Let's open our Bibles again to
Proverbs chapter 7. As I said a moment ago, I would
like for our children and our young people to pay special attention
to the message this morning. Much of the book of Proverbs,
Solomon writes to his son. He refers frequently to his son. I'd like to give our sons and
daughters this morning a message, tell you something that Solomon
has to say. And you older ones, you pay attention
too. I want to make this applicable to all of us. We'll see by the
end of the message, the title of the message is Beware the
Allure of False Religion. And we're going to see that false
religion, the world, the flesh, all these things is alluring
to all of us, even those who should be strong, established
believers. Like I told you in the lesson
this morning, the book of Proverbs is written to show us Christ
our wisdom, to show us Christ the wisdom of God, to show us
the blessing of faith in Christ our wisdom. Now the message of
Christ, this is not like false religion. False religion has
to allure you in. The message of Christ is preached
clearly. So nobody's fooled into doing
anything. Everybody knows exactly what's
being said if the gospel is preached right. It's preached in wisdom.
And that's the opposite of the way false religion treats you.
They try to lure you in and trick you in. We'll see that in our
text this morning. The story that we read here,
it may be a parable or it may be something Solomon actually
watched happen. More than likely, I think this
is something Solomon watched happen. I've seen this happen
many a time to a promising young person. In our text this morning,
Solomon tells us this story about a young man. He was lured into
doing something wrong by this, she's a pretty woman, but she's
wicked, evil. Now you young people, you don't
understand this just yet, but you are a blessed group of people. You're blessed to be in homes
where you're taught right from wrong. You're blessed to be in
homes where you're brought to hear the scriptures preached.
You're blessed to be in a home where Christ is worshiped. But you know, everybody's not
blessed like you are. You already know this. Even the youngest ones of you
know. You go to school with children
who haven't been taught what you've been taught. They've not
been taught right from wrong like you have. So it's very likely
at some point in your life, somebody's going to come along and try to
get you to do things that you know are wrong. You've been taught
these things are wrong. Now they'll call it fun. They'll
call it a new way to think. They'll say, you know, your parents
and your pastor warned you about these things. They're just old
fashioned, you know, and they'll tell you it's fun. But now you
listen to me. Really, it's sinful. It's sinful.
They'll try to get you to do wrong things, things that appeal
to your flesh. The reason that the world can
draw us in to do these things is because they're trying to
get us to do what our flesh already loves in the first place. Our
nature, the nature that we're born with is a sin nature. These
things appeal to us because we have a sinful nature. We have
a nature that's contrary to God. Now, you've been taught these
things. I'll just give you a couple of examples. You've been taught
to know, don't take what doesn't belong to you. You've been taught
that's stealing. No matter what name you put it
under, if you take something that doesn't belong to you, it's
stealing. You know that here's what you're supposed to do. Go
get you an education so you can get a job. It'll enable you to
buy the things that you need. But the world tells you, if you
just steal it, it's a whole lot easier. Remember what they tell
you? Well, you know better than that.
Now, don't fall for it. You know you're not supposed
to abuse drugs and alcohol. Now, you know this. A wise person
once told me, God gave you a body and a mind to take care of it.
Now, use it. Use the mind God gave you. You
know using drugs and abusing alcohol is wrong. But the world
will tell you that's the way to have a big party now, you
know. They tell you it's fun. And what they don't tell you
is how you feel the next morning. That ain't fun. Or they don't
tell you what happens to your life after you become hooked
on that stuff. It's too late once your life is ruined by it.
Don't even try it. Just don't even, don't go near
it. Just hangin' around it puts you in a position where you could
get hooked on it and it'll ruin your life. Just get away from
it. It could be friends that try to get you to do this stuff.
I know they teach you in school about peer pressure. Don't succumb
to it. But it happens. The reason they
keep telling you that stuff every year is because it happens so
frequently. Or it could be a handsome boy or a pretty girl. I've seen
this, I can't tell you how many times I've seen this happen.
I used to work for a chain of convenience stores and boy we'd
hire, I mean hire people, my goodness. And we'd hire this
young girl. And she'd start out like gangbusters.
She did such a good job. And just for a pretty good amount
of time, we're thinking, well, we're going to promote this girl,
you know? And for long, she's awful. She's a horrible employee. And every time, you know what?
