It will rescue you from the forbidden woman, from the stranger with seductive words Sermons
I. THAT SIN IS THE CONTRADICTION OF THE DIVINE THOUGHT. It is a "strange" thing (ver. 16). The painted harlot is "the strange woman." And while the prostitution of a human being, meant to be a helpmeet for man in all his highest and holiest pursuits to a mere ministress to his unlawful lusts, is the very saddest departure from the Divine ideal, and amply justifies the use of the word "strange woman," we may remember that all sin is a strange thing in the universe of God. How it ever entered there is the problem which can never be solved. But meeting with it here. in whatever form, we say, "This is the contrary of the thought of the Supreme," "This is the exact opposite of his design," "This is something alien, unnatural, intrusive: cannot we cast it out?" II. THAT SIN MUST STOOP TO FALSEHOOD IF IT WILL WIN ITS WAY. It "flattereth with its words" (ver. 16). Flattery is only another name for a sweet falsehood. The woman that is a sinner uses flattery to accomplish her ends. So sin cannot live without lying. That may be said of sin which was said of a great European usurper, that it "has deliberately taken falsehood into its service." But the most effective and destructive form of it is flattery. Let the young take earnest heed to their danger. When the lips of beauty speak soft and gratifying things, let purity beware; it is only too likely that temptation in its most seductive form is nigh, and that character and reputation are being insidiously assailed. III. THAT SIN SINKS TO ITS DARKEST DEPTHS THROUGH VARIOUS VIOLATIONS. (Ver. 17.) It is uncertain whether by the "guide of her youth" is to be understood her husband (see Malachi 2:14, 15), her parents, or her God. The second clause clearly refers to the marriage covenant, which is regarded as a sacred bond. Whichever be the correct view of the former clause, it is certain that the sinner of the text could only descend to her shameless depth by violating every promise she has made, by breaking through every fence which once stood between her and guilt. This is the inevitable course of sin. It violates first one vow, then another, until all sacred promises are broken. (1) Deliberate resolutions, (2) solemn assurances, (3) formal vows; - all are infringed. IV. THAT SIN LEADS STRAIGHT TO THE DOORWAY OF DEATH. (Vers. 18, 19.) It leads: 1. To physical death. Vice carries with it a penalty in the body; it robs of health and strength; it enfeebles; it sows seeds of sickness and death. The "graves of lust" are in every cemetery and churchyard in the land. 2. To spiritual death. "None that go unto her return again" as they went. Men come away from every unlawful indulgence other than they go - weaker and worse in soul. Alas for the morrow of incontinence, of whatever kind it be! The soul is injured; its self-respect is slain, its force is lessened; it is on the incline which slopes to death, and one step nearer to the foot of it. "Her house inclineth unto death." 3. To eternal death. They who resort to forbidden pleasure are fast on their way to the final condemnation; they have wandered long leagues from "the paths of life." We conclude with two admonitions: (1) Keep carefully away from the beginnings of evil. Shun not only the "strange woman's" door, but the evil glance, the doubtful company, the impure book, the meretricious paper. (2) The way of escape is immediate and total abandonment of sin. Such resolution made at once, seeking God's strength and grace, will permit the wanderer to "return again." - C.
