Escape from Immorality
Digest of a sermon by Harold E. Burchett

The dreaded disease of leprosy has been reported in Rhode Island. This disease mentioned so often in the Bible is today largely controlled. However, there is another ancient disease also mentioned much in Scripture that is today raging out of control.

This “disease” is highly contagious and destructive – even damning the soul. It is immorality.

Much attention is given drug addiction today, but its numbers are nothing compared to this evil. Immorality is highly addictive and fatal.

Consider what part adultery plays in our terrible divorce rate. Many more who don’t divorce or cheat try to avoid falling by only flirting. But it is all the same sin – the powerful drug of lust. Flirting is to marijuana what adultery is to heroin.

Amid all the protests and action committees, who rises against this terrible epidemic? God does.

Open your Bible to the book of divine wisdom, Proverbs. Here the right way is said to be the way of wisdom. Wisdom is godly knowledge, lived out in everyday practice. In Proverbs, wisdom is personified as a pure, virtuous woman. Men are then urged to go after her, and promised, “Cherish her, and she will exalt you; embrace her, and she will honor you.”

In contrast, the way of sin is pictured as the wiles of a wicked woman. To embrace her brings not blessing, but a curse!

Now every person hugs something. What is close to your heart? Our key text is Proverbs 5:20. Read it. “Why, my son, be intoxicated with another man’s wife?
Why embrace the bosom of a wayward woman?”

Think how wild-spreading this moral cancer is. It touches both young and old. It seeps into the mind, the affections, the body. It is malignant and consumes everything it takes hold of.

Facing this sin as it really is should lead every man to desire the Savior Jesus Christ. Only He can relieve from sin and satisfy the heart.

I. NATURE OF THIS SIN

In dramatic fashion, Scripture uncovers the deadly character of all sin and focuses on this particular evil. Unlike so much modern theater and literature, here in the Bible is realism that is wholesome. Rather than seducing one into unclean thoughts, Scripture helps one escape the murky waters.

Now, you will need to use your Bibles for this study. Open to Proverbs 5:20. “Why, my son, be intoxicated with another man’s wife? Why embrace the bosom of a wayward woman?” The very next verse pictures the holy eyes of the offended God seeing all. This brings across the truth that immorality is rebellion against God. “So is he who sleeps with another man’s wife; no one who touches her will go unpunished.” 6:29. Not only are human vows broken, the very covenant with God is forsaken and eternal death looms ahead, 2:19.

Though it begins as a tiny thought-seed, it will finally occupy the mind and cry for expression. From the very beginning, it is sin. Jesus warned that to look with lust is adultery in the heart, Mat. 5:18.

Deception is always a mark of immorality. It needs darkness. To arouse the straying one to his error, God’s Word asks, WHY do you do so? 5:20. That question must pierce through a veritable armor of deception and excuses. Seldom does one admit, “I am unclean and immoral.” Not until they are thoroughly “hooked” – and then it is too late.

See how the deception works in 2:16. The adulteress comes with her seductive words.” “Oh no,” objects the man, “she is so good to me. I lack encouragement at home. Now, I have found one who understands. It is all so right. I’ve never been so happy.” Words often heard on the road to the noose!

“I love him so much; I just can’t give him up,” is also frequently heard. But a relationship condemned in the Bible is never love, it is lust. Furthermore, the one you claim to love is the one you are selfishly harming and destroying. Love? No!

Study 5:3-6 and you will see deception compounded by confusion. Playing loose with moral standards sets one adrift. Instability threatens all purposeful living.

Not only is there rebellion and deception is this sin, there is also a kind of intoxication. Addiction is clearly shown in our text, 5:20. Citing the margin of the NASB translation: “For why should you, my son, be intoxicated with an adulteress….?” Like a heavy drug, this evil is said to capture its victim and ensnare him with cords, verse 22. None who go to her return or attain the paths of life.

One has to admit that this way is desperately wrong. See! You are falling, falling. The hooks are fastened. Already, you do not want to be free. You are held. Tied to it. Few there are who experience God’s mercy and help to escape this snare, once the sinful nature is inflamed with infection.

It is utterly terrifying to consider that the very man Solomon whom God used to write these proverbs was taken into this exact trap and all but destroyed. “So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!” I Cor. 10:12.

II. EFFECTS OF IMMORALITY

Entire nations have collapsed under God’s judgment because of depraved morals.

Individuals never escape punishment, mentally, physically, spiritually – even socially. Let’s take these in order.

Almost immediately there is tension. Because the inner shades are pulled down, shutting out light and creating self-deception, the deepening tension is at first unnoticed. Soon irritability appears and finally, bitter emptiness and depression, 5:4.

The next verse puts it plainly, “Her feet go down to death; her steps lead straight to the grave.” This descent in physical deterioration is described in 5:9-14. We hear the bitter wait, if only I had listened! The sensuous woman’s “house leads down to death and her paths to the spirits of the dead.”

There is no way of escape as God’s condemnation falls and ultimately the spirit is driven out into damnation, 2:18, 19. Eph. 5:5 declares such a one has no inheritance in Christ’s kingdom.

Study through Proverbs 6:20-35. Notice the blight immorality carries.

One of Scripture’s most descriptive scenes is in Prov. 7 where the naïve, foolish young man strolls, half on purpose, near the harlot’s house. Her manner stirs him. (It even carries a dash of religion!) His resistance caves in and “All at once he followed her like an ox going to the slaughter.” Soon he will be pierced through as with a dart, but “little knowing it will cost him his life.”

III. LIBERATION FROM IMMORALITY

The best way “out” is not to go “in.” God’s wisdom is aimed at keeping us from the evil man and the sensuous woman, 2:10-16. Keep close to God’s Word and stay far away from her door, 5:7, 8. Remember how Joseph ran from Potiphar’s wife and refused to be around her. That is God’s way.

In 5:15-20 married men are admonished to keep their interests entirely centered on their own wives. It is not automatic that this satisfies every desire, but if one chooses to obey Christ entirely without reservations, He promises His help and satisfaction. How thankful a wife ought to be if her husband is obeying Christ at this point.

If you have already fallen or become ensnared in the web of lust and immorality, you must repent at once – right now. There must be an absolute break. Here is one sin to which you never wave bye bye. “But there is something I must straighten out.” “I simply can’t walk out of the other one’s life and never explain.” Yes, you must! Taking one more fix of a drug merely strengthens the addiction. If explanations are needed, get a third party to do it.

If you need counsel—and many really need such help – call for it. Probably you will have sinned against someone else, too, and will need to confess it and make it right.

Said Jesus to the oft-fallen woman with many lovers, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” John 4:13,14. Is that not good news? Turn now to Jesus Christ the Lord in definite prayer, reading First John 1:7.