Tonight we're gonna be in the
book of Proverbs chapter five if you'd like to turn. Proverbs chapter five. Last week we looked at the strange
woman as it's warned by Solomon in Proverbs chapter five. And
Solomon is continuing his warning. The ironic part, if I can use
that word, Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines. Then he says,
beware the strange woman. You know, I don't know about
that one. But we know that there's a picture
of the Lord and his church. That's what that's a picture
of. It's the bride and the Lord being our groom. But because
of him saying, beware of the strange woman, and then knowing
he had that many wives, that tells me that this isn't just
a physical warning. This is a spiritual warning. This is a spiritual
warning. So let's read this together. Proverbs chapter five, we're
gonna read three verses, three through six, four verses. Let's see, I'm in the wrong place
here. Yeah, Proverbs 5. For the lips of a strange woman
drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil, but
her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Her
feet go down to death, her steps take hold on hell, lest thou
shouldest ponder the path of life. Her ways are movable, that
thou canst not know them. I've titled this message, The
Path of Life. The Path of Life. self-gain, ponder the path of
life. They're trying to find or do
enough to obtain eternal life. Now we studied last week on the
strange woman and we were able to establish that the strange
woman is the false gospel. It's the same as the two mountains
we've been looking at. It's the same as the bond woman
and the free woman that we talked about in Galatians. It's interesting
actually that our Hebrews messages and our Proverbs messages are
really going hand in hand. I'm thankful the Lord did that.
But that being said, the strange woman being false religion, he's
saying, stay away from her. Don't go near her. He tells us
why. The lips of her, they drop as
honeycomb. They're gonna be sweet. Your flesh is gonna love that
false gospel. It's gonna be smooth. And that's exactly the truth
of it, isn't it? Is our flesh does love the false
gospel. But as he says here, on pondering
the path of life, only those who go after the strange woman,
go after law and grace both, go after works gospel, there's
no rest, there's no peace, there's no joy, there's no, they ponder,
that's what they do is they ponder. And you know, you remember the
double-minded man, that's what they are, they're double-minded,
they're unstable in all their ways. That's just like the strange
woman here. Only those chosen of God, ordained
into eternal life, have a solid foundation. You notice here it
says, her ways, verse six, the end of verse six, her ways are
movable, thou canst not know them. Is that not true in religion?
Every time you would do something in false religion, there'd be
more to do, or you would be, have I done enough? Did I do
enough? Am I good enough? And then you do something else,
well have I done enough now? And it's movable, isn't it? There's nothing steadfast, there's
nothing firm in the false gospel. But with this gospel, our gospel,
the Lord's gospel, we have promises, we have hope, we have assurance,
we have rest. It's not the strange woman, it's
the Lord Jesus Christ that we look to. We have a hiding place, a hiding
place, those that You remember what the Lord said about those
who make a covenant with death? He said, I'm gonna disannul your
covenant. He said, you have made a covenant with death and with
hell you're in agreement. He said, I'm gonna disannul that
covenant. That covenant's not gonna stand.
There's no promise in that. There's no hope of salvation
in that. And they're just going through their life pondering
life. We don't have to ponder life.
Did you know that? Christ is the way, Christ is the truth,
Christ is the life. No man come to the Father but
by Him. So if we have Him, we have life. We don't have to ponder
it, we have Him. We know the path and purpose
of life. Have you ever been around somebody that has what's the
point, what's the point attitude? You know what I'm talking about?
Well, what's the point of us doing anything? What's the point
of this and what's the point of that? Bad attitude. You ever
been around somebody like that? They're toxic. They're toxic,
aren't they? They're toxic. You know the Lord's
people don't have that attitude. The attitude is not, well, what's
the point? This world's going to burn up
anyways. The world's going to fall apart anyways. Well, I know
that we know the God that's seated on the throne. He's the one that's
going to burn it up. That's why we don't have to ponder.
That's why we don't have to be afraid. That's why we have peace.
We don't have to worry. There's going to be wars and
rumors of wars. The scripture is very clear on that, but all
these things, they're just things. The message is look to Christ.
