Anthony Gammage – Proverbs 5:15–23
Sermon Quotes
Proverbs 5:15–23
[15] Drink water from your own cistern,
flowing water from your own well.
[16] Should your springs be scattered abroad,
streams of water in the streets?
[17] Let them be for yourself alone,
and not for strangers with you.
[18] Let your fountain be blessed,
and rejoice in the wife of your youth,
[19] a lovely deer, a graceful doe.
Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight;
be intoxicated always in her love.
[20] Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman
and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?
[21] For a man’s ways are before the eyes of the LORD,
and he ponders all his paths.
[22] The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him,
and he is held fast in the cords of his sin.
[23] He dies for lack of discipline,
and because of his great folly he is led astray.
Song of Solomon 4:12
[12] A garden locked is my sister, my bride,
a spring locked, a fountain sealed.
Song of Solomon 4:15
[15] a garden fountain, a well of living water,
and flowing streams from Lebanon.
Ephesians 5:28–30
[28] In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. [29] For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, [30] because we are members of his body.
Marriage was instituted by God for the mutual help and blessing of husband and wife, for procreation and the raising together of godly children, and to prevent sexual immorality (Gen.1:28; 2:18; Mal. 2:14-15; 10 1 Cor. 7:2, 9; WCF 24.2)
All other forms of sexual intimacy, including all forms of lust and same-sex sexual activity of any kind, are sinful. Nevertheless, we do not believe that sexual intimacy in marriage automatically eliminates unwanted sexual desires, nor that all sex within marriage is sinless (WCF 6.5). We all stand in need of God’s grace for sexual sin and temptation, whether married or not. Moreover, sexual immorality is not an unpardonable sin. There is no sin so small it does not deserve damnation, and no sin so big it cannot be forgiven (WCF 15.4). There is hope and forgiveness for all who repent of their sin and put their trust in Christ (Matt. 11:28-30; John 6:35, 37; Acts 2:37-38; 16:30-31).
1 Corinthians 7:1–5
[1] Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.” [2] But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. [3] The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. [4] For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. [5] Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.
Proverbs 30:18–20
[18] Three things are too wonderful for me;
four I do not understand:
[19] the way of an eagle in the sky,
the way of a serpent on a rock,
the way of a ship on the high seas,
and the way of a man with a virgin.
[20] This is the way of an adulteress:
she eats and wipes her mouth
and says, “I have done no wrong.”
1 Corinthians 6:13–18
[13] “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food”— and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.
[14] And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. [15] Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! [16] 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.” [17] But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. [18] Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.
Proverbs 6:27-29
[27] Can a man carry fire next to his chest
and his clothes not be burned?
[28] Or can one walk on hot coals
and his feet not be scorched?
[29] So is he who goes in to his neighbor’s wife;
none who touches her will go unpunished.
Ephesians 4:22–24
[22] to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, [23] and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, [24] and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.