A True Woman Chooses Wisdom

*This message was transcribed from Mary's True Woman '08 workshop message.

Mary Kassian: Now most of you would have heard about the Girls Gone Wild phenomenon—right? The buses that go around the country to various places, various beaches, particularly when there is Spring break, and for the price of a tee-shirt, the young women are asked to do all sorts of things. Say, “If I give you a tee-shirt, would you bare your breasts for me?” And these women do it, and they do things that are a lot more vulgar and crude even.

I remember the time when such things would be just shameful, and you wouldn’t even think of it. That would be even a disgusting thing to ask of a woman, but times have changed, and women have changed, and the girls have gone wild.

Have you noticed how aggressive the girls have gotten—for you women who are a little bit older? For you women who are younger, you’ve been raised in a society that teaches you to be very aggressive and go for it. If there’s something you want, go for it.

We’re going to be talking about some passages of Scripture. I’m going to be doing a contrast between what the Lord teaches us what we should be as women. Because He wants us to be feminine, and He wants us to be women, and His Word gives us some directions about what that means for our behavior. We are not Tarzan; we are Jane. Okay? We are Jane. The Bible gives a contrast between wild women, what wild women’s behavior is like, and what a wise woman’s behavior is like. So just before we get started, I would like to pray and ask God’s Holy Spirit to be in this place and guide and direct and convict and correct, and do all those things that He does best, so let’s just bow in prayer.

Heavenly Father, I pray that You would be present in this place through the power of Your Holy Spirit. I pray that right now You would come and breathe fresh energy into our spirits so that our ears can be opened to the words You have for us through Your Word, the holy Word of God.

Heavenly Father, soften our hearts. I pray that You’ll speak, and I pray for ears to listen. In the name of Jesus, amen.

Alright, I told you we were going to do some work. We’re going to have a look at several passages. A few of them I will read. A few of them I will just let you write down the references so you can read through them later. I will be posting up these power point slides on my website, so if you’ve missed something, you can get it down later, because there are 21 points. Now isn’t that suicide? You think it’s bad when you go to church on Sunday and there’s three. I have 21 points—21 contrasts that we see between what the Lord would say is a wild out-of-control woman and one who is a wise woman, a woman according to His heart and according to His Word.

Nancy loves to teach from this passage as well. I do it a little bit differently, but it is a very telling, revealing passage in Proverbs chapter 7 that I would like you to turn to right now.

Now in this passage there is a father talking to his son about how to be smart and how to live wisely, and he gives a warning about a certain kind of woman. So this passage paints a picture of the wild woman, of the type of woman that the father wants the son to be weary of, the son to avoid this type of woman. So by taking this passage and a little bit out of the chapter just before and contrasting it to some other passages in Scripture, we can paint this contrasting picture, and we will see it developing, the 21 contrasts between the wild and the wise.

So I’m going to start reading chapter 7, and we’re going to read the entire chapter—isn’t that a novel concept? That’s a good thing to do.

My son, keep my words and store up my commands within you. Keep my commands and you will live; guard my teachings as the apple of your eye. Bind them on your fingers; write them on the tablet of your heart. Say to wisdom, “You are my sister,” and call understanding your kinsman; they will keep you from the adulteress, from the wayward wife with her seductive words.

At the window of my house, I looked out through the lattice. I saw among the simple, I noticed among the young men, a youth who lacked judgment. He was going down the street near her corner, walking along in the direction of her house at twilight, as the day was fading, as the dark of night set in. Then out came a woman to meet him, dressed like a prostitute and with crafty intent. She’s loud and defiant; her feet never stay at home; now in the streets, now in the squares, at every corner she lurks.

She took hold of him and kissed him, and with a brazen face she said, “I have fellowship offerings at home. Today I fulfilled my vows. So I came out to meet you. I looked for you, and I have found you. I have covered my bed with colored linens from Egypt. I have perfumed my bed with myrrh and aloes and cinnamon. Come; let's drink deeply of love until morning. Let's enjoy ourselves with love. My husband is not at home. He has gone on a long journey and will not be home till full moon.” With persuasive words, she led him astray. She seduced him with her smooth talk.

