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SEXUALITY FROM THE BOOK OF PROVERBS: THE 'WOMAN OF THE STREETS’ PARALLED TO ‘WISDOM’ THROUGHOUT THE BOOK OF PROVERBS
PROVERBS 6:20 and following begins with: “ Good friend, follow your father’s good advice, don’t wander off from your mother’s teachings. Wrap yourself in them from head to foot; wear them like a scarf around your neck. Wherever you walk, they’ll guide you, whenever you rest, they’ll guard you, when you walk , they’ll tell you what’s next. For sound advice is a beacon, good teaching is a light, moral discipline is a life path. ‘ they will protect you from wantonness and the seductive talk of the culture’”.(‘’mine)
PART ONE: THE PULL OF THE CULTURE
Our culture no longer has a Judeo/Christian ethic – we have cut loose of our moorings, our foundations have been broken down and destroyed. We have not listened as Proverbs has counseled, we do not ponder and thus we are easily deceived.
We need to examine how we have syncrotized the culture – enculturation is sexual:
*Our culture parallels the woman in the street:
What does this look like?
How are we as Christians deceived by her?
Why is she able to attack our sexuality?
Because our shame about our maleness, our shame about our femaleness.
We need to look at Genesis 1:26-28 to understand why:
*Mirror Image of the Living God
*Not the EXACT IMAGE as is Jesus, but
*Each one of us reflects something of the Image Perfectly
*Enter Satan and the Fall
My theology of the fall of the devil
PART TWO: THE DISTORTION OF THE IMAGE
Because you have been created Male or Female Image Bearers the attack comes at the core of who you are, a sexual being. There are much deeper implications to sexuality than function and externals; however the enemy has chosen to very carefully avoid the internal implications of sexuality.
Our core identity as maleimagebearer or femaleimagebearer has been distorted by the WOMAN IN THE STREET.
All marriages have been infected by the destruction of the image cast in doubt.
The beauty of the woman, the strength of the man cast in doubt – the message, avoid at all cost the internal reality of your feminity, of your masculinity. Avoid at all cost what you bring of the Image of God to the world, to your spouse, to the Body. HIDE BEHIND YOUR WELL CRAFTED FIG LEAVES.
***With that said, we can now address the WOMAN IN THE STREETS/THE SEXUAL ASSAULT AGAINST OUR VERY BEING.
Keep in mind who is behind all of this:
– THE ENEMY OF YOUR SOUL- he wants to defile in any way he can the truth about you. He will chip and crack and smudge the piece of the Image that you are as a man or a woman in any way available to Him.
The wound will always be sustained to the IMAGE YOU BEAR.
God calls good the longing to be found delightful and beautiful and to be loved – He calls good the longings to be found strong and capable and adequate for those around you and to be loved. THE ENEMY POURS CONTEMPT ON THE LONGINGS
Legit longings! Placed in your heart by the living God!
DISTORTED BY THE ENEMY!
Psalm 73 – we have been sucked into the lie of the Enemy of our soul – as Asaph discovered in Psa. 73: the seduction of our souls leads to a very slippery place, and we are told we will awaken from a dream of things that never really were. To be found beautiful, to be found good looking, to be found desireable, to be wanted for our outer beauty or strength leads to one day awakening from a dream of things that never really were.
IN THE DISTORTION SEXUALITY BECOMES ALL ABOUT ME!
The Culture/Woman in the streets offers me life! Or that which tastes like life.
There is not one of us exempt from this: This is not about people in their 20s, this is about people in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s.
She offers us excitement and as we look to the excitement answer the questions or silence the fear.
Every time we succumb to the excitement, where we find life becomes darker and darker.
What is being appealed to? What are you longing for? What is the lure?
Beauty is narrow and external (PV 31 tells us Beauty is vain and favor is deceitful. Everyone is asking the question WHO AM I? And the answer to the question will always be about your sexuality – about your maleness or your femaleness.
THE WOMAN IN THE STREETS – THE CULTURE OFFERS ME A PLUMB LINE AND I MUST ASK THE QUESTION – DO I MEASURE UP? DO I HAVE WHAT IT TAKES? WILL ANYONE LOVE ME? WILL ANYONE RESPECT ME?
