INTRODUCTION: The enemies of our souls that includes Satan and his kingdom of darkness, the world and its vain philosophies and enticements along with our own sin nature will do all they can to draw us away from the LORD. These enemies of ours hate the LORD and want nothing to do with Him! They draw us away primarily by seduction, temptation, leading to sin.
1 JOHN 2:26
These things I have written to you concerning those who try to deceive [seduce] you.
The Greek word for deceive or seduce is planao, and it means “to roam from safety, truth or virtue, to be seduced with the effect of wandering out of the way”.
REVELATION 2:20 the LORD Jesus Christ says to the church in Thyatira:
"Nevertheless I have a few things against you, because you allow that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, to teach [false doctrine] and seduce [leading to sin] My servants to commit sexual immorality [adultery] and eat things sacrificed to idols [idolatry].
The word “seduce” here is the same Greek word planao.
An adulteress seduces someone and INFLUENCES them to wander from virtue; a false teacher seduces and INFLUENCES a person to wander from truth; Satan as a roaring lion seduces and INFLUENCES the undiscerning to wander from safety.
Wine, or alcohol or any mind altering drug will seduce and INFLUENCE one to wander from good judgment.
Another thing about a false teacher is that they not only cause people to wander from the truth, but they replace truth with their own false doctrine, and this in a very real sense is a form of idolatry. Rather than worship JESUS Who is the Truth, and esteem the Word of GOD highly (Remember, GOD esteems His Word higher than His Most Holy Name!) they will essentially worship “give themselves over to, submit to, venerate”) their own teachings and exalt them above the holy revelation of GOD!
This is why leaven (yeast) in the Scripture is symbolic not only of false teaching that would exalt such lies over GOD’s truth but also of pride (and sin). At the heart of every sin is pride.
We’ll see some correlations between adultery and idolatry; between wine, and the world in these verses examined!
PROVERBS 23:27
For a harlot is a deep ditch, and a seductress is a narrow pit.
Israel is the wife of YHWH (ISA 54:5); she was to be faithful to the LORD, a chaste bride, following YHWH obediently but she was seduced by the pagan nations around her, by her enemy Satan that wants to see her proven unfaithful to GOD. Israel began to worship false gods and were in fact unfaithful.
Like a married woman going out and committing adultery, seducing men and having intimacy with them, rather than her own husband.
This is why idolatry is associated with adultery; in Israel’s case, this is spiritual adultery because she worshiped false gods rather than her Maker who is her husband.
The same can be seen in the church today, as well as the church in the days of apostle John, when he wrote about this woman (probably) nick-named Jezebel who seduced GOD’s servants to commit sexual immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols.
Just as Israel was forbidden to carve an altar from a rock in their worship of GOD (EXOD 20:25), the church worships the LORD Who is our ROCK, but there are those who don’t like the biblical Jesus. So they come up with their own and call Him a Muslim prophet, or call Him a Mormon Son of God, or call Him an avatar in Hinduism or an enlightened Ascended Master in the New Age movement or the occult. Or a Jesus that’s subservient to His Holy Mother.
They take their idolatrous chisels and hammers and remake Jesus into their preferred image. Too many Christians today have imagined Jesus as an all-loving, all-accepting kind of Lord that doesn’t judge, that doesn’t command holiness of His followers, that doesn’t stay “inside the box [of the Bible]” but is free to conduct Himself apart from the Holy Scriptures to do a so-called “new thing” – that is unbiblical.
An adulteress is like a very deep chasm; if you fall into one of these, you’re going to have a very difficult time getting back out! Sexual sin is the worst kind of bondage because it affects your person more deeply than most any other kinds of sin.
1 CORINTHIANS 6:15-20We sometimes shake our heads at the people of Israel in the Bible, wondering how could they be so blatant in their sin? How could they possibly go so far as to set up idols in the very Temple of GOD and commit abominations there? That was a Temple made of stone, where the presence of GOD manifested every so often.
