All at once, he follows her, as an ox, goes to the slaughter or as a stag is caught fast till 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
This passage is part of a larger picture in Proverbs 7 of the temptation, specifically to adultery, that Proverbs 7 describes and the imagery is so potent and piercing. Quite literally it talks about how a man is following a woman like an ox going to the slaughter. He doesn’t realize this is going to cost him his life. This is serious language in God’s Word for marital unfaithfulness that should cause every husband and wife to run as hard as you can by the power of the Holy Spirit in you, away from any thought, any desire, any action, any words, conversations that in any way lead in this direction to run in the opposite direction.
Proverbs 7:22–23 is a warning against sexual immorality.
But not just husbands and wives. We know all throughout God’s Word that he has designed sexual activity to be experienced only between a husband and wife. So anybody who’s not a husband or a wife, so if you are single, to run from thoughts, desires, conversations, words that lead you toward sexual activity with somebody who’s not your husband or wife, to flee sexual immorality, to use language from 1 Thessalonians 4, “This is the will of God for your life,” to flee that. And anyway, in every way, you just think of all the temptations to sexual immorality on a phone, on a screen, in our thoughts, in our desires, in our actions to run from it today. This is what God is saying to every single one of us today, run from any and all sexual activity outside of marriage between a husband and a wife.
So God, we pray that you would help us to hear and heed your Word in Proverbs 7. Help us to hear your warning, to heed your warning to us of how costly sexual immorality is. Even as we think about 1 Corinthians 6 and your words to us there, that our bodies belong to you and you have good designs for them. God, help us to trust your designs more than our desires. Help us to run to life, which means running away from sexual immorality.
Proverbs 7:22–23 is a calling to honor our bodies as temples of the Spirit.
God, help us to remember that our bodies are the temples of your Holy Spirit. Help us to glorify you with what we think, with what we look at… With what we take into our minds and our hearts, what we desire, what we say, what we do. God help us in every way to pursue sexual purity in our lives… Knowing we’re going totally against the grain of this world and in so many ways, so many times… The desires of our own hearts, our flesh, God, purify our hearts. Make us holy. Help us to glorify you with our bodies… And in the process to experience life and not to lose it according to Proverbs 7:23.
And God, even as we pray this, we praise you for the gospel. We praise you for your forgiveness, for when we fall in these ways. God, we pray that you would help us to repent and to receive your forgiveness. Receive your grace to know that we don’t live in the shame of past sin. And at the same time, God, we pray that any past sin and your grace and forgiveness that covers that would lead us to pursue holiness in even greater ways today by the power of your Holy Spirit in us. Oh God, we praise you for the gospel, for its reach into every facet of our lives. We pray that your gospel would daily transform our understanding of our sexuality… Of what it means to be a man, a woman, made by you to glorify you with our bodies.
Prayer for Unreached People Groups
We pray this for our lives. God, we pray for unreached people groups who haven’t heard that you’ve made us for a relationship with you… That Jesus has made it possible for us to be forgiven of all our sins… And restored into a relationship with you to experience the life you’ve created us to live as women and men made in your image. God, we pray all of this according to your Word in Proverbs 7:22–23. In Jesus name. Amen.
David Platt serves as a Lead Pastor for McLean Bible Church. He is also the Founder and Chairman of Radical, an organization that helps people follow Jesus and make him known in their neighborhood and all nations.
David received his B.A. from the University of Georgia and M.Div., Th.M., and Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Some of his published works include Radical, Radical Together, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, and Don’t Hold Back.
He lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area with his wife and children.