I knew it. I knew when it was happening. Just wait till you
see her boyfriend. You know what happened? He might
be good looking, but she got her a shiftless, lazy, no good
boyfriend. He ruined her every time. or could be a promising young
man, ruined because he married this beautiful woman. She's beautiful
now, but she's mean and she's selfish and pretty soon he's
just like her. He acts just like her because
he's got to do whatever it takes to keep the peace with her. He
ruined her. And it breaks my heart to see
that happen to you. We've seen it happen to those
we love. break my heart to see that happen to you, that's why
I'm warning you. But in this chapter, Solomon's warning us
about something even worse. He's warning us about the world,
about false religion, about people that we know luring us away from
the gospel, luring us away from Christ. And we need to be warned
about this, because just because you're growing up hearing the
gospel, doesn't mean that one day you won't leave it. Now you,
all of us will if God lets us. And that would break my heart
more than anything. And we've seen it happen and
it breaks my heart. So I must warn you about it.
God's word warns us about it. And you dogs, this applies to
us too. We don't get old enough to the point this doesn't appeal
to us anymore. We have the same sinful, foolish
nature as the youngest of our children. And we can get drawn
away from the gospel too. We've seen that happen too, haven't
we? Now you young people, up here in your mind, you know the
gospel. You've been taught the gospel.
You know it up here. And usually when you hear somebody
preaching a lie, you can recognize it because up here you know the
gospel. Now the Lord may not have revealed himself to you
yet, but you know the gospel. And you also know, at least up
here, you know this. You know that you should never
go somewhere where Christ is not preached. Now this just makes
perfect sense. We can only know Christ if we
hear Christ preached. Doesn't that make sense? We can't
know Christ if the preacher is preaching about something else.
So up here, you know better than to go someplace where Christ
is not preached. Well, don't be sucked into it
because you got this handsome boyfriend or you got a beautiful
girlfriend. Don't do it. Don't let anything take you away
from the gospel. Don't you let anything take you
away From Christ, you seek Christ your whole life long. You never
stop. The oldest believer in here will
tell you, I still seek Christ today. And I tell you that as
your pastor, and I tell you that as your friend who cares about
you, and don't do it. And Solomon gives us some ways
we can recognize false religion. We can recognize the way the
flesh tries to lure us away from Christ and his gospel. The woman
that that Solomon talks about here in chapter seven, she's
a picture. She represents anything that
appeals to this flesh. And that's all false religion
is. False religion is something that appeals to the flesh, that
tries to make the flesh feel better, not the spirit. So let's
begin in verse six. Solomon says, for at the window
of my house, I looked through my casement. I looked through
the window and beheld among the simple ones I discerned among
the youths a young man. He was void of understanding.
I saw him and watched through the window, and he saw this young
man. He knew he was simple. He didn't have any understanding
yet, because he hadn't been around long enough to really learn how
the people of the world work just yet. He hadn't learned that.
Maybe somebody tried to teach him, his parents or his pastor
or his teachers, He didn't really listen to him. You know, youth
makes that mistake. You know, we think we know everything.
We don't really listen when somebody's teaching us something important.
And because of that, he's still simple. He doesn't have any understanding
yet. And Solomon watched him, verse eight. He watched him passing
through the street near her corner, and he went the way to her house.
Now first, Solomon watched. He said, this young man, he just
walked past her house. He just walked down the street
where her house was. Pretty soon he kind of stopped
maybe in front of the sidewalk. And then he walked up the walk
to the porch and he stood there. Now he's put himself in danger.
He's put himself just by something wicked and sinful. And if you
look back at Psalm 1, David, Solomon's father, warned us about
this. In Psalm 1. David says, blessed is the man
that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth
in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.
You see the pattern of what happened here? David said, blessed is
the man that doesn't do this. First, he just walks in the counsel
of the ungodly. He just walks by, you know, the
counsel of the wicked. But he shouldn't walk by there
because pretty soon he's standing there. Pretty soon he's standing
in the way of sinners. Pretty soon, he's sitting in
the seat of the scornful. Now he's become the scornful
one. And it just began with him walking by, just putting himself
in arm's reach of something that's dangerous and evil. That's what
happened to this young man Solomon saw. And that's what I don't
want to happen to you. That's why I'm warning you, don't
even dabble with something that'll take you away from Christ. Just
don't even try it out because it might do it. Well, verse 9,
Solomon tells us this. He says, this happened in the
twilight, in the evening, in the black and dark of night.