Let me tell you – the answer will ALWAYS BE NO because the PLUMB LINE OF THE CULUTRE is not a true Plumb. (Of late I have been exposed to people in the movie industry – they nip and tuck, cut and augment, diminish and enhance, buy, spend, upsize – more –more-more.)
We have been lied to about who we are and we have been lied to about what we need to be.
***PROVERBS summarized regarding foolishness says “I will be happy if I can have my own way” – the word fool means evil. So then evil at it’s core is a commitment to have my own way. The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God!” thus saying,
“I will be God!”
*Back to the garden to review what the Enemy did there. Remember – he goes around seeking those whom he may devour: listen again to his taunt to Eve: “YOU COULD BE LIKE GOD – remember she was – but what he was offering her was the ability to know and to know is to have power. He was offering her the power to BE HER OWN GOD. Foolishly she believed him, but Adam saw the possibility and chose to take that away from God and put it in his own hands.
PART THREE: WISDOM VS FOOLISHNESS
There is a beauty about a woman who has the courage to offer who God says He is in her.
There is a strength about a man who has the courage to offer who God says He is in him.
Are you really a man defined by sexuality? Yes, but only if you go back to the SOURCE/WISDOM
Are you really a woman defined by sexuality? Yes, but only if you go back to the SOURCE/WISDOM
Within the context of marriage, sex is a celebration of what is already going on in the relationship. Sex is not a tool we use to ask: am I a man, am I a woman. The answer comes in the richness of two people living out by faith the truth of what God has already told them is true. And like Eric Little, who said, “God has made me fast, and when I run I feel God’s pleasure”, God has made you a man, or God has made you a woman and when you have the courage to live that out you will feel God’s pleasure and the pleasure of your spouse and the act of sex within marriage will become a celebration of what is already going on. The act of koinonea celebrates what is living the truth in community.
When sexuality becomes the tool to ask the question, rather than a celebration of truth then the consequence will be pain: within a marriage, within the Body, within the family. (Your sexuality effects the way you parent – but that is a topic for a later time.)
THE PLEASURE PAIN DEMANDS IS COUNTERFIET
The Enemy specializes in ways to kill pain – or at least to experience an intermission from pain – To live to kill pain is to enter the “Pit of Despond”. The enemy masquerades as an Angel of Light and SHAME and FEAR are the fruit of walking in his light.
The enemy will offer to you WHAT HE HAS TOLD YOU IS AVAILABLE TO YOU given WHO YOU ARE, given WHAT YOU HAVE TO OFFER
The enemy will get you to make an agreement with him about where you can and cannot find life.
The enemy’s Plumb Line is about the HAVE’S and the HAVE NOT’S
The Woman in the Streets/Culture tells you what you need to have
She sells you seductive clothes to become what is wanted
She pushes to pursue sexual pleasure illicitly to prove you have what is wanted.
Foolishness: When a man pushes me to have sex ‘it is because I am so desirable he cannot resist me
Wisdom: He is self-centered and he is asking you to tell him he is a man and to kill his pain.
Foolishness: I will prove I am a man by taking what I want
Wisdom: Your fear that you are not a man pushes you to prove it to yourself and thus others
Foolishness: She is coming on to me; she must see something there that she wants
Wisdom: She is self-centered and is asking you if she is desirable.
All the above is a desire for experience – experience that promises to provide the romance and the adventure you were created for but it all leads to death. It is a dream of things that never really were.
THE CULTURE TELLS YOU WHERE LIFE IS TO BE FOUND – IT HAS GLAMORIZED A LACK OF SELF-CONTROL AND SELF-CENTERDNESS AND SELF-GRATIFICATION
Pornography: a way to sublimate, to provide the excitement, the arousal, the release without the threat – without the intimacy required in the real deal.
You do not have to be a man with another man, with a prostitute, in an affair, with porn, in fornication: you can experience the false intimacy in the fantasy and never face the threat of being SEEN BY A ONE FLESH RELATIONSHIP.
A way to be the woman in the movie, the novel, the pornography and to experience the false intimacy of the fantasy with none of the threat and none of the exposure and rejection of true one-flesh relationship.
PART FOUR: ENTER COMMUNITY
DIALOGICAL: Right now what is God asking you to walk into?
How are you using ‘a distorted image’ to draw others into false intimacy?
What would true biblical intimacy which always brings glory to God look like for you? | 