To deliver thee from the strange woman. Gaze not on beauty too much, lest it blast thee; nor too long, lest it blind thee; nor too near lest it burn thee. If thou like it, it deceives thee; if thou love it, it disturbs thee; if thou hunt after it, it destroys thee. If virtue accompany it, it is the heart's paradise; if vice associate it, it is the fool's purgatory. It is the wise man's bonfire, and the fool's furnace.(Quarles.) I. THERE IS A MEDICINE IN SCRIPTURE FOR EVERY DISEASE OF THE SOUL. Here an antidote against the poison of evil women. 1. There is a fence against several degrees of sin. Against evil thoughts; evil words, evil deeds. 2. There are many remedies for the same sin. Prohibitions, examples, judgments. II. THE DANGER FROM EVIL WOMEN IS GREAT. Illustrate Samson and Solomon. As good women are modest, so bad women are loud and bold. As good women are tenderly affected, so wicked ones are most cruel. Take heed of being overcome by smooth language. They will tell thee that they love none else, and will die for thee, but they love thy wealth and beauty, and will leave thee when these fail. (Francis Taylor.) 1. One difficulty arises from the sensitiveness of unaffected purity. 2. Another difficulty springs from the nature of the English language, which has hardly been framed in a school where it may wind and fit itself to all the phases of impurity. 3. Another difficulty lies in the confused echoes which vile men create in every community, when the pulpit disturbs them. 4. Another difficulty exists in the criminal fastidiousness of the community upon this subject. The proverbs of Solomon are designed to furnish us a series of maxims for every relation of life. There will naturally be the most said where there is the most needed. If the frequency of warning against any sin measures the liability of man to that sin, then none is worse than impurity. I. CAN LANGUAGE BE FOUND WHICH CAN DRAW A CORRUPT BEAUTY SO VIVIDLY AS THIS: "Which forsaketh the guide of her youth, and forgetteth the covenant of her God"? Look out upon that fallen creature whose gay sally through the street calls out the significant laugh of bad men, the pity of good men, and the horror of the pure! Was not her cradle as pure as ever a loved infant pressed? Love soothed its cries, sisters watched its peaceful sleep, and a mother pressed it fondly to her bosom! Had you afterwards, when spring-flowers covered the earth, and every gale was odour, and every sound was music, seen her, fairer than the lily or the violet, searching them, would you not have said, "Sooner shall the rose grow poisonous than she; both may wither, but neither corrupt"? And how often, at evening, did she clasp her tiny hands in prayer! Alas, she forsook the guide of her youth! Faint thoughts of evil, like far-off cloud which the sunset gilds, came first; nor does the rosy sunset blush deeper along the heaven than her cheek at the first thought of evil. Now, O mother, and thou, guiding elder sister, could you have seen the lurking spirit embosomed in that cloud, a holy prayer might have broken the spell, a tear have washed its stain! Alas! they saw it not; she spoke it not; she was forsaking the guide of her youth. She thinketh no more of heaven. She breatheth no more prayers. Thou hast forsaken the covenant of thy God. Go down! fall never to rise! Hell opens to be thy home! II. THE NEXT INJUNCTION OF GOD TO THE YOUNG IS UPON THE ENSNARING DANGER OF BEAUTY. "Desire not her beauty in thy heart, neither let her take thee with her eyelids." God did not make so much of nature with exquisite beauty, or put within us a taste for it, without object. He meant that it should delight us. He made every flower to charm us. He never made a colour, nor graceful flying.bird, nor silvery insect, without meaning to please our taste. When He clothes a man or woman with beauty, He confers a favour, did we know how to receive it. Beauty, with amiable dispositions and ripe intelligence, is more to any woman than a queen's crown. As moths and tiny insects flutter around the bright blaze which was kindled for no harm, so the foolish young fall down burned and destroyed by the blaze of beauty. If God hath given thee beauty, tremble; for it is as gold in thy house: thieves and robbers will prowl around, and seek to possess it. If God hath put beauty before thine eyes, remember how many strong men have been cast down wounded by it. Art thou stronger than David? Let other men's destruction be thy wisdom; for it is hard to reap prudence upon the field of experience. III. In the minute description of this dangerous creature, mark next HOW SERIOUSLY WE ARE CAUTIONED OF HER WILES. 1. Her wiles of dress. Coverings of tapestry and the fine linen of Egypt are hers; the perfumes of myrrh, and aloes, and cinnamon. Silks and ribbons, lace and rings, gold and equipage; ah, how mean a price for damnation! The wretch who would be hung simply for the sake of riding to the gallows on a golden chariot, clothed in king's raiment, what a fool was he! 2. Her wiles of speech. Beasts may not speak; this honour is too high for them. To God's imaged son this prerogative belongs, to utter thought and feeling in articulate sounds. We may breathe our thoughts to thousand ears, and infect a multitude with the worst portions of our soul. How, then, has this soul's breath, this echo of our thoughts, this only image of our feelings, been perverted, that from the lips of sin it hath more persuasion than from the lips of wisdom? Purity sounds morose and cross; but from the lips of the harlot words drop as honey, and flow smoother than oil: her speech is fair, her laugh is merry as music. The eternal glory of purity has no lustre; but the deep damnation of lust is made as bright as the gate of heaven! 