Don't ponder life. Don't ponder life, you're chasing
after unbelief and the strange woman, that's all that that is
again. No, he's saying look to Christ, look to Christ, flee
her, look to him, he has the life. You know who does not mix works
and grace? You know who don't ponder life
because they know who has life, who is life? Those that's been
called. of the Lord and shown the truth
of his gospel, those who he has revealed himself to, those who
he saved, they don't mix law and grace. We don't mix law and
grace. No, it's by grace are you saved through faith. We're
not looking for a work to do. We're looking for the one who
completed the work, who finished what his father gave him to do,
as he said in John 17. This is why we don't ponder the
path of life. We're made to see Christ. You
know why? You know why we don't ponder
as others do? Because we've been made sinners.
We've been made sinners. And if you've been made a sinner,
you have a need. You have a need to be saved. And if you've been made a sinner,
and I mean God made sinner, not a man made sinner, I can tell
you what the law says. And you can see that you sin
and trespass against the law. That's all I'm talking about.
I'm talking about a God made sinner. and you have a need that only
he can feel. Only he can feel. It's not the
things of the world that upset us. And then we do get upset
sometimes over that, politics, whatever it may be. What upsets
the believer is our sin. It's our unbelief. It's, Lord,
I wish I could believe you more than I do. The things which I
would do, Paul said, I don't do them. I would look to Christ
more. I would think on him more. I would do this more, and I would
do that more. But he said, the things I would not do, that's
exactly what I find myself doing. Can you relate to Paul in that?
That's it, isn't it? That's it. That's the... Let
me start. We get in trouble sometimes.
We'll start pondering life again. Not eternal life, we never ponder
that, but we'll start pondering the things of the world, be distracted
for a little while, and the Lord will bring us right back to Him.
Said, you're looking in the wrong places. You're not gonna find hope there.
You're not gonna find peace there. It's not out there. It's not
in the world. Christ is our peace. Christ is
our rest. Why do you keep coming to service
so much? Because I have to. I have to. I wanna hear about
Him. He's my rest, He's my hope. Understand brethren that this
strange woman, she's the lie and she appeals to the flesh. He uses a woman because that's
what's appealing to men. And that's exactly how it's described
because it appeals to the flesh. It appeals to the flesh. Well,
what is it exactly? Well, it could be false religion.
It could be taking matters into our own hands, not looking to
Christ. It could be a lot of things.
But what the Lord doesn't allow us to do, he doesn't leave us
to ourself before his. He brings us back to him, desiring
to have him, to have life and peace in him. Not in and of ourself,
but him. Men will spend Countless amounts
of money and countless amounts of time trying to find happiness. The happiness that can't take
away sin. Can't take away sin. But the
Lord Jesus Christ did for his people. He took away the sin
of his people. Nailed them to his tree. There's
happiness in that, isn't there? There's joy unspeakable and full
of glory. Happiness comes and goes, doesn't
it? Happiness, I can be happy one minute. The next minute I
can be angry. Happiness is gone, but joy of
the Lord. The reason the joy of the Lord is our strength is
because it doesn't come and go. We are always rejoicing that
it is finished, that it is finished. There's many that find this strange
woman, many that ponder the path of life, even though her ways
are movable. The word movable just means it's
not steady, not firm. We need something firm, don't
we? We don't have, we need, remember the foolish man who built his
house upon the sand. That's movable, isn't it? But
no, the wise man built his house upon the rock. The Lord is the
wise man and the rock is Christ and he has put his people on
the rock. No, the wisdom of God, see this
woman, This woman's wisdom, if you want to call it that, could
never make one wise unto salvation. It's a false gospel, but the
wisdom of God makes the soul wise unto salvation. That's what
his wisdom does. That's Christ. That's what he
does. There's none other that can do this. None other can do
this. A man can't teach you, um, A man cannot make you wise unto
salvation, he can't. Only God can do that. Now he
uses the means of preaching to do it, but it wasn't the man
that taught you, if you've heard, it was God that taught you. It
was God that sent his spirit and taught you. And if he teaches
us, he said they'll all be taught of me. If he teaches us, what
does he teach us? Christ is all. Stop pondering
on other things. Stop trying to find something
that's not there. Christ is all. There's your rest.