Solomon watched this young man. He went by this woman's house
at dark, dark, when he thought nobody could see what he was
doing. You know what? Somebody always sees. You just
mark it down. Somebody always sees. Solomon
saw, didn't he? God always sees us. Now, don't
think I'm being old fuddy-duddy here, but I'm telling you the
truth. Nothing good happens after midnight.
It really is true, just it doesn't. I remember pressing my dad for
make my curfew from midnight to one o'clock, and he finally
did, but nothing good happened in that time frame. I can tell
you that. It's just that this is the time of day when you make
bad decisions I had worked up an example about a sports star
getting in trouble. And I got up yesterday morning
and turned on the television, and there's my example. This
JT Barrett, Ohio State's quarterback, gets arrested drunk and driving.
Somebody told me he had a sober passenger with him. I don't know what time of day
it was. I bet my bottom dollars after midnight, probably about
2 or 3 in the morning, when people make bad decisions. Want me to
tell you how to avoid a lot of trouble? Being bad at that time. You just avoid a lot of trouble.
This is when this young man got in trouble, wasn't it? It dark
when he thought nobody was watching, nobody could see him. But I tell
you the real danger Solomon's warning us here. He's warning
us about the darkness of our flesh, the darkness of unbelief
and rebellion. He's talking about spiritual
darkness. And he warns us about this because this is what the
flesh loves. The flesh loves darkness. The
flesh loves a way that we think we cannot be seen, you know.
And that way, the way of darkness and unbelief, it may seem like
fun today, but it always leads to destruction, 100% of the time. Christ is described as what?
The light of the world, the opposite of darkness. Christ is spiritual
light. Light, then always follow Him. Don't follow the way of the darkness
of our nature. Always follow Christ, the light
of the world. You just avoid that darkness
like the plague and ask God, give you light. Ask God to give
you light, give you Christ, the light of the world. Don't operate
in darkness because it'll lead just where it leads to this young
man. Now verse 10, Solomon says, and behold, he's there in the
darkness. He wandered by her house and
then priesthood he wandered up to it. Behold, there met him
a woman with the attire of an harlot and subtle of heart. She's
loud and stubborn. Her feet abide not in her house.
Now she's without, now on the streets and lieth in wait at
every corner. Now this woman is a married woman,
but she's on the prowl for another man. And that's all false religion
is. False religion is out there just
looking for another man, looking for something other than Christ. Looking for something other than
Christ our Savior and Christ our Husband. She represents false
religion that appeals to the flesh. Yes, she appeals to the
flesh, but everything about her is contrary to the Word of God.
That's what man's religion is. It appeals to the flesh. That's
why they got such big crowds. But it's contrary to the word
of God. She says things that appeal to the flesh. She dresses
in a way that appeals to the flesh. She's not being honest. Psalms says she's a subtle woman. She's hiding what's in her heart.
She's hiding her true motives. And she's loud. She makes a big
show. She's just being so loud. You
know people like that. Well, that's what man's religion
is. All it is is a big show. You know, they try to make it
loud and light shows and constantly moving around so you don't have
time to realize what you're doing, what's going on. When the Gospels
preached, the Apostle Paul told us it's to be done in quiet,
thoughtful worship. Not like this loud, stubborn
woman. And it's stubborn. That's the way we are by nature.
It's stubborn. And false religion just appeals
to it. Not only does false religion appeal to it, they condone it.
Just the stubbornness of this flesh. God's got to break us
of that stubbornness. He's got to give us a new heart
that we'll submit to him. Because otherwise we never will.
Because we're just like this woman. We're stubborn. And that's
why she appeals to us. She's just like us. And Solomon
says she's without. She's everywhere she's not supposed
to be. She's anywhere but where she's supposed to be. She can't
be content to stay at home and do what she's supposed to do,
you know, take care of her home and her family. No, she's gotta
be without. And she's out in the darkness. She's operating in the darkness,
looking for something to make her happy. She's seeking anything
other than the Lord. She's lying in wait for somebody
to come by she can grab. That's what false religion does.
