, living God is near, longing to cover you in the shadow of his wings, where he will provide for you soul-satisfaction in every dimension of your being—even the sexual.  Why settle for a substitute sacred when the real Divine awaits!

In reality, sin is our attempt to fill a void that only God can fill.

Your Assignment, Should You Choose To Accept It:

Make a conscious effort today to identify all the substitute sacreds along your path.  My guess is that you’ll probably lose count before the day is out, since there will be so many.  Each time you are enticed with money, sex or power, stop and give thanks to God that he has instead given you eternal wealth, true satisfaction, and spiritual authority—far more gratifying than the sweet poison of these false infinites.