There's your hope. There's your peace. If our life
is hid, it is hid with God in Christ, isn't it? That's our
hope. You know, self-righteous Or and,
I'll say or and. Religious people are the most
miserable people on the planet and they don't even know it.
It's the truth. They don't even know it. They
think they're happy because they've made a covenant with death. But
it's futile what they've done. They haven't done anything in
God's eyes good. Their rest is a lie. Their peace
is a figment of their imagination. No wonder they ponder life. No
wonder they ponder the things of life and ponder salvation. Well, have I done enough? Did
I do the right thing? No rest. No rest. But understand something
on top of that. You don't have to be religious
to be self-righteous. Does that make sense? I'll explain.
I know people They believe that they're good enough for God the
way that they are. I don't know if they've ever
stepped foot in a church. I don't know if they own a Bible.
I don't know. They're just not a dedicated person in religion,
as I would call them. They think that they've done
good deeds to their peers, the people around them. Well, God's
going to reward me because I've been a good person. I had somebody
tell me that. Well, when I stand before him,
they literally said it's going to work out because I'm a good
person. That's what they said. That's
self-righteous. That's what that is. That's self-righteousness. But unless the Lord reveals that
we're sinners, we will glory in our own self-righteousness.
Not his righteousness, our own. Once he makes us a sinner and
he shows us our righteousness is filthy rags, they're worthless.
Our righteousness is worthless in his sight. That's when we
need the substitute, isn't it? That's when we need the Savior,
the Lord Jesus Christ. I say that about others sometimes,
and I want to say this. Every time I say that, I know
that I'm also saying, but for the grace of God, there go I.
It's not a justification of myself thinking that we've really arrived
and we have something nobody else has that we found and done
ourself. No, it was God that gave us the
truth. God that made us believe the truth. And I pray it's God
that keeps us in the truth. Because if we left to ourself,
we'll Fall away, won't we? What would we be with a hand
of God off of us for just a moment? I shudder at the thought. Shudder
at the thought. So we don't look down on other
people. We don't look down on other religions
in a sense of self-righteousness. We preach against it. Because
that's what the Lord did. He said, beware of the leaven
of the Pharisees. That's what we're doing right now. The same
thing our God said. But for the grace of God, you
know where we would be? We'd be down there with the hogs
eating the husks ourselves, wouldn't we? Just like the prodigal son.
Thank God the Lord made us. He came to where we were. The
wording there used for the prodigal son is he came to himself. When
he came to himself, he remembered what his father had. Well, that's
what the Lord did. He saved us and called us and
that's how we came to ourself. He did it, we didn't do anything. There's so many times we can
see those around us who are wealthy. And I don't just mean having
a lot of money. I mean having health as a, that's
a lot what's preached today is health and wealth. Did you know
that? A lot of places are, you just obey God, he'll bless you
with health and wealth. That's not a biblical message. You won't find that in the scripture.
Christ didn't come to set up an earthly kingdom. He came to
set up a heavenly kingdom. Anyways, the point I'm making
is people that are You ever heard the term easy street? Anybody
ever said that? I don't know if that's a southern
thing or not. So it's just an expression meaning they got it
easy. They've got it easier than everybody else. And oftentimes
we are tempted in our unbelief to look around at others and
to see their prosperity and their happiness and there seem like
nothing ever happens to them. And you know, Job had a woe is
me attitude. David had a woe is, matter of
fact, turn with me to Psalm 73. We'll look at David's account. Listen to his words here. Psalm
73 verse one, truly God is good to Israel, even to such as are
of a clean heart. But as for me, my feet were almost
gone. My steps had well nigh slipped
for I was envious at the foolish when I saw the prosperity of
the wicked. And here's why there's no bands
in their death. but their strength is firm. They
have a good grasp on their life. They feel like everything's fine.