They've got them signs at the back. You know, they're counting
their numbers. How many did we get? Our Lord
says you go miles and miles and miles. You cross everywhere seeking
to make one convert. And when you do, you make them
twofold the child of El's you are. That's what false religion
is. You're lying away to see who she can capture. Would be
a good idea not to go to that corner even, wouldn't it? She
won't capture you. But this young man did and she
captured him. Look at verse 13. So she caught him and she kissed
him with an impotent face. She caught this young man and
she kissed him, this word impotent face means a strong face. There's
no shame in what she's doing. There's no modesty about her
at all. And that's what false religion
is. There's no shame. They put it in their name, free
will. There's no shame in that. There's
no modesty. They seek the way of the flesh
and to promote the way of the flesh instead of Christ. Now
I'm telling you, it can be tricky. You know, if false religion were
doing just making it so obvious, nobody would follow it, would
they? Our Lord talked to you about Satan and his minions making
themselves, not the devil with the red tail and pitchfork, angels
of light. They make, they operate in religion
and they make it look like something that's holy and right and good. That's what she does here. Look
at verse 14. She says, I have peace offerings
with me. This day I've paid my vows. Therefore come, therefore
came I forth to meet thee, diligently to seek thy face and I found
thee. I've decked my bed with coverings
of tapestry, with card works, with fine linen of each I perfume
my bed with myrrh and aloes and cinnamon. This is what false
religion does. They'll appeal to you using all
the right words. They use the words grace. They
use the word forgiveness. They use the word justify and
sacrifice just like we do, but they don't mean the same things
by it. And if you listen, you'll hear it. This woman says, I've
got peace offerings with me. Well, that sounds good, doesn't
it? We need a peace offering with God. We've declared war
on God. We need a peace offering with God. But now this is subtle. You know what she's saying? I've
got these peace offerings. You know what she means? Let's
go have us a party. We're going to have a feast.
She wants to take these peace offerings and use it on her own
flesh, not in the worship of God. See, the peace offerings,
they're the best cuts of the meat. And after they were offered
on the altar, burned with fire on the altar, you know what the
priest did? He gave those peace offerings, those best cuts of
meat back to the person and they took it and ate it. She's not
talking about peace offerings, having peace with God, is she?
She said, I've got these peace offerings. Let's go back to my
house and have us a party. That's what she means. That's
what she's really talking about, a way to please the flesh. Then
she talks about paying vows. Well, that sounds good. We ought
to pay our vows, shouldn't we? We ought to keep our word. But
salvation is not in us keeping our vows. It's not like, well,
I kept my vows and now I got to get out of jail free card
and go do whatever I want. Salvation is God keeping his
word, God keeping his promise to save his people through the
obedience and through the sacrifice of his son. That's the gospel. But see, this is what false religion
does. They use the right words. Because
they need to trick you, so they use the right words. But they
put the emphasis on the wrong person. That's the key. And boy,
she makes it sound like, I went and offered my peace offering,
I kept my vows, and then I came out here and it was just God's
will that I find you and take you home with me. Isn't that
twisted? Don't ever blame your sin on
God's providence. She's got it twisted, doesn't
she? And she says, come look at my bedroom. She said, I've
got it all decorated. I've got it decorated with tapestry
and linen from Egypt, the finest, best linen. Well, religion does
have to decorate stuff up. They've got to decorate it to
keep you from seeing what's really under there, you know, to fool
you. They decorate things with man's works. They decorate things
with what will impress your flesh. She says, I've got this linen.
I used it to decorate my bedroom. Well, that sounds pretty good,
doesn't it? We read about white linen being used to make the
tabernacle. Remember that white linen was a picture of the holiness
and righteousness of Christ. We read about that white fine
twine linen they used to make the priest clothes, the picture
of the holiness and righteousness of Christ our priest. But where'd
she get this linen? She said, I got it from Egypt.
Egypt's a picture of sin in Scripture. See how subtle that is? She's
decorated with man's sin, with man's righteousness. She's not
covered herself in the righteousness of Christ. And then she spiced
up everything. She said, I put these spices
in my bedroom, make it smell good. You know why she did that? To cover up the smell of sin.
