“All at once he follows her as an ox goes to the slaughter, or as a stag is caught fast til an arrow pierces its liver, as a bird rushes into a snare. He does not know that it will cost him his life.”
– Proverbs 7:22–23
These verses, what powerful imagery that beckons us specifically when it comes to temptations toward adultery or sexual immorality. This picture, whenever we walk into sexual immorality, into adultery, we’re like an ox walking to a slaughter. A stag caught fast til an arrow pierces its liver, a bird rushing into a snare. We don’t realize that what we’re doing costs us our lives. I just think about all the ways that each of us are tempted when it comes to sexual immorality. This is talking specifically about adultery, but just think the bigger picture, all the ways we are tempted in this area. In our culture, in our lives, in our marriages, and so we pray.
Sexual sin brings devastation and costs us our lives.
Proverbs 7:22–23 Helps Us to See the Devastation of Sexual Sin
God, help us to see sexual sin for the devastation it brings. Lord, keep us from being so foolish, like oxen walking into a slaughter. God, may it not be so in any one of our lives. Help us to run from sexual temptation. Lord, help us not to be like a bird rushing into a snare. Lord, help us to realize that it costs our lives, that it pulls us away from you, that it destroys not just our relationship with you, but destroys our relationships in marriage and future marriages. It destroys our relationship with other people around us.
Proverbs 7:22–23 Calls Us Away from Sexual Immorality
God, we pray that you would keep us from sexual immorality. Help us to see sin for what it is. The word says later, “Many a victim has the adulteress laid low and slain her a mighty throng. Her house is the way to Sheol, going down to the chambers of death.” Oh, God, please help us. We need your help, particularly in a culture marked by so much sexual confusion, sexual immortality, and so many different ways to help us be pure, make us holy. Keep us from walking to the slaughter. Help us to live in the life, in the purity, in the holiness that you have designed for us in the goodness that you have designed for us.
This Verse Leads Us to Stay Focused On Marriage
In marriage, help us to stay totally focused on our wife or husband. And in singleness, help us to stay totally focused on you until you lead us according to your will to a wife or a husband. Lord, help us to honor you with our sexuality. We pray, keep us from walking to the slaughter today and every day. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
