chambers of death

"With her much 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 that it is for his life."

Proverbs 7:21-23

I don't want to write on this topic. I've spent most of the week trying to glean something else out of Proverbs 7, and tonight I considered skipping the chapter altogether--but if you're going to write a series on Proverbs, you can't escape this. Solomon devotes entire chapters to it.

The topic is sexual sin, what used to be called fornication. Nowadays that word is out of favour; the only people who use it are the ranting lunatic preachers we see caricatured on TV. I don't like to write about it for several reasons, chief among them being that I can hardly walk out the door without this Sin of our Age bombarding me, and I see no reason to drag readers through the mud again.

And yet we can't ignore it.

We can't ignore what Scripture says about it. Now more than ever we need to listen up. Now more than ever we need to tell the truth about this sin and what it does to people. Now more than ever we need to say with Solomon that "she hath 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" (Prov. 7:27-28).

Of all the damaging, destructive lies sold to our society, none is so pervasive as the lie that freedom is found through breaking God's sexual laws, that there are no consequences to sin. The incredible thing is that so many people have bought this, when every unwed teenage mother, every child without a father, everyone struggling with an STD, every man staring at the wreckage of his family, wishing somehow he could undo things--everyone who has broken God's law--knows better. We know it hurts. We know it destroys. We know it promises fulfillment and leaves us empty and broken.

Yet we won't admit it.

As believers it's easy to look at society and shake our heads, wagging our fingers and tsk-tsking. But what about us? What are the standards in our own lives, among our congregations, among our groups of friends? Do we display the fear of God in our actions, words, and thoughts? Do we approach relationships in a way that honours others and proclaims the truth of God? Furthermore, when we do speak out against sin--and we should--do we come down from on high, smugly informing sinners that they should have listened, or do we say with Solomon's passion and urgency, "Listen, my son!"

Listen. Hear this. The path you take leads to the chambers of death. If we are dishonest about this, we betray ourselves and others. Compassion, and the Compassionate God, call us to live purely, to speak out, to confront this Destruction and tend the wounds inflicted by it.