Now you hear about these spices, You know, that sounds pretty
good. These are the same spices that Solomon used to describe
Christ in the Song of Solomon. But the problem is this woman's
perverted these things. She's using the right words,
but she's perverted them. She's using them to cover up
the smell of sin. Now listen to me. That's not
salvation. Cleaning up the outside of the
cup and cleaning up the outside of the platter and cleaning up
the outside of the grave is not salvation. Salvation is not quitting
and doing some wrong things. Christ makes His people smell
good by removing their sin. Not covering up, but by removing
it in His blood. See how she's got everything
twisted? And look what she says in verse 18, she says, Let us
take our fill of love until the morning. Let us solace ourselves
with loves." She says, let's make ourselves feel good with
loves. Notice that plural. She's talking
about all the different things the flesh loves. And that's what
fleshly religion is. They find something to make you
feel good. And whatever makes you feel good,
they'll work on that. That doesn't make this person
feel good, so they work on that over here, make this something
different, make this person feel good. It's love. I heard of a
man, a preacher. who said, I got all these different
people in my congregation. This one has a pet doctrine about
this. And this one has a pet doctrine about this. And this
one has a pet doctrine about this. This one's a Calvinist
and this one's Armenian. Well, I got to preach a message
that appeals to all of them. That's loves, many different
kinds of things. The gospel is singular. It's the love of Christ. It's
his love for his people. When they talk about all these
different kinds of loves, saying, God loves everybody. Well, that
makes it sound like God has many different kinds of love, doesn't
it? Makes it sound like God has one kind of love that saves a
person. And then it makes it sound like
God has another kind of love that he loves somebody, but he's
gonna send them to hell anyway. You avoid that kind of love.
That's not love. The gospel speaks of love in
singular terms. Christ our love, his love for
his people. Verse 19, look what she tells
him. She said, we can operate with impunity. The good man of
the house, he's not at home. He's gone on a long journey.
He's taken a bag of money with him and he'll come home with
the day appointed. Now this woman's an adulterer. You see what she's
wanting to do. She wanted to cheat on her husband. Well, he's
out of town. And she said, he's coming back. But it won't be
today. So we can do whatever we want
today. And that's false religion. The Lord's gone away. He's resurrected
and gone back to glory. He's coming back, but it won't
be today. He's coming back with a bag full
of money to reward us when he gets here, but he's not coming
back today. So let's just go do what we want.
Let's just fulfill all of our fleshly desires. That's what
false religion does. Now I'll show you where that
leads. It leads to every time, look at verse 21. With her fair
speech, she caused him to yield. With the flattering of her lips,
she forced him. He goeth after her straightway,
as an ox goeth to the slaughter, or as a fool to the correction
of the stocks, till a dart strike through his liver, as a bird
hasteth to the snare, and knoweth not, it's for his life. Now this woman, she used flattery. You just beware when somebody
starts flattering you. You know when somebody's flattering
you, they're buttering you up. I'm telling you, this is what
false religion does. They use flattery to get you
to do what they want. Just like she did. She used flattery
to get him to do what she wanted him to do, you know. All they
got to do is get you to make some sort of profession of faith
and pretty soon you're singing specials, you're teaching a class.
You haven't been around long enough to learn anything, you
know, but I'm going to put you teaching a class We've got to make you
feel important so you stay, you know. That way leads to death
every time. Leads to eternal death every
time. They just loop that rope around
your neck like the owner does to the ox and starts leading
him away. And the ox thinks, cool, I'm
taking me to another field to graze. And he doesn't know he's
being taken to the slaughter. The bird sees that bait in the
trap and thinks, oh, cool, you know, a free meal. He has no
idea when he goes in there, he's not coming out. It's for his
life. The flattery of religion appeals to the flesh and leads
us to the place, it's taken us to the punishment, eternal punishment,
and we don't know it until it's too late. And that will happen
to everybody that blindly follows false religion. Don't you even
blindly follow me. Don't you even blindly take what
I preach to you as gospel truth. Look in God's word and see for
yourself. Don't follow it blindly. You know, there's no such thing
as blind faith. Faith knows who it has believed
and looks to Christ and follows Christ. You follow him with your
eyes wide open. Now look at verse 24. Solomon
says, now listen to me. Hearken unto me now therefore,
all you children, and attend to the words of my mouth. Let
not thine heart decline." It's go down. Don't let your heart
go down to her ways. Go not astray in her paths, for
she has cast down many wounded. Yea, many strong men have been
slain by her. Her house is the way to hell,
going down to the chambers of death. And this is why I said
adults need to listen to this warning just as well as the children
do. We need to seek the Lord all the days of our lives. Because
false religion and things of this world will always appeal
to the flesh. And whether it's young flesh
or it's old flesh, it's all the same flesh. It's all the same
nature. You know, you kids, I watch you.
And sometimes I see you, you know, you're out playing, you're
doing something, and I know what's going on in your mind. I can
see it. I just see it go across your face. You know how I know
that? I've got the same nature. I know. Your parents know. You know why you don't get away
from so much stuff from your mom? She knows. She's got the
same nature. We older adults need to remember
that. We've got the same nature. We can be flattered into going
away too, can't we? Solomon says she's done this
to the strong men. She's done this to those who
should be strong believers. Even we can be carried away.