They've made arrangements to meet God, they think, and it's
gonna be all right, and you see them not worry. Do you know who
worries about their sin? The ones that have their sin
put away. That's who. The ones that are worried about
sin are the ones that God has shown that you're a sinner. You're
concerned about your sin. only to cause us to flee to Christ
over and over again. They may not have any bands in
their death. Their strength is firm. They have a good grip on
life, it seems like, but they don't have peace when they lay
their head on their pillow at night. They don't have hope of
eternal life because of the finished work of Christ. They don't know
who God is. They don't know him. They may
ponder the things of life and think that everything's all right.
Only the Lord's people can rest knowing their sin has been forgiven. Their sin has been put away. They're not looking to fill an
empty void inside of them anymore. Christ filled that void. There's
no, there's rest now, there's peace now, there's hope now.
Let's read on, verse four, for there are no bands in their death,
but their strength is firm. They are not in trouble as other
men, neither are they plagued like other men. Therefore pride
can passeth them about as a chain. Violence covereth them as a garment.
Their eyes stand out with fatness. They have more than heart could
wish. They are corrupt and speak Wickedly concerning oppression,
they speak loftily. They set their mouth against
the heavens and their tongue walketh through the earth. Therefore
his people return hither and waters of a full cup are wrung
out of them. And they say, how does God know
and is their knowledge in the most high? They're questioning
God is what they're doing. Why is that? Because they are
their own God. Either God is your God, or you're
your God, and there is no in between, it's that simple. Either
God is your God, or you're your own God. Men don't realize that
they are their own God. In religion, that's what men
do whenever they say, I let God do this, and I let God do that.
They are saying they're God. That's what people are saying
in religion whenever they make a choice that affects them in
salvation, or make a choice that affects them spiritually. They're
saying, I'm God, not even realizing that's what they're doing. Skip down to verse 16. If I say
I will speak thus, behold, I should offend again. against the generation of our
children. When I thought to know this, it was too painful for
me until, here's the change. Here's the repentance. So for
16 verses, he has said, they don't have any pains in their
death. Their strength is firm. They got it easy, it seems like
to me. And I was envious of them having
it easy, but here's what I learned. God showed me this. Until I went
into the sanctuary of God, Then understood I their end. Surely
thou did set them in slippery places. Thou cast them down into
destruction. How are they brought into desolation,
as in a moment they are utterly consumed with terrors. As a dream,
when one waketh, so, O Lord, when thou awakest, thou shalt
despise their image. Thus my heart was grieved and
I was pricked to my reign. So foolish was I and ignorant.
I was as a beast before thee. Here's the hope. But here's the
hope. Even though he said I was foolish,
even though I had this unbelief, even though I was envious of
the wicked, he says right here, nevertheless, I am continually
with thee. Here's why. Thou hast holden
me by my right hand. Thou shalt guide me with thy
counsel and afterward receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven
but thee? And there is none upon earth
that I desire beside thee. My flesh, can you relate to this? My flesh and my heart faileth.
Can you relate to that? But God is the strength of my
heart and my portion forever. For lo, they that are far from
thee shall perish. Thou hast destroyed all them
that go whoring from thee. but it is good for me to draw
near to God. I have put my trust in the Lord
God that I may declare all thy works. David said, I was a fool. I was a fool for even considering,
considering the others. You see the world, how they're
going about as if nothing's happening, as if there's no God that they
have to deal with. And those who believe in God
don't, they profess to believe in God, they don't believe in
the true God by their confession. They're going about Pretending
like everything's all right. They've pondered life and got
it all figured out. David said, and I was envious
until I saw their end. I saw their end. Destruction
came upon them in an instant. They were without God and without
hope. You know why we don't ponder
life as they do? Because we have been given Christ
and Christ is all to his people. He is all. He is who we think
on. He is who we worship. He is who
we look to. He is who we rest our eternal
salvation in. None other, none other. You know these that he's describing
here, you know who never, They never worry about being the Lord's.
