The Snare and the Cross—Proverbs 7

I suppose every sermon on the book of Proverbs could begin with an illustration of a man standing at a fork in the road, choosing between the way of life and the way of death. I hope that's what you want. The Bible isn't written just to help you choose between chocolate and vanilla ice cream, or between a Ford and a Toyota. Sure, things you learn from the Bible may help you make those decisions. The Bible touches on every area of our lives, but it does so because it strikes at the heart, at matters of life and death.

So here we are again at the fork in the road, and Proverbs makes it simple: Wisdom is life, adultery is death. Choose life, not death. And we need simple. We're a lot like little kids who need black and white answers. But we also need to grow up. And God challenges us to grow up too. Jesus tells us that the choice between life and death is a choice between two ways to die. It's a choice between the snare of the world and the cross of Christ.

Let's think about the snare of the world described in this chapter. First, Proverbs tells us about the way of life, the way to escape the snare. You escape the snare of the world by choosing wisdom. Take God's words and "write them on the tablet of your heart." What words do you remember and think about most? What's written on the tablet of your heart? For many of us, what's written on the tablet of our heart is a lot of things that other people have said about me. Whether good or bad, those are the things that matter to us. For some of us, what's written on the tablet of our heart is our bank account balance. That's how we assess our worth. Proverbs says, what should matter most to you, and what you should remember best, is the word of God.

It also says that you should call wisdom your "sister" and your "intimate friend." In Solomon's culture, calling a woman "sister" who wasn't your sister by birth was an intimate thing to do. In the Song of Songs, the bridegroom calls the woman "my sister, my bride." The idea here in Proverbs 7 is that instead of looking for an intimate relationship with another man's wife, you should try to get close to Lady Wisdom. It isn't hard to draw the conclusion that one thing a young man should do to escape the snare of the world is to find a wise wife. But, wife or no wife, every man should cling to wisdom, who can keep him "from the forbidden woman, from the adulteress with her smooth words."

The other way is the way of death - adultery. There's a young man wandering around. And this married woman comes out to look for him. And she has some attractive qualities. She's physically affectionate, which isn't a bad thing in itself - go back to the Song of Songs for that. She's religious - at least, she says she has offered a sacrifice and fulfilled a vow, although we don't know if she's telling the truth, and we don't know what god she worships. But religion certainly isn't bad in itself. And she pays the young man personal attention: She has come out to look for him, specifically, not just any man. And she's offering love, romantic love, which isn't a bad thing in itself - in fact, it's one of the best things in creation.

What's wrong? Two things. First, she's betraying her husband, breaking vows which she made in the presence of the true God, whatever gods she may worship. And second, even if we imagined that she weren't married already, we can see that she isn't making any commitment to this young man beyond the events of one night. God designed sexual intimacy as an expression of marital love. Sexual intimacy is a kind of wordless promise to love and cherish till death do you part. For her, it's a wordless lie.

Either one of these two things - betrayal, and lack of covenantal commitment - would ruin what this woman calls love. These aren't small problems, like a little too much salt in the soup. These are arsenic in the soup. Adultery is deadly. "Her house is the way to Sheol, going down to the chambers of death."

Proverbs doesn't tell us how the young man will die. Maybe the husband will come home and kill him in jealous wrath. Maybe he'll be caught by someone else and brought to trial for adultery, a capital crime in ancient Israel. But maybe not. The main point is that the man who chooses adultery forsakes the living God. And life without God is walking death.

In Proverbs, the choice is simple. Just choose wisdom! Just choose life!

Jesus makes things more complicated. He had to, because we have to grow up. Along he comes and says this: "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it" (Matthew 16:24-25). To choose life, you have to choose death. It sounded so good in Proverbs - the kid version. It sounded nice to choose life and not death. But now, Jesus tells me to choose death on a cross. Where can I find the courage to do this?

I can find the courage in Jesus, who did it before me, and did it for me. Jesus, the Son of God, willingly died on a cross for my sake. I was the sinner, he was the sinless one. But he came to earth and became a man and died for me, because he loved me. That's why I should follow him, and knowing his love gives me the courage to follow him.

And now the choice lies before us. It's a choice between life and death, but more specifically, it's a choice between death that looks like life and life that looks like death. The young man walking off with the adulteress may feel more alive than ever before, but every step takes him away from true life, from the living God. Christ, on the other hand, didn't look like he had chosen life as he hung and the cross. Neither do we when we take up the cross. We may still enjoy some of the good things of life: Jesus said that "the Son of Man came eating and drinking," and Proverbs recommends the joys of marriage. But we enjoy even these good things with one foot in eternity. And when the choice comes between the comforts of the world and suffering for Christ, we choose him. We do it because he first loved us and gave himself for us.

Pastor Nate Jeffries