Proverbs 5: Overcome Sexual Temptation

Sexual sin is highly addictive, very common, and wildly destructive. It is one of the main outlets for our sinful flesh.

And this is exactly why the Bible talks so much about how to defeat lust. Perhaps one of the best places to learn how to fight sexual sin is Proverbs 5. While this passage warns against the adulterous woman, Proverbs offers principles that apply to all of us, men and women.

1. Look Past the Present Pleasure and Focus on the Future Pain of Sexual Sin

My son, be attentive to my wisdom; incline your ear to my understanding, that you may keep discretion, and your lips may guard knowledge. For the lips of a forbidden woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil, but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death; her steps follow the path to Sheol; she does not ponder the path of life; her ways wander, and she does not know it.” (Proverbs 5:1-6)

Like all sin, sexual temptation offers pleasures but in the end produces pain. If you feel lonely and a man starts pursuing you sexually, there will be a temporary relief. However, when you come to your senses after your sexual sin, your loneliness will actually feel even worse.

There’s no sense in denying the truth that sexual sin feels good in the moment, both physically and emotionally. The key to resisting this pleasure is to consider the even greater pleasure you will receive by remaining faithful to God.

Sin gives you short-term pleasure with long-term pain. Holiness requires short-term pain but then results in long-term pleasure (Hebrews 12:1-2).

2. Stay Close to Biblical Teaching and Stay Away From Sexual Temptation

And now, O sons, listen to me, and do not depart from the words of my mouth. Keep your way far from her, and do not go near the door of her house, lest you give your honor to others and your years to the merciless, lest strangers take their fill of your strength, and your labors go to the house of a foreigner, and at the end of your life you groan, when your flesh and body are consumed, and you say, ‘How I hated discipline, and my heart despised reproof! I did not listen to the voice of my teachers or incline my ear to my instructors.  I am at the brink of utter ruin in the assembled congregation.’” (Proverbs 5:7-14)

If you are familiar with those people who have found success in drug and alcohol recovery programs, you know that they go to a lot of support group meetings and they stay away from their triggers. Those who relapse usually do so once they stop meeting with their recovery group members and start hanging around the old people, places, and things that they used to during their days of drug use.

In Proverbs 5:7-14, we are given the same advice as a means to fight sexual sin. We are told to “not depart” from biblical teaching and to “keep your way far from her, and do not go near the door of her house.”

One of the main ingredients to success is to consume large amounts of biblical teaching and to avoid sexual temptation whenever possible. You have to be around other Christians, read the Bible, listen to sermons, and always keep your mind on Christ (Colossians 3:2-5).

If you want to find success in your fight against sexual sin, you must not only stay away from the bad, but you must also constantly pursue the good (Romans 12:21). Which leads us to point 3.

3. Use Your Sex Drive as God Intended

Drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own well.Should your springs be scattered abroad, streams of water in the streets? Let them be for yourself alone, and not for strangers with you. Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth,  a lovely deer, a graceful doe. Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight; be intoxicated always in her love. Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?” (Proverbs 5:15-20)

One of the main misunderstandings I see Christians make when trying to overcome sexual sin is that they start thinking sex is sin or that their sexual drive is something that needs to be removed.

Human sexuality, physical attraction, and romantic feelings, however, are all gifts given to humanity by God himself. God made all of these things. Sin is when we take a good thing and use it in a bad way. Sexual sin is no different.

Therefore, rather than praying, “God, please take my sex drive away!” we should ask God to help us use his gifts in proper ways. A healthy sex drive is one sign you are called to pursue marriage (1 Corinthians 7).

In fact, your sex drive is meant to be used to cause motivation to pursue marriage. When you use your sexual desires on premarital sex or porn, you are also unplugging the drain on your motivational reservoirs. To meet, date, and marry the right person, you will need to overcome a lot. But when you keep placating yourself with sexual sin, you’re missing out on the God-given motivation to do hard things to be with the right person.

In 1 Corinthians 7:9, Paul doesn’t just say, “Don’t burn with passion anymore.” Rather, he says you should get married, which insinuates that the energy that was being used to pursue sexual sin should be used to pursue holy sex in marriage.

4. Remember: No Sin Is Secret. We Reap What We Sow

For a man’s ways are before the eyes of the Lord, and he ponders all his paths. The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him, and he is held fast in the cords of his sin. He dies for lack of discipline, and because of his great folly he is led astray.” (Proverbs 5:21-23)

Premarital sex happens in places where no one else knows. People look at porn in the night when no one is around. Strip clubs are placed on the outskirts of town where people are less likely to be seen entering them.

But Proverbs 5:21 motivates us to repent by reminding us that no sin is truly secret because God sees all. Only when we truly believe what Proverbs 5:21 states will we resist secret sexual sin. Galatians 6:7, “Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.”

Only by remaining in the Spirit can we seek to please the Spirit. Galatians 5:16, “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.”

If you want help doing this, I’ve created a completely free course that is all on YouTube. Click this playlist to take 30 Days of Sanctifying Your Sexuality completely for free.