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 harlot? Certainly not! 16 Or do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body with her? For "the two," He says, "shall become one flesh." 17 But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him. 18 Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. 19 Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? 20 For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's.
A very sobering thought is that you and I, as the Temple of the Holy Spirit commit even more serious transgressions, because the Spirit of GOD is permanently sealed in us (EPH 1:13), and when we commit a sin, any sin, He can’t depart from us as He did when He reached His limit with Israel’s abominations in the days of the prophet Ezekeil, left the Temple (Homework: EZEKIEL 11).
What can He do? Just be grieved and suffer and endure it. Until we confess our sin and be washed by the blood and get back into right relationship with the LORD.
The popular church song, “Deep and wide” refers to the fountains of living water available to all, enjoyed by the saints. Everlasting life through the Person of Jesus Christ! In contrast…
“…a seductress is a narrow well.” Literally this is a very tight place that causes distress and anxiety with no hope of escape. This actually describes a slime pit, which, without any rope or means of exit, these slippery pits were practically impossible to escape!
If ever we’re caught in such a place, we can, like David call upon the LORD!
PSALM 40:1-2This is why we want to keep close to the Shepherd (PSA 23), and not wander off, not allow ourselves to be seduced by our three enemies.
1 I waited patiently for the LORD; and He inclined to me and heard my cry. 2 He also brought me up out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my steps.
Be like Joseph, the son of Jacob, who while a slave in Egypt suffered a serious trial by his boss’ wife who tried to seduce him, not once or twice, but multiple times. What did this young man, who was in his sexual prime, do? He RAN!!
When sexual temptations come your way, whether in person, or on the Net, or in your imagination, what are you to do? RUN to the LORD in His Word, RUN to the LORD in prayer and remember HEB 4:16!
PROVERBS 23:28
She also lies in wait as for a victim and increases the unfaithful among men.
In the Bible, an adulteress woman can represent this fallen, sinful world that lies down in wickedness like a bed of adultery (1 JOHN 5:19b). This woman however lies not in the sense of reclining, but “lies in wait” to ambush! For an ambush to happen successfully, it has to happen quickly, to catch the victim by surprise.
This is a tactic Satan employs:
1 PETER 5:8It’s the nature of a hunting lion to lay quietly in tall grass, hidden from view. It stays quiet until the prey comes around, and even then, it remains silent until the intended prey is confident that they are in safe territory. Then it ROARS! The sound paralyzes its prey for only a couple of seconds, but in that moment, the lion springs to attack, and devours its prey.
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.
PSALM 17:8-9, 12-13
8 Keep me as the apple of Your eye; hide me under the shadow of Your wings, 9 from the wicked who oppress me, from my deadly enemies who surround me. 11 They have now surrounded us in our steps; they have set their eyes, crouching down to the earth, 12 as a lion is eager to tear his prey, and like a young lion lurking in secret places. 13 Arise, O LORD, Confront him, cast him down; deliver my life from the wicked with Your sword,
The adulteress waits for her victim, her prey, someone that she intends to steal from: their money, their integrity, their marriage fidelity. We’ve heard the expression many, many times, and we need to hear it again just as many times:
“Sin will take you farther than you want to go, it will keep you longer than you want to stay and cost you more than you want to pay.”
It’s an old story: a pastor, elder or deacon is drawn away, seduced and commits adultery or some other sin, and unbeknownst to them, the entire event is captured on video or otherwise recorded. The church leader is then blackmailed and made to do obscenely horrible things. I’ve heard similar stories of political leaders and high ranking officers of global corporations.
“The wages of sin is death” – as I’ve mentioned before: death here is not just ‘death’ but ruin, destruction, barrenness, the stripping away of prosperity, of joy, of the will to live. Ask the drug addict, the used up porn star, the business man, politician, clergy caught in scandal, the person fooling around with a Ouija board “just for fun”.
The adulteress “increases the unfaithful among men”. Not only does she rack up her trophies: these fallen men but once she catches them, she increases their unfaithfulness from day to day, making them more and more unfaithful and hardened in their sin.