Did you know that? They never worry about being
the Lord's. You ask a believer what his greatest fear is, and
it would be the Lord lead me to myself, and I'm not his. Lord,
don't lead me to myself. And as we begin to look in our
lives, we'll start trying to find evidence of salvation. We'll
say, well, I know I'm a believer because of this. We want something
we can find, and it's our natural way. That's just unbelief. That's
just self-righteousness. That's what that is. I mean,
don't do it. Look to Christ who is your salvation. There's where
you're gonna find it. If you can look to Christ, you
can find it there. Look to Christ. Don't wonder,
Lord, am I yours? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Believe that he accomplished salvation. Don't ponder, am I
his? Beg him, Lord, save me. Cry out to him. Don't be presumptuous. Cry out to him. He never turned
away a mercy beggar. This self-righteous, strange
woman never worries about being the Lord's, never ponders on
her sin, ponders on her works, ponders on her good deeds, ponders
on her actions, how good that she is. But it's all filthy rags. But God makes us worry about
our sin or know, have not, I guess I should say, have knowledge
of our sin. It's ever present. Is it not ever present? You always,
you see yourself doing something and You're like, why did I do
that? What's wrong with me? Happens
to me, I'm sure it happens to you too. Why does the Lord allow
that to happen so that you and I will be made to run back to
Christ? We know that's the only place
for forgiveness of sin. We're made to continually say,
oh wretched man that I am, so that we have no confidence in
the flesh. If the Lord was to give us evidence of our salvation,
something we could see, Well, it wouldn't be faith, would
it? It wouldn't be faith. But you can look back over your
life right now and say, well, David, surely goodness and mercy
shall follow me all the days of my life. I see what the Lord's
done. Lord hasn't left me to myself yet. And you rejoice in
that. We're not presumptuous he's not
going to ever. He has the right. He has the
right to leave us to ourself if he chose to. But if we're
in Christ, he'll never leave us. He'll never forsake us. That's
the good news. That's why we don't have to ponder as these
do. That's why we don't have to reminisce over life and try
to figure it all out. We have it figured out. Christ
is all. The Lord's figured it out for us and gave us that understanding.
We don't ponder the path of life and consider the unbelievers
ways. We know their end. But if Christ died for us, we
have hope. We have hope. He died for us. He satisfied God on our behalf. Therefore, we have perfect oneness
with the Father. We don't hope in this world,
we hope in Christ alone. You ever thought to yourself,
I got ahead of myself there and I wanted to say this, I'm gonna
go ahead and say it now. You ever thought to yourself, boy,
you're a hypocrite. You ever thought that before?
You know who feels like the biggest hypocrite? Any preacher that
preaches the gospel when they stand behind the pulpit, it is
the most humbling. Well, Paul said, who's sufficient
for these things? That's the whole point to it,
isn't it? I've said enough about that, I suppose. But the point
I'm making is, you ever thought to yourself, well, if you were
really his, you wouldn't have done that. You ever thought that
one? You think Judas ever worried
about his sin? You think Judas ever worried about his sin? No,
he's the son of perdition. He didn't care. He wasn't made
a sinner. What about Peter? Was he worried about his sin?
Well, after he had denied the Lord, what did he do? He went
out and repented. The Lord gave him repentance. He cried, he
wept bitterly. Yeah, he was worried about his
sin insomuch that whenever the Lord asked him, Peter, do you
love me? It broke his heart. Broke his
heart. I hear men sometimes preach that.
I've heard in the past men preach that as if, well, the Lord was
saying, Peter, if you love me, you won't do that ever again.
That's not the message there. That wasn't the message. If you
love me, feed my sheep is what the Lord said. What is he saying?
Go tell others about me. Go tell them. Tell them there's
forgiveness with me. That's what he's telling them.