Well, that's kind of depressing, isn't it? Well, don't let me
give you a warning without letting me give you the cure. What will
protect us? I'll give you a warning. Now,
what will protect us from being deceived into false religion
and following the way of our flesh? The answer is always the
same. It's Christ. Trust Him. Look to Him. Look back up in
verse 1 of chapter 7. Solomon says, I think we can
add, my daughter, all of you, my children, keep my words. Lay up my commandments with thee.
Keep the command. What commandment is he talking
about? Keeping the law, we better strive to keep the law and not
do this and not do this and not do this and do this. No, not
what he's talking about. Keep my commandment. He's talking
about the commandment of the gospel. You keep my commandment. What's the commandment of the
gospel? Believe. The commandment of the law takes
up pages and pages and pages, doesn't it? All these things
you gotta do. The commandment of the gospel's simple. Believe. Look. Trust the Lord Jesus Christ. Faith in Christ will keep us
from this trap of unbelief. You know what'll keep you from
going the wrong way? Look to Christ. If you're looking to
Christ, you know what you're doing? You're following. You
know, Christ is not going this way and you're going this way
and you're looking at him. No, if you're looking at Christ,
you're following him and he never will lead you wrong. You look
to him, that'll keep you from falling into this trap. He says
in verse two, keep my commandment and live. Look to Christ and
live because he is life. And you keep my law, you keep
the law of the gospel, the word of the gospel as the apple of
your eye. Now, the apple of your eye is
a phrase we use to mean something that's very important to us.
You know, if somebody tries to stick something in my eye, you
know, I'm going to put my hand over it, I'm going to close my
eye because I'm protecting it. You protect the gospel. You protect
your time so that you can come hear the gospel, that you can
come hear of Christ and worship him. You protect it with all
you've got. You protect it like it's your
life, like your life depends on it. Because it does. It does. Verse three, he says, bind them
upon thy fingers, write them upon the table of thine heart.
What Tom is saying is put the gospel on your fingers. So it's
a reminder to you. Your hands are always near you.
It's a reminder that you belong to Christ. I wear a wedding ring. I never, ever, ever take it off. except when it fell off that
one. I had one that was too big, it fell off when I lost it. But
this one I haven't taken off ever. Don't take it off. And
all anybody's gotta do is see my hand. And you know what they
know? They may not know I belong to
Janet, but they know I belong to somebody. My hand says it. You ever heard seeing somebody
tie a string around their finger to remind them of something?
You know, they're forgetful, so they tie a string around their
finger and they, oh yeah, I gotta do that. Take the gospel, tie
it like a string around your finger to remind you of Christ,
to remind you of life in Him, to remind you of forgiveness
of sins in Him, to remind you that He's your righteousness,
that He's your Savior, that He's your Shepherd. Do that so you
remember Him. That's what Solomon's saying.
And he tells us, now write this on your heart. And I looked at
that. Write this, write them upon the
table of thine heart. And here's the best I can tell
you about that. We can't write God's law, his gospel on our
heart, can we? I can, you can. But I know who
can. God can. Look at Jeremiah chapter
31. God has promised he'll do this
for his people. He'll write his gospel on their
heart. Jeremiah 31. In verse 31, Behold, the days come, saith
the Lord, that I'll make a new covenant with the house of Israel
and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant
that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by
the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, which my covenant
they break, although I was in husband unto them, saith the
Lord. What was that first covenant written on? The ten commands
were on stone, weren't they? On tables of stone. Well, that
didn't do anybody any good. Look at verse 33. But this shall
be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel. This
is the covenant of grace. After those days, saith the Lord,
I'll put my law in their inward parts and I'll write it in their
hearts, in their hearts, and I'll be their God and they should
be my people. See, we really can't do anything
to protect ourselves from error. We can avail ourselves to the
means of grace, we can be sure we hear the gospel preached,
we hear the Word taught, and that'll protect us. But really,
only God can protect us, can He? God is our only defense of
being deceived into error, falling into this flattery of the flesh.
So ask Him to protect you. You can pray. And ask God, write
your gospel in my heart. Give me a heart of flesh that
loves you and believes you and looks to you. This is what Paul
meant in Colossians 3. He told the church of Colossae,
let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. Just let it dwell
in you richly. Come hear it often. Read it often. It'll protect you from error.