People always say, “I can handle this. I know when to stop.” But sin deceives as well as hardens (HEB 3:13) and before you know it, you’re in a place, you never thought you’d be!
PROVERBS 23:29
Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has contentions? Who has complaints? Who has wounds without cause? Who has redness of eyes?
This relates all of the destructiveness that intoxicants of all kinds can have on a person that’s given over to them.
From Matthew Henry commentaries:
‘Don’t look upon the wine when it is red. Red wine in Canaan was looked upon as the best wine, it is therefore called the blood of the grape. "Don’t be ruled by the senses (sensuality), but by reason and religion (that is, devoted to the Christian faith). Don’t covet what pleases the eye, in hopes that it will please the taste; but let your serious thoughts correct the errors of your senses and convince yourself that that which seems delightful is really hurtful and resolve against it accordingly. Let not the heart walk after the eye, for it is a deceitful guide."PROVERBS 23:30
"Don’t be too bold with the charms of this or any other sin; don’t look [with intention] or else you’ll begin lust, [and] take the forbidden fruit… Wine is oil to the fire of lust.”
“Those that would be kept from any sin must keep themselves from all the occasions and beginnings of it and be afraid of coming within the reach of its allurements, lest they be overcome by them."
Those who linger long at the wine, those who go in search of mixed wine.
“linger” – to be slack, delay, to sit up late. To be “lax in disposition” There is an article I wrote a long while back called The Six Lethal Levels Leading To Sin, updated recently to The Seven Lethal Levels Leading To Sin, pastor Sonny added one more: Laxity, Location, Looking, Lingering, Lusting, Latching, Lynching.
Not being vigilant and on guard, but adopting a lax, easy-going, careless attitude will leave us defenseless when the enemy pounces. We also get in trouble when we are at a certain location where we ought not to be, or not being at a location where we should be. The worst location for a person with an alcohol addiction is at a bar!
Then when we are at a place where we shouldn’t be, we start looking at the object of desire – someone in person, something online, something in your imagination.
It's not just looking though; it’s lingering there: it’s not just a glance, but the second look, then the stare – what we take in with our eyes: this leads to lusting: craving something unlawful.
Then we latch onto what we lust for, taking hold of it, thinking “just this once” and “nobody will know” and “I can get forgiven after” but it isn’t long after we latch on, that we discover that our sin has latched onto us, and it won’t let go!
When sin has had its way with us, then we are lynched – we experience ruin, devastation, destruction, death in all of its ugly varieties.
PROVERBS 23:31-32
Do not look on the wine when it is red, When it sparkles in the cup, When it swirls around smoothly; 32 At the last it bites like a serpent, And stings like a viper.
The lust of the eyes – sin looks so good!
It did to Eve!
You remember what the forbidden fruit looked like to her?
GENESIS 3:6aSatan will be sure to make sin look attractive, and lead you to thinking, “What harm can it do, if I just try it, just this once?” Such INFLUENCES can’t make you sin, you still have the final say as a Christian, but without the Spirit of the LORD influencing you by your invitation, you are bound to fall!
So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes…
But this is what the fruit looked like from all of the fruit bearing trees!
GENESIS 2:9
And out of the ground the LORD God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.
So from Eve’s perspective, she was probably a bit confused: why should this fruit be forbidden? It looks just as good and pleasant as any other fruits of the different trees!
But as is the case with our verse in PROVERBS concerning wine, any sin once you partake, “”At the last it bites like a serpent, And stings like a viper.”
GALATIANS 6:8
For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life.
Just as Adam and Eve had a choice to make between the tree of forbidden knowledge and the tree of life that was also in Eden…
Just as Israel had the choice to make either to choose life and blessings under GOD or death and curses in rebelling against Him (DEUT 30:19)…
We have the choice – to either sow to the flesh and reap corruption, or sow to the Spirit and reap everlasting life.
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