3. Her wiles of love. Love is the mind's light and heat; it is that tenuous air in which all other faculties exist as we exist in the atmosphere. A mind of the greatest stature without love is like the huge pyramid of Egypt — chill and cheerless in all its dark halls and passages. A mind with love is as a king's palace lighted for a royal festival. Shame that the sweetest of all the mind's attributes should be suborned to sin! Devil-tempter! will thy poison never cease? Shall beauty be poisoned? shall language be charmed? shall love be made to defile like pitch, and burn as the living coals? Trust the sea with thy tiny boat, trust the fickle wind, trust the changing skies of April, trust the miser's generosity, the tyrant's mercy; but, ah! simple man, trust not thyself near the artful woman, armed in her beauty, her cunning raiment, her dimpled smiles. 4. Next beware the wile of her reasonings. "To him that wanteth understanding, she saith, Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant. I came forth to meet thee, and I have found thee." What says she in the credulous ear of inexperience? Why, she tells him that sin is safe; she swears to him that sin is pure. Out of history she will entice him, and say, "Who hath ever refused my meat-offerings and drink-offerings? What king have I not sought? What conqueror have I not conquered? Philosophers have not, in all their wisdom, learned to hate me. I have been the guests of the world's greatest men. Art thou afraid to tread where Plato trod, and the pious Socrates? Art thou wiser than all that ever lived? "Nay, she readeth the Bible to him; she goeth back along the line of history, and readeth of Abraham, and of his glorious compeers; she skippeth past Joseph with averted looks, and readeth of David and of Solomon. Or, if the Bible will not cheat thee, how will she plead thine own nature; how will she whisper, "God hath made thee so." How, like her father, will she lure to pluck the apple, saying, "Thou shalt not surely die." I will point only to another wile. When inexperience has been beguiled by her infernal machinations, how, like a flock of startled birds, will spring up late regrets, and shame, and fear; and, worst of all, how will conscience ply her scorpion-whip and lash thee, uttering with stern visage, "Thou art dishonoured, thou art a wretch, thou art lost!" So, God saith, the strange woman shall secure her ensnared victims if they struggle. "Lest thou shouldst ponder the path of life, her ways are moveable that thou canst not know them." She is afraid to see thee soberly thinking of leaving her, and entering the path of life; therefore her ways are moveable. She multiplies devices, she studies a thousand new wiles, she has some sweet word for every sense — obsequience for thy pride, praise for thy vanity, generosity for thy selfishness, religion For thy conscience. IV. Having disclosed her wiles, let me show you WHAT GOD SAYS OF THE CHANCES OF ESCAPE TO THOSE WHO ONCE FOLLOW HER. "None that go unto her return again, neither take they hold of the paths of life." The strength of this language was not meant absolutely to exclude hope. Some may escape — as here and there a mangled sailor crawls out of the water upon the beach — the only one or two of the whole crew. There are many evils which hold their victims by the force of habit; there are others which fasten them by breaking their return to society. Many a person never reforms, because reform would bring no relief. There are other evils which hold men to them, because they are like the beginning of a fire; they tend to burn with fiercer and wider flames, until all fuel is consumed, and go out only when there is nothing to burn. Of this last kind is the sin of licentiousness; and when the conflagration once breaks out, experience has shown what the Bible long ago declared, that the chances of reformation are few indeed. V. We are repeatedly warned against the strange woman's HOUSE. Her house has been cunningly planned by an evil architect to attract and please the attention. It stands in a vast garden full of enchanting objects; it shines in glowing colours, and seems full of peace and full of pleasure. All the signs are of unbounded enjoyment — safe, if not innocent. Though every beam is rotten, and the house is the house of death, and in it are all the vicissitudes of infernal misery, yet to the young it appears a palace of delight. They will not believe that death can lurk behind so brilliant a fabric. That part of the garden which borders on the highway of innocence is carefully planted. There is not a poison-weed, nor thorn, nor thistle there. Ten thousand flowers bloom, and waft a thousand odours. A victim cautiously inspects