Proverbs 5:23

What happens to men who play with whores? They will be punished and die in shame. There are good and bad ways to die, but ending a life of fornication is one of the worst.

Chapter five of Proverbs warns about whores – women having sex outside marriage (Pr 5:1-14). Solomon wanted to save his son from fornication and adultery. Wisdom’s cure is to rejoice in the body and lovemaking of your own wife (Pr 5:15-19), for God sees and judges sexual sins (Pr 5:20-21), and sexual addiction will destroy fools (Pr 5:22).

Why did Solomon warn so often about whores? They are a great threat to young men, who by youth and hormones are vulnerable to them. This generation makes it worse by casual sex, loose women, lascivious movies and music, birth control, immodest clothing, pornography, mixed swimming, co-educational schools, carnal churches, no civil threat, abortion, coed gyms, unchaperoned dating, coed offices, sexting, and weak parenting.

The man here was instructed (Pr 5:12-14). He was taught often and well by parents and pastors to abstain from fornication (I Thess 4:3-8). He chose the life of a hypocrite by attending church but allowing himself to participate in fornication. At the end, when this horrible sin has killed his soul and ruined his life, he will die without benefiting from the instruction he had been given. He rejected the good advice and destroyed himself by sex.

Sexual sins give pleasure for a season, but it is a very short season (Heb 11:25). And then comes destruction and misery (Pr 5:9-11). Just ask Samson! The lust of the flesh craves sex, which is a man’s bodily desire for it (I Cor 7:1-9). The lust of the eyes fantasizes about women, either in person or in pictures. The pride of life tells a man he is the best and deserves the best, so he justifies sexual liberties. The combination of lusts is lethal.

The blinded victim cannot see past the curvaceous body, the wanton eyes, the bold face, and the painted lips to the destruction ahead (Pr 6:25; 7:13). He cannot hear above her flattering voice the warnings of his teachers (Pr 5:3; 7:14-18). His lusts have conspired together to take a woman for great pleasure. He goes after her as an ox to the slaughter and a bird to the snare (Pr 7:22-23); he cannot see he is committing suicide (Pr 2:18-19).

What he thought was for pleasure becomes his destruction! Sex outside marriage is sin, and God will judge it (Heb 13:4). Being the addicting sin that it is (Pr 5:22), it will lead a man astray from every good path (Pr 5:23). Though he was taught thoroughly about a successful life, the illusion of pleasure will destroy him inside and out. His great folly in thinking he can escape the consequences will take him forever from the paths of life.

Listen! Who do you think you are? You are not special. You were born, and you will die, just like others. God is not mocked. If you persist in this sin, He can and will blind you to do inconvenient things and ruin your life. Listen to your teachers. Repent today. Run not only from whores, but run as well from anything tending toward them (Matt 5:27-30; Ps 101:3; Rom 13:14). Maybe God will have mercy. Maybe it is not too late.

Can such an addicted prisoner be freed? Yes! By the gift of repentance from God (II Tim 2:25-26)! But the repentance must be the kind that God recognizes and rewards – the godly kind that clears men from sins (II Cor 7:10-11). David repented of his adultery and murder, and God freely forgave him and delivered him gloriously from destruction.

Thanks be to God! Jesus Christ has provided cleansing for all kinds of sexual sins (I Cor 6:9-11). And God sent Him to “proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound” (Is 61:1). Sexual sinners can be forgiven and freed from the bondage of their sins. Ask the woman of Samaria and others. Thanks be to God!