Sex is a formidable gift.

Formidable:
Inspiring fear or respect through being impressively large, powerful, intense, or capable.

The fifth chapter of Proverbs offers us some straightforward wisdom on human sexuality, the truth of which is increasingly poignant to our progressively amoral culture.  By and large today’s cultural mainstream would consider “prudish” many of the Biblical guidelines for sexuality.  I am entirely comfortable with the label, knowing the reality is that in a quest for freedom from sexual regulation, our culture has accepted a very real enslavement to sexual bondage.

Working in youth ministry for years, the sexualization of our culture is, for me, probably the most difficult reality to confront.  Students might spend 2 hours a week in our ministry, but they were absolutely saturated for hours every day in sexual conversations, programming, advertising, and more.  Depending on our age and home setting, we as adults may have spent our youth in a comparatively innocent environment, but we live in the same culture today.

Proverbs 5 begins with warnings to avoid adultery and the “forbidden” woman.  As you read this chapter understand that adultery has broader applications than the most obvious and literal one (remember what Jesus said).  About this adulterous “woman” we are urged:

Keep your way far from her,
and do not go near the door of her house (v.8)

If we don’t avoid her, if we pursue sexual gratification outside of marriage, we waste and lose the best of ourselves (v. 9-14). We may have been told that sexual freedom means throwing off “prudish” Victorian beliefs about sexual purity.  Eventually those who follow such a lifestyle will realize that such a lifestyle is not true freedom:

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

This a great chapter, also because it offers some very explicit applications for putting our sexuality to good use:

Drink water from your own cistern,
flowing water from your own well…
…Let your fountain be blessed,
and rejoice in the wife of your youth,
a lovely deer, a graceful doe.
Let her [hey there.  It get's pretty racy hear so you go ahead and read it for yourself!]

We are encouraged here to seek sexual satisfaction, but to do so from our spouse alone.  There absolutely is Godly sex.  Sexuality is gift, and it is a formidable gift.  If ever there is an area of life in which we desperately need Godly wisdom it is this one!