All at once he followed her like an ox going to the slaughter, like a deer stepping into a noose till an arrow pierces his liver, like a bird darting into a snare, little knowing it will cost him his life.

Now then, my son, listen to me. Pay attention to what I say. Do not let your heart turn to her ways or stray to her paths. Many are the victims she has brought down; her slain are a mighty throng. Her house is a highway to the grave leading down to the chambers of death.

And let’s just flip back to Proverbs chapter 6, and we’re going to also read verses 23 to 26.

For these commands are a lamp; this teaching is as a light, and the corrections of discipline are the way to life, keeping you from the immoral woman, from the smooth tongue of the wayward wife. Do not lust in your heart after her beauty or let her captivate you with her eyes, for the prostitute reduces you to a loaf of bread, and the adulteress preys upon your very life .

Alright. This passage paints a picture of a certain type of woman—a type of woman that is not a woman of God’s heart, a type of woman that men need to be careful of. I think as you’ll see, as we unpack this passage, this is the type of woman that our society says we should be. Okay? Let’s begin. We’ve got 21 points. I hope your writing hands are healthy and strong, and let’s start.

The first point of difference between a wild woman and a wise woman is perspective—perspective.

Number 1: A wild woman is preoccupied with outward appearance . What she looks like, her physical appearance—dressing in a way that’s alluring; dressing in a way that’s attractive, whatever. She spends a lot of time, as Sex in the City girls do, on those designer shoes. Now, I like shoes. We’re girls; we like shoes. But this is just a preoccupation with externals, external things, with appearances.

Sometimes that can be physical appearances and sometimes that can just be appearances, keeping up appearances, being regarded in the right light. “I want people to think right about me. I want people to think I’m cool, or I’m great. I want people to like me.” Just the preoccupation with that stuff.

When you contrast that in the other passages, and I didn’t read them, I’m just going to pull out words from them, and you can go and read them later. I may decide to read them as we go along, but these are phrases—all of these phrases in these contrasts are pulled from Scripture . The wise woman knows that physical appearance is secondary to spiritual heart condition, that man looks at the outward appearance, but God really looks at the heart. She concerns herself with her heart, and the phrases and those passages that I pulled from those passages are that she’s concerned about the beauty of her “inner self.” She has “noble character.” She is “clothed with strength and dignity” instead of just the latest product fashion. Okay? So that’s point number one—perspective.

Number 2: Modesty factor . We see that this woman, the wild woman, is one who flaunts her body like a prostitute, it says, in verse 10. She flaunts her body like a prostitute. Modesty has gone out the window, hasn’t it? Young women are taught, and sometimes older women also, you see them dressing, and you’re going, “What are you thinking? What are you thinking?”

It’s really interesting, I was telling some people at lunch time that my husband’s friends and I were asked to go into a local Christian high school and talk to the grade 10-12 students. We gave them a survey. Brent took the guys; I took the girls, and we gave them a survey. We asked them three questions, and these were open-ended questions that they were able to respond to.

The first question was, “What bugs you the most about girls?” The second question was, “What bugs you the most about guys?” And the third question was, “What do you think could be done to improve male/female relationships?”

So we took the answers of all these grade 10-12 students and compiled them and compared them and looked at them. Do you know what the number one thing that these Christian guys said, and they weren’t all Christians (it was a Christian school, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that much always). The number one thing that bothered them about girls—anybody care to gander a guess? They dressed like sluts.

Now this particular school had a dress code, and so the girls at this particular school were probably dressed a whole lot better than the girls in society at large, and overall these girls were probably dressed more modestly. But the guys, it bothered them to have to fight this battle of their eyes. They didn’t like having to fight it all the time, and the girls who were dressed modestly were the ones that they respected.

