“At the window of my house I looked through my lattice. I saw among the inexperienced, I noticed among the youths, a young man lacking sense. Crossing the street near her corner, he strolled down the road to her house at twilight, in the evening, in the dark of the night. A woman came to meet him dressed like a prostitute, having a hidden agenda. . .She seduces him with her persistent pleading; she lures with her flattering talk. He follows her impulsively like an ox going to the slaughter, like a deer bounding toward a trap until an arrow pierces its liver, like a bird darting into a snare—he doesn’t know it will cost him his life. Now, sons, listen to me, and pay attention to the words from my mouth. Don’t let your heart turn aside to her ways; don’t stray onto her paths. For she has brought many down to death; her victims are countless. Her house is the road to Sheol, descending to the chambers of death.” (Proverbs‬ ‭7‬:‭6‬-‭10‬, ‭21‬-‭27‬ ‭CSB‬‬ – Read the chapter)

The Internet changed pornography forever. It made not only incredibly easily available, but it made it anonymous. Used to you had to go somewhere disreputable in order to gain access, risking being seen and outed for what you were doing. Now you have access to it anywhere at anytime. Solomon couldn’t have imagined the world we live in. But just because he couldn’t have imagined it doesn’t make his wisdom any less sound. In fact, it makes his warnings against getting involved with anything related to it all the more important to heed. Let’s take a look at his longest reflection on it.

Perhaps the most important thing to understand about pornography today is that it is coming after you. That doesn’t mean you need to walk around fearful that it might jump out at you from under every rock, but it is seeking you out. There is an enemy who knows that if he can get his hooks into you this way, the likelihood that you will never really get those hooks out is disturbingly high. You might be a committed follower of Jesus, but still those hooks remain like old scars that ache for attention anytime it rains. And some days it rains a lot.

Because of the absolute ubiquity of pornography in so many different forms and fashions, you can hardly defend yourself against its unwelcome intrusions without completely disconnecting from the world, and that’s really not a viable option in most cases. Even a bit of harmless curiosity when children are young can unintentionally turn into a rabbit hole that makes Alice’s trip to Wonderland look like a mere slight diversion from the right path. And this rabbit hole won’t lead to anywhere even remotely wonderful.

The passage here is long enough I didn’t want to transcribe the whole thing, but I also couldn’t find a good way to break it up into smaller bits. It all goes together. The part I left for you to read on your own describes this kind of intentional seeking out that sexual sin so often does. Using language and an illustration that is culturally hard, but fit with his own culture, Solomon imagines a woman who actively seeks to entice a foolish young man off the path of righteousness. She doesn’t take no for an answer. She keeps doggedly pursuing him until he finally gives in and loses himself to his wrongheaded desires.

This is what we face every time we walk out of our doors. In fact, we don’t even have to walk out of our doors to find it. The little device in your hard you are probably reading this on has access to more garbage and darkness than you could even imagine. And you don’t have to go anywhere to get at this. Your feet don’t even have to hit the floor. It’s coming after you.

Solomon’s tale here raises several important observations about the trap of sexual sin that are worth noting. Let’s look specifically at three that are in just the verses I included at the top here. We’ll start in the middle. As much as we might like to pretend otherwise, we know sexual sin is wrong. We know it. The inexperienced young man Solomon observed (more on him in a second) wasn’t walking this evil and dangerous path during the day when everybody could see him. No, “crossing the street near her corner, he strolled down the road to her house at twilight, in the evening, in the dark of the night.”

The dark is a place and time for doing things we don’t want others to know about. If you are going to get on your phone or computer and look up pornography, my guess is that you are going to do that in the bathroom, in your bedroom with the door closed, or when it’s late at night when everyone else is asleep. Why? Because you don’t want anyone else to know you’re doing it. You are ashamed of it. If you weren’t ashamed, and weren’t aware that there will be negative, painful consequences if your actions are discovered by others, you would do it right out in the open where anyone could see. But you don’t. Because you know otherwise. And as much as you might like to think you could stop anytime you wanted, I’d be willing to bet a fair amount that’s not true. That’s also the language of an addict.

I’ll give you some credit, though. You didn’t mean to fall down this hole. You didn’t know what you were doing at the beginning. Solomon acknowledges that at the beginning of this passage. “At the window of my house I looked through my lattice. I saw among the inexperienced, a noticed among the youths, a young man lacking sense.” It wasn’t an older and wiser man with much experience of the world and its dangers that Solomon saw. It was an inexperienced, young man who was lacking sense. Your journey into the darkness started innocently enough. You likely really didn’t know any better.

Yet this enemy was waiting to pounce, to strike, to capture you in its web. “She seduces him with her persistent pleading; she lures with her flattering talk. He follows her impulsively like an ox going to the slaughter, like a deer bounding toward a trap until an arrow pierces its liver, like a bird darting into a snare—he doesn’t know it will cost him his life.” You were clueless of the dangers. Unfortunately, that doesn’t make them any less dangerous. It doesn’t make them any less deadly.

What this means, older and wiser men and women, is that we can’t assume our young people are going to figure this all out on their own. We have to train them. We have to teach them. We have to warn them and guide them. And we have to start all of that far earlier than we actually do. Having these kinds of conversations feel horribly awkward to us—and this is especially true if you have or do struggle with all of this—but we’ve got to take courage and do it anyway. We’ve got to teach them about what is right, what is wrong, and how to tell the difference between one and the other. We’ve got to teach them why the wrong is wrong because it is going to dress up to seem very nice. We’ve got to give them a positive vision of why denying self here is so worthwhile. And we’ve got to do all of this because the stakes really are very high.

“Now, sons, listen to me, and pay attention to the words from my mouth [there’s that urging once again]. Don’t let your heart turn aside to her ways; don’t stray onto her paths. For she has brought many down to death; her victims are countless. Her house is the road to Sheol, descending to the chambers of death.” It doesn’t seem like it here and now, but this really is a life and death issue. This really is a matter of the highest concern. Maybe someone only goes a little ways down into this hole and mostly just stays there, but a great many more slip in much deeper and find themselves losing far more than they actually have to give.

This is the last time Solomon is going to address this issue in this opening section. There will be individual proverbs that touch on it that we will cover as they come, but this is the last full dip into these waters. Perhaps that’s why Solomon makes this the most graphic and intense. But this is important stuff. We have to talk about this from time to time because if we don’t shine light here, there’s just too much darkness to allow these deadly vines to take root and wreak great amounts of havoc. If you are in that darkness, step into the light. It won’t be easy. There almost assuredly will be consequences. But facing those consequences now while they are comparatively mild with what they will eventually be is the better option.

Let me add one more note of hope here. If you are tangled in this web and are a follower of Jesus, know well that His love for you hasn’t changed. The enemy will try to convince you otherwise, try to convince you that this filth has tarnished your value in God’s eyes. It hasn’t. At all. In fact, if such a thing were even possible, His love for you is even greater now than it was before. He will run to you when you turn back toward Him, embrace you, and walk with you out of the darkness and into His glorious light. You will not be alone. So start walking. You’ll be glad that you did.