Peter, do you love me? Now, if Judas would have known
about his sin, he would have trusted the Lord, but he didn't. He thought,
I'm his disciple, I'm good to go. Peter denied the Lord, and
his heart was broken. You know what he thought, and
you know that this is what he thought. There's no way I'm the
Lord's. There's no way. Not because I
did that, there's no way. You know that's what he had to
be thinking. Why? Because he went fishing. He went back to doing
what he did before. He left the gospel. He went back
to doing what he liked doing to begin with. Here he is fishing
now. He didn't have a stitch of clothing on him when the Lord's
out there on the beach. So he grabs his coat and he jumps
in and swims to the Lord. And that's when the Lord asked
him, Peter, do you love me? That's us. That's you and I. If the Lord leaves us to ourself,
that's you and I. And that's us in our unbelief already. But
the good news of the gospel is, I have prayed for you, Peter,
that your faith fell not. I've prayed for you. That's the
hope we have. He didn't pray for Judas, didn't
love Judas, he loved Peter. He loved Peter. Peter's like you and I in so
many ways. He was examining himself for a moment, not looking to
the Lord. He was looking to his works. not the finished work
of Christ. He was looking to his efforts,
not the effort of the Lord Jesus Christ. He was looking at his
merits, not the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ. He was looking
at his own hands rather than the hands that were pierced of
the Lord Jesus Christ. The blood, he wasn't looking
to that. He was looking to self. It was all unbelief, wasn't it?
Faith does not examine self ever. Faith does not examine self.
Faith looks to Christ. Faith believes Him. Faith rests
in Christ alone. Faith points to the one who redeemed. Faith does not accuse and faith
does not excuse. Faith looks to Christ. So what is it that we do ponder,
brethren? What is it we do ponder? Well,
we ponder the blood, don't we? We ponder on the blood. We rejoice
in the blood. We ponder upon that. We ponder
our steps while we're looking to Christ, as he said in chapter
four, or yeah, chapter four of Proverbs. We ponder our steps.
We don't look to our feet, but we ponder our steps. Lord, am
I walking towards you? Lord, draw me unto you. That's
what we ponder. We don't have to ponder the path
of life, because the Lord's put us on the path of eternal life,
of eternal life. Christ is our life. And we know
the purpose. Of all things, have you ever
thought of it that way? You know the purpose of all things. All
things work together for good to them that love God, to them
that are called according to His purpose. So what's the purpose
of all things? The glory of God, the glory of God, the salvation
of God's people. That's the reason everything
was created and exists is for those, that right there. For
God to get all the glory and for His people to be redeemed
back to Him. The world and everything that
exists, they were made for the salvation of God's people. We don't have to ponder the path
of life, brethren. We know that there's only life
in Christ. We see him. We don't see ourself
anymore. We look to him. We don't look
to ourself. And the moment that we do, the moment that we do,
we're just like Peter walking on the water. We begin to sink
again. We begin to drown again. You
can look at the water there as being a picture of sin. Peter
was above the sin because the Lord's taken the sin away, hasn't
he? He put it away, but as soon as
Peter started looking away, he began to sink back down and just,
all this sin that I'm in, the Lord already put it away. You
understand what I'm saying? The Lord saved him. The Lord saved
him. Everyone else trusts self, not him, but we trust him, not
self. Only those called of God believe. Only those made needy
flee. Only those enabled to run to
Christ. They that are whole need not
a physician, but they that are sick I come to call the righteous.
I come not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. We don't have to wonder what
life is all about. We know what it is for, for the salvation
of God's people and all for his glory. In closing, go back to
Proverbs five with me. For the lips of a strange woman
drop as in honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil. But
her end is as bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Her
feet go down to death, her steps take hold on hell, lest thou
shouldest ponder the path of life. Her ways are movable, but
thou canst not know them. Stay clear of the strange woman. Stay clear of the strange woman.
Her path is death. Don't ponder. Don't ponder what
those who are ensnared by her ponder upon. Are you good enough
for God? No, but Christ is. Christ is,
and if you're in him, you're good enough. That's how that
works. If you're not, you're not. We don't have to ponder.
The Lord's answered all these questions, hasn't he? Believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ. and thou shalt be saved. Let's
pray. Father, we thank you that you
are our life and our life is hid with you, with God in you. Take this and bless it to our
understanding according to your will. In Christ's name, amen.