I have three sons. Now my sons are almost. . .some of them are grown men; some of them are just on the cusp of being grown. My oldest son is 24; he just married the most beautiful girl in the world. My middle son is ready to turn 22, and my youngest is 19. So I have these three boys in my house, and I remember one day being out with one of my sons—I believe it was Matthew, my middle son—and there was a woman who walked past.

A young girl walked past, and she was dressed very, very seductively. She was spilling out everywhere. She walked past, and it wasn’t just what she was wearing, it was the way she was walking, and she kind of gave my son the eye. So I asked him, “What do you think, and what do you feel? Like, what do you think when you see a woman like that?” That’s a pretty daring question. I thought he might avoid it. And he said to me, “Mom, to be perfectly honest, she arouses the male in me, but she does not appeal to the man in me.” “That’s a good answer, sweetheart.”

But it’s true, and we need to watch how we dress, because even in worship on Sunday morning, when you see those thongs creeping up, it does not help our brothers. It does not help them, and women now are taught to use their sexuality as power, that if you dress in a way where you can seduce a man, where you can be sexual, it’s powerful . It’s the sexual women who have the power. That’s a lie from the pit of hell. It is.

A woman who is wise dresses modestly. The passages, the words in the passages . . . “modest,” “temperate,” “decency.” How about this: the femininity factor. This is almost the opposite.

Now I need to tell you, I was raised in a family; I had five brothers. I was the only girl. As the story goes, my mom was praying and praying for a girl, and after four boys, she was praying and praying for a girl. One night she woke up and an angel whispered in her ear, “If you want a girl, tonight’s the night,” so she woke up my dad . . . and nine months later I was born on Remembrance Day. What’s the point of that?

The point of that is that I grew up in an all-male environment. I was the only girl. My mom wanted desperately to have me be a girlie-girl, and that was the last thing I was going to be. I was not a girlie-girl. These ruffles almost give me palpitations to put these on. Pink is not a word in my wardrobe, and I would just be happy not to wear the makeup and do the cute girlie . . . I never understood it. Girls were scary to me. They scared me.

But the Lord convicted me that He made women, and He made women beautiful, and He wants us to enjoy our femininity (number 3). So many of us run around sloppy, and we don’t care, and we don’t wear makeup, and I’m that way half the time. I need to be very intentional often about being feminine. I have to think, “Okay, my husband has looked at ugly enough days in a row.”

Let me read a verse for you that may startle you. It startled me when I found it. It’s in Deuteronomy 22, verse 5. It says this:

A woman must not wear men’s clothing nor a man wear women’s clothing, for the Lord your God detests anyone who does this.

Wow! That’s kind of startling, isn’t it? That’s very interesting to me, and I think the point of it is not so much, “Oh, women shouldn’t wear pants.” We can’t make hard and fast rules because I think it will look different from culture to culture. But I think the point of it is this: God created us men and women, and He wants His men to be men and His women to be women. So for some of us who have grown up in this culture, that’s going to take a little bit of work, and a little bit of intentionality. Some are drawn to dress immodestly and to dress in a way that’s just sexual, and others just love that sweatshirt and sweatpants and will not part with it. Right?

So the Lord has to challenge our hearts to correct us and bring us into balance one way or the other—the femininity factor. To begin saying, “Yes, there’s something that is important about femininity.” I’m not a girlie-girl. My dad was a carpenter, and I learned all those skills, and I singlehandedly wired our basement, and I can swing a hammer lots better than Brent can, but I’m still a girl. I’m very competent in a lot of things, very independent, but there’s something that God values about femininity, about that softness that He has made a woman to be—femininity factor.

Number 4: Body language . We see here that the wild woman is flirtatious; she’s physically forward and suggestive. She’s shameless. In the passage it uses the word “brazen,” so she’s the one that comes up, grabs the guy, and kisses him. Body language—she’s very flirtatious and suggestive.

The wise woman guards her dignity; she doesn’t resort to deceptive charm . We see words in the passages of Scripture like “purity,” “decency,” “worthy of respect,” “doesn’t use deceptive charm.” Women do have power, just in terms of luring men, and we all know what that’s like to try and do that—to try and be brazen, to try and be forward, to be the one that stands oh so close, or the one who actually takes things into her own hands and initiates the male/female relationship.

Number 5: Time and energy . The wily woman hangs out in places where she might attract men. She lurks. We’re told in the passage that she’s out in the streets squares; she hangs out at every corner—the public places, the places where she’s going to hang herself out like bait to look and to pursue and to catch men.

The wise woman, on the other hand, is busy with personal mission, not with catching men . She’s busy with good deeds. She does not eat the bread of idleness. Her arms are to the poor, hands to the needy.

I was talking to one of my sons about the woman that he would find and marry. I said, “When you find this woman, she’s not going to be out; she’s not going to be there, with nothing to do and putting herself in places to find you. This woman is going to be a woman of mission. She will have mission and purpose for the kingdom.”

So many of our young women today are idle for the kingdom; they are wasting kingdom time. Just their whole purpose in being out there is to catch a guy, because they think that’s what’s going to fulfill them (number 6 – pursuit). But as we talked about this morning, there is no guy on the face of the earth that is going to fulfill your needs. Not a one. Now if the Lord gifts you with a great relationship, that’s a wonderful and beautiful thing. Brent and I will be married 25 years, and it’s the richest, most beautiful relationship I could dream of from an earthly perspective. But still, he is not the one who ultimately meets my needs. It’s the Lord Jesus Christ who gives me my identity, my surety, my confidence in who I am, and I need to be about the Lord’s business, as do all of us.

I’m just going to talk to you young unmarried women at this point in time, and also women who are single or unattached . . . what is it with Christian women going out to bars? I don’t get that. You might call me old fashioned; you might say I’m out of touch, but in my mind, you are having that lurking street corner, every corner, out there, hanging out the sign, trolling the waters trying to catch your male kind of mentality that Scripture says you shouldn’t have.

I need to make a confession. There was a girl calling my youngest son. This was the day before cell phones, thank God, and she was calling and calling and calling and calling, and I just exercised my parental authority, phoned the phone company and had her number blocked. Before I did that, I tried another tactic. I said, “I will take a message. Yes, he’s sitting right there on the couch, but I will take a message, and he will phone you back.” But girls today are taught that they can be the initiators in a relationship, that it really doesn’t matter. “You should go for what you want. If you see a guy you want, go for him, pursue him, chase him, propose.”

Let me tell you what that does. I have seen it time and time again where women have done that; they’ve gotten the guy; they are the ones who initiated. They phone him; they pursue him; they chase him; they get the wedding running and going; they are in control of the relationship. Five, ten years down the road, they hate him because he’s a couch potato, and because they’re tired of doing everything and running the house and having a man who’s passive or passive aggressive.

The way that you date turns into the way that you relate when you get married . The way you relate to men overall sets patterns for your marriage, and that’s . . . and not just because I’m some going-on-the-big-5-0 old-fashioned woman. It’s important the patterns you establish and how you relate, and we are told in Scripture that the woman, the wild woman is the woman who comes out, who takes hold of him, the woman who looks for him and preys upon him.

Whereas, the wise woman is the woman who wins him over with pure holy behavior; she won over her husband. Sarah regarded Abraham as master. In other words, there’s a reverence and a purity, and a “I’m not going to go out and get, I’m going to be a prize worth getting. I’m going to be a woman of God, and I am worth pursuing,” because God says so, not because I say so, because of holiness and the relationship and the whole picture of Christ pursuing His church, remember? If we’re talking about male and female as being a paradigm, as being a mini-picture for us of the relationship between Christ and the church, and furthermore, an inter-Trinitarian relationship, we learn a lot about God because male and female were created in His image.

If that’s the case, then this stuff matters. It matters, and some of you women are pursuers of your husbands in the sense that you are naggers of your husband. It’s like Chinese water torture you are, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip. No wonder he doesn’t hear you anymore.

Godly women know how to have that sweet, gentle, spirit, that purity and that holiness that says, “I trust God. I don’t have to go and pursue and be in charge. God is in charge, and I can trust myself to Him.”

Number 7: propriety. A wild woman puts herself in potentially compromising situations. We see in this passage that she comes out in the dark of night. Honey, what are you doing out in the dark night? You’re asking for it if you’re going out in the dark night. What are you inviting him into your home for?

Now, when I minister to college women, they dress seductively; they initiate; they go after the guy; they have him come into their apartments, and then they cry  “Foul” when he can’t control himself. Don’t be stupid. Don’t be unaware of Satan’s schemes. Propriety—what is proper and good and right is important.

It’s a big fad right now that you can have a roommate of the opposite sex. Hello! It’s not proper. It’s not right. It’s not honorable.

The Bible says the wise woman stays away from potentially compromising situations; that she’s a woman of propriety; she understands that what is proper is good, and she even avoids the appearance of evil.

My mom would not let me go drive out to the lake with a guy. I thought she was just being, you know, momish. Some of you may think I’m being momish right now, but I don’t think so. I think I’m being scriptural.

A wise woman stays away from potentially compromising situations. She’s worthy of respect. I respect who I am, who God created me to be, enough that I’m not going to even go there. You may think I’m prudish, but I choose, because I’m not a wimp, I choose to stand against the world and do what’s right, and I will give the enemy no opportunity.

And girls, that’s what we’re doing when we put ourselves in potentially compromising situations. If we are at a business, we work at an office, and we go out alone for lunch with a guy, it’s not proper—it’s not proper. If I go on a business trip and I go out with a male colleague, just him and me for coffee, that’s not proper. It’s not right. I dishonor the Lord; I dishonor my husband, and I dishonor, really ultimately, well ultimately my God, but I’m giving the enemy an opportunity. It’s just erosion. It’s never always, it doesn’t come like a big fall. Usually, it’s just a little bit at a time, a little bit at a time the ground the enemy gains on us.

Number 8: Influence . A wily woman is manipulative and scheming. Verse 10 tells us she has a crafty heart, so she tries to figure out a plot. She tries to write the script and manipulate to get her way. This happens prior to marriage, and this happens also after marriage—this craftiness of heart, to manipulate our guys.

A wise woman, on the other hand, avoids trickery and craftiness and manipulation . We are told that wise women are not gossips and are not busybodies. Now women are pretty good with this, are they not, for the most? We can tap dance on a guy’s head, and he just doesn’t even know what’s hit him, but how do we honor God when we seek to manipulate? We do not honor Him in that way. That is not a wise woman.

That leads to number 9 which is our speech habits . An unwise woman is a smooth talker, flattering, seducing, manipulating, or maybe crying, begging, whining, hissy-fitting. The passage says seductive words, persuasive words, saying things that ought not to be said; whereas, the Scripture tells us that a wise woman is judicious and wise with her words. She influences even without words, we’re told in the passage. She speaks with wisdom, and she’s not a malicious talker.

Our speech habits are important, and we can honor our design the way that God has created us when we honor Him with our mouths.

Number 10: Prominence . We’re told that the wild woman is self-absorbed, that she clamors for attention. She is loud—me, me, me, me, me, me, me—it’s about me; it’s about my needs, what I want. It’s about I’m not feeling fulfilled. It’s about I need the attention; I need this; I need that. She’s a clamoring woman; whereas, a wise woman is others-focused. She’s not self-focused, she’s focused on others, and she’s happy to serve.

The Bible says that a wise woman provides food for her family, a portion for her servant girl; her husband takes his seat at the city gate, and she has a quiet spirit—she’s okay with that. Whew! Ouch! We’re taught in our culture that, “Women, if you are equal with men, then it should be you taking your place at the city gates, and that’s what you should be fighting for, and he should be there helping you get there.” That’s the wisdom of the world, but the Bible says that a wise woman does not clamor for prominence for herself.

You just have to think about Scripture and the Words that we are taught about Christ, “who did not consider His equality with God something to be grasped, but He emptied Himself and took on the form of a servant and became obedient, even obedient unto death on a cross. Therefore God highly exalted Him and gave Him the name that is above all names” (Philippians 2:6-9). You see, Christ-likeness means that we do not seek our own prominence, that we have a quiet spirit, that we are okay when we are not front and center. That’s just perfectly okay.

The Bible says, David says, “I would rather be a gate keeper in the house of God than dwell in the tents of the wicked. How pleasant, how lovely is Your dwelling place, O Lord God Almighty” (Psalm 84:1).

When we’re wise women, we take on the character of Christ, and we also take on a godly disposition.

Number 11: We’re told that a wild woman is demanding . She wants to control and insist on her own way—and this is just a take-off on the last point, that she’s loud. On the other hand, a wise woman has that gentle disposition that defers to others. She has a gentle and a quiet spirit, and the passage says, “This is precious in God’s sight.”

We are taught in our culture that to have a quiet and gentle spirit is yucky. We are taught that that is the lowest thing on the totem pole, and we should not have a gentle and quiet spirit, but we should be aggressive; we should be loud; we should be demanding; we should be clamoring, and that we can have a disposition that says, “Notice me.”

A wise woman has a disposition that is a respectful disposition and honoring one.

Point 12: Honor . A wild woman is defiant, independent, rebellious. She resists following. I think that really is a sinful tendency that we all have as women, do we not? It started right at the very beginning, and it’s something that we fight. I fight it in my spirit. Sometimes I think that following is a very demeaning thing to do, but it is not. It is a very godly thing to do. It is a thing that strong women do. It is a thing that women who are willfully choosing Christ do. That’s what Scripture teaches—honor.

A wise woman affirms and receives and nurtures strength and leadership from worthy men . Her spirit is one of quietness and full submission, we’re told, like Sarah who obeyed Abraham. Now Sarah wasn’t a doormat. Sarah was a highly opinionated woman, and yet she chose submissiveness. She chose honor. She chose saying “no” to fear and “yes” to Jesus, and Scripture says that wise women, women of the Word, women of God follow her example.

Priorities, number 13. Wrong priorities—a wayward woman, a woman who is wild and out of control has the wrong priorities, she despises her responsibilities. It says in verse 11 that she never stays at home. She just goes. . .you know what. She has her priorities all backward. She maybe goes out and pursues a career above her family, or maybe the self-actualization, or girlfriends, or whatever it is, the priorities are somehow all mixed up.

Scripture tells us that a wise woman has godly priorities, and she joyfully fulfills her responsibilities. It talks about a first dedication, that first dedication to first things, to the things of Christ. It talks about watching over the affairs of your household.

Ladies, you are the barometer of your household. In my household, I am the one who notices when things are out of kilter spiritually way before my husband does. He’s given me as a woman the discernment to know, “There’s something not quite right in this boy’s life.” Or, “We’re just not connecting right now in our marriage.” He gives me an eye, a watchful eye for my home, and for my household. It says that women are given that responsibility. Men are given responsibility to lead and protect and provide, but women are the nurturers and the keeper of the home. The Lord doesn’t give us a list of do’s and don’ts. The Lord in Scripture, some may criticize me for this, but Scripture does not say, “Do not ever leave the house.”

The reality of this millennium is that women will work, perhaps, at some point, and yet always, first and foremost, with an understanding, making those decisions with your husband according to your priorities, and to have priorities that are godly priorities, and to maybe say “no” when your heart is driven to thinking, “Oh, I could just get more money or be more self-actualized, or get that promotion.” It may be time to say, “no,” because your priorities demand that you are in your home more, and that you are home with your children.

She manages her home. She works with eager hands. She brings up children. How on earth did we fall for the lie that that is a dishonorable thing to do? How did we do that, women? That is the most important thing to do, to raise the next generation and to impart godly values. We have a whole generation of children that grew up without moms and without dads. They were raised by Sex in the City because we had wrong priorities.