it; but it has been too carefully patterned upon innocency to be easily detected. "Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither." Will the youth enter? Will he seek her house? To himself he says, "I will enter only to see the garden — its fruits, its flowers, its birds, its arbours, its warbling fountains!" He is resolved in virtue. He seeks wisdom, not pleasure! Dupe! you are deceived already; and this is your first lesson of wisdom. He passes, and the porter leers behind him! He is within an enchanter's garden! He ranges the outer garden near to the highway, thinking as he walks, "How foolishly have I been alarmed at pious lies about this beautiful place! I heard it was hell: I find it is paradise!" Emboldened by the innocency of his first steps, he explores the garden further from the road. The flowers grow richer; their odours exhilarate. Ridiculous priest, to tell me that death was here, where all is beauty, fragrance, and melody! Surely, death never lurked in so gorgeous apparel as this! When our passions enchant us, how beautiful is the way to death! Where are his resolutions now? This is the virtuous youth who came to observe! He has already seen too much! but he will see more; he will taste, feel, regret, weep, wail, die! It is too late! He has gone in — who shall never return. "He goeth after her straightway as an ox goeth to the slaughter; or as a fool to the correction of the stocks... and knoweth not that it is for his life." Enter with me, in imagination, the strange woman's house, where, God grant, you may never enter in any other way.There are five wards — Pleasure, Satiety, Discovery, Disease, Death. 1. Ward of Pleasure. The eye is dazzled with the magnificence of its apparel — elastic velvet, glossy silks, burnished satin, crimson drapery, plushy carpets. Exquisite pictures glow upon the wall; carved marble adorns every niche. 2. Ward of Satiety. Overflushed with dance, sated with wine and fruit, a fitful drowsiness vexes them. They wake, to crave; they taste, to loathe; they sleep, to dream; they wake again from unquiet visions. They long for the sharp taste of pleasure, so grateful yesterday. The glowing garden and the banquet now seem all stripped and gloomy. 3. The Ward of Discovery. In the third ward no deception remains. The floors are bare; the naked walls drip filth; the air is poisonous with sickly fumes, and echoes with mirth, concealing hideous misery. None supposes that he has been happy. The past seems like the dream of the miser who gathers gold spilt like rain upon the road, and wakes, clutching his bed, and crying, "Where is it?" 4. Ward of Disease. 5. Ward of Death. No longer does the incarnate wretch pretend to conceal her cruelty. She thrusts, aye, as if they were dirt — she shovels out the wretches. Some fall headlong through the rotten floor — a long fall to a fiery bottom. The floor trembles to deep thunders which roll below. Here and there jets of flame sprout up, and give a lurid light to the murky hall.Oh, that the young might see the end of vice before they see the beginning! 1. I solemnly warn you against indulging a morbid imagination. In that busy and mischievous faculty begins the evil. 2. Next to evil imaginations, I warn the young of evil companions. Decaying fruit corrupts the neighbouring fruit. 3. But I warn you, with yet more solemn emphasis, against evil books and evil pictures. 4. Once more, let me persuade you that no examples in high places can justify imitation in low places. 5. Let me beseech you, lastly, to guard your heart-purity. Never lose it. If it be gone, you have lost from the casket the most precious gift of God. (H. W. Beecher.) People SolomonPlaces JerusalemTopics Adulteress, Adventuress, Alien, Deliver, Flattereth, Flatters, Foreigner, Loose, Maketh, Power, Saved, Sayings, Says, Seductive, Smooth, Strange, Stranger, Tongue, Wayward, WifeOutline 1. wisdom promises godliness to her children10. and safety from evil company 20. and direction in good ways Dictionary of Bible Themes Proverbs 2:16 6188 immorality, sexual Library The Beginning and End of WisdomPROVERBS ii. 2, 3, 5. If thou incline thine ear to wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding; yea, if thou criest after wisdom, and liftest up thy voice for understanding; then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God. We shall see something curious in the last of these verses, when we compare it with one in the chapter before. The chapter before says, that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. That if we wish to be wise at all, we must BEGIN by … Charles Kingsley—The Good News of God The Red Lamp. Notes on the Fourth Century Letter xxiv (Circa A. D. 1126) to Oger, Regular Canon Truth Hidden when not Sought After. Sundry Sharp Reproofs Sunday Before Lent The Knowledge of God "But Seek Ye First the Kingdom of God and his Righteousness," &C. Proverbs Links Proverbs 2:16 NIVProverbs 2:16 NLT Proverbs 2:16 ESV Proverbs 2:16 NASB Proverbs 2:16 KJV Proverbs 2:16 Bible Apps Proverbs 2:16 Parallel Proverbs 2:16 Biblia Paralela Proverbs 2:16 Chinese Bible Proverbs 2:16 French Bible Proverbs 2:16 German Bible Proverbs 2:16 Commentaries Bible Hub |
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