Look back at verse 4 in our text, Proverbs chapter 7. Say unto
wisdom, thou art my sister, and call understanding thy kinswoman.
Now, wisdom in the Proverbs always refers to Christ. What Solomon
is saying here is trust Christ. Trust Him with all of your heart.
Trust Him with all the secrets of your heart, just like you
trust your secrets to your sister. I remember when Holly and Savannah
were growing up, they were in bed a long time, and Janet and
I would be going to bed, and we'd hear them through the door
whispering, Count each other their secrets. And they kept
those secrets. They wouldn't tell us. They're
secrets just between the two of them. But Christ is our brother. He took on Him flesh and bones
to be our brother, to be our kinsman, redeemer. Now you trust
Him. We looked at that in one of the
Psalms a few weeks ago. Just pour out your heart before
Him. Pour out all your secrets to Him. Make him somebody that's
close to you, that you keep in constant connection with, that
you keep in constant contact with, because he'll protect you.
Verse five, that they may keep thee from a strange woman, from
a stranger with flattereth with her words. I want you to look
at one more scripture. Turn back a page here to Proverbs
chapter three. This is a, Scripture, I almost
always write in cards to our children. When we have a high
school graduate, we buy him a Bible. I always inscribe this there
to them. Proverbs 3, well, let's begin
in verse 1. I won't make too many comments,
but look at this. My son, forget not my law, but
let thine heart keep my commandments. For length of days and long life
and peace should they add to thee. Let not mercy and truth
forsake thee. bind them about your neck, write
them upon the table of thine heart. So shalt thou find favor
and good understanding in the sight of God and man. Now trust
in the Lord. Trust in the Lord with all thine
heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy
ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths." Trust
in the Lord. That'll protect you from this
error. This adulterous woman, she talked about having peace
offerings. Don't you pay attention to it. You trust in the Lord
to be your peace offering. Trust in Jehovah Shalom, the
Lord our peace. She talked about righteousness,
about the fine linen of Egypt. Don't you listen to it. Don't
you think that you can make yourself righteous by something you do,
that you can make out some linen to cover yourself with? It's
just filthy rags. You trust in the Lord. Trust
in Jehovah, Sid Kenyon. Lord our righteous, trusting
Him to be your righteousness. This woman says she had everything
to make a big party. She said, come on, let's satisfy
ourselves. Let's comfort ourselves with
all these loves. Don't you listen to it. Don't you think there's
anything you can provide that'll make God happy with you? You
trust in the Lord. You trust in Jehovah Jireh. He'll
provide. He'll provide everything that
you need. And trust in Him with all of your heart. All of it. He's worthy to be trusted. He's
proved himself faithful. And trust in Christ only. Now,
I'm almost done. Listen to me. There'll come a
time in your life you think, this doesn't make sense. It doesn't
make sense. I know I've been taught to do
it this way. I know I've been told to do it this way. My parents
told me, my grandparents told me, my pastor told me. It doesn't
make sense to do it this way. Whenever we think that, we're
wrong. Don't lean to your own understanding.
Don't do it, because our understanding's wrong. Just trust the Word of
God. Trust what Christ says. Trust
in Him, whether you understand it or not. We can't understand
God. Just trust Him, whether we understand
it or not. You trust Christ, and you follow
Him. He'll direct your path. He'll
direct your path all the way to glory. I pray God give us
the faith and the wisdom to beware of false religion, to beware
of our fleshly nature and trust Christ only. Let's bow in prayer. Our Father, we thank you for
your word. We thank you then your goodness and your mercy
and grace to your people. that you've spoken to us through
your word. Wisdom does indeed speak to the sons of men. And
Father, I pray that you'd give us a hearing ear this morning,
that you'd give us a believing heart, that you'd apply to our
hearts the word of God that we've heard preached. Apply it to our
hearts for your glory, for the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ,
and cause us by faith to look to him. to trust in Christ and
Christ alone. He's worthy of all of our trust,
all of our praise, and all of our adoration. Father, we thank
you for yet another opportunity to hear your word preached. Bless
it, we pray. Bless us as we go forth and cause
us to take these things with us and meditate upon them and
feed upon them Keep us, keep us from evil. Keep us from the
evil one. Keep us from the evil of this
world. Keep us from the evil of our own nature and cause us
to rest in Christ alone. It is in his name, for his glory
we pray.