Number 14: Contentment . The wild woman is discontented. She is always seeking a new thrill. It says that she has wandering feet, verse 11—wandering feet, wandering there and then wandering here. Verse 18, she makes a proposition to the guy. “Let’s enjoy ourselves.” She’s always looking for something new to fill that space up, that longing. She just needs a new rush, a new thrill of some sort. She’s not contented with what she has.

The Bible says that contentment is a mark of godliness, that the woman who is wise is contented, and she’s confident in God’s plan and in His provision. It says wise women of the past who put their hope in God, these women, these godly women, they can laugh at the days to come because there’s a contentment. There’s not a striving and discontentment with life as it is.

Now there’s a holy discontentment that the Lord would have us have, one where we’re continually striving to know Him better, to know His ways better, and not to say, “Oh, we’re all okay.” But the contentment that causes us to rebel or to complain or to be bitter or to nag, nag, nag, nag, nag, nag, nag, nag, or to overextend the credit on our credit cards, or to do all those things that women do to fill that emptiness—that’s the kind of discontentment that the Lord is talking about here.

Number 15: Desire. The wild woman, the wayward woman thinks that romance will satisfy her deepest heart longing . It’s one of the biggest lies of all. She thinks that romance will satisfy her deepest heart longing. In this verse, “I looked for you,” this woman goes out, and she looks for love. She goes and make a proposition to the guy, “Let’s drink deeply of love.” She just wants love; she wants to feel loved; she just wants to feel.

How many of us—married, single, doesn’t matter, across the board, young or old, doesn’t matter what your life experiences—women, there is a longing in our hearts. Sometimes we catch a glimpse of it, a whiff of it when we read a good novel, or we just catch a breath of a glimmer of that stirring in our hearts that, “Yeah, I want to be loved—I want to be loved.” So many of us turn to romance, and if we’re married, sometimes we turn to those books where there’s romance depicted in those books, to try and feed our hunger, or the movies, or the. . .whatever it is we turn to. But the Lord says a wise woman knows and she understands that Christ is her first pledge, that Jesus Christ is the lover and redeemer of her soul. He is the one toward which all these desires, all of these churning longings are not met by any earthly thing or any earthly man. So her dedication is to Christ and to pursuing Him.

Ladies, we all have desire . We all have longings. The wild woman seeks to fill those with guys. The wise woman seeks to fulfill that with The Guy—right? The one for whom we were created.

Number 16: Morality. The wild woman compromises standards and justifies sin. So she goes, “Yes, my husband is away. He leaves me alone all the time. In fact, he’s not nice to me at all. He says not nice things. He doesn’t even notice me.” So she begins to build up this justification for sin. She says, “It’s my husband’s fault. He doesn’t give me what I need. I should never have married him, big mistake. My husband’s away.” So she compromises her standards, true erosion. She compromises it and justifies her sin.

A wise woman , on the other hand, keeps herself for marriage and keeps herself in marriage. She guards the purity and the sacredness of the marriage bed, and not just in her physical actions, but also in her thoughts and belief and what she does and what she watches and what she stuffs into her brain. There’s a purity, and there’s a faithfulness of keeping trust, keeping loyalty, keeping faith with her husband.

Ladies, your husbands do not need to be worthy in order for you to keep faith with them. When you’re keeping faith, you’re keeping faith with your covenant that you spoke before God. So many of us justify our sin by saying, “He’s not quite the package that I signed up for.”

A wise woman is a woman of very, very strong conviction, and a woman who, against all odds, and even when it hurts and is hard, says, “I’m going to do what is right and trust Jesus.”

Number 17: Sexuality. Wild women use sex as a weapon or for self gratification . We’re told in this passage that she reduces the male to a loaf of bread. What do you do with a loaf of bread? You eat it—right? Just the desire to have this guy. So she seduces young men. This we see in the woman in this passage, she seduces a young man, but she’s also using this young man to punish her husband.

How many of us married women use sex as a weapon? “You’re on the couch tonight, dear. You better not, or you’re not going to get what you want.” We use sex as a weapon instead of understanding that it is a great and precious and holy, holy gift, one that represents the union of Christ with His Bride. Sex is a holy thing and not to be used as a weapon.

We are told that the godly woman, the woman who is wise, enjoys and invites sex. She understands that it is an expression of a very deep, profound spiritual truth . Christian women in Christian marriages with Christian guys, that ought to be the most crazy, wonderful sex on the face of the earth. Make it so. We’re told that the wise woman makes coverings for her bed. Your bed is important, girls. Your bed is an important place.

A few years ago I was convicted of this because I still had my . . . My dad built me some French provincial girl furniture when I was 13 years old, and that was still my bedroom 40 years later. Because I’m pragmatic, and I didn’t have a girl I could give it to, and I just never really thought that it was important, you know? It is important, and I’m a maker of my home. I create those spaces and those places, and I create the message for my husband that I understand that this is a holy and a sacred thing. It is something I’m committed to, because I understand what it is all about. It’s not about me; it’s not about him. It’s about something way bigger.

She doesn’t deny her husband. First Corinthians 7:5 says that the only time we’re to deny our husband is when we both agreed that we’re going to be praying and fasting. We all know that if we’ve gone into those seasons, the men are really praying and really fasting, do they want it to end? Do not deny your husband.

Do not wrong men. First Thessalonians 4:4-6 talks about that we wrong men when we interact with them in the wrong way with regard to our sexuality. When we withhold what ought to be given or give what ought to be withheld, we wrong them. We sin against our brothers, and our husbands are also our brothers in Christ Jesus.

Values, point 18. The wayward woman, the woman who is the wild woman has adopted worldly values . It says that she has colored linens from Egypt. The worldly value of, “Yes, I’m embracing a culture that God took me out of.” That’s what that whole picture is. The picture isn’t, “Oh, I have to go down to Linens ‘N Things, and we’ve got to look for “Made in the USA” bed linens.” The picture of Egypt is that it is what He brought us out of. Don’t go back there; don’t go there in terms of what you value, in terms of what you hold near and dear to your heart.

The Bible says that the wise woman values what God values, not with gold, pearls, expensive clothes. All those things, as nice as they are, are not what she truly cherishes in her heart of hearts. Dedication to Christ is what the wise woman values, and it says she cultivates the kind of personality and demeanor and interaction that is of great worth to God.

Number 19: Edification. The wild woman destroys and discards men . She is a male-basher. Verse 26, she brings him down. It also talks about the victim. Men are her victims. She brings men down, and there’s a mighty throng that she has brought down, that she has torn down.

Women, it grieves my heart when I hear women bringing down their husbands or men in general, and it grieves the heart of God. Our culture is one of male-bashing. We have male-bashing jokes. We think it’s funny to male-bash.

The Bible says a godly woman is not a male-basher. It breaks my heart when I read Proverbs, and it says a wise woman builds her house, but a foolish one tears it down—with what?—with her own hands. As Christian women, we are called to be respectful and honoring of all the men in our life and to respect them and not to bash them.

A wise woman, a godly woman respects and honors men in speech and in her attitudes and in her behavior . We’re told that she brings her husband good and not harm. Ladies, when we hurt our husbands, we are hurting our own households.

It says that her husband is respected because she edifies him; she builds him up. She is the one who knows all his faults, and yet says, “Go for it, dear, you can do it. I believe in you. I’m behind you.”

Number 20: Commitment. The wayward woman, the wild woman of this chapter can’t sustain relationships . She has an inability to sustain relationships. There’s a mighty throng; she’s gone through a whole list of men. There are many, it’s a highway, and it’s a highway to the grave.

We’re told that the godly woman, the woman of wisdom honors her commitment all the days of her life, and she doesn’t give in to fear. It’s a scary thing—submission is a scary thing, is it not? We’re afraid that if we lay down our lives, and we give up our own rights, that we’re going to get trampled on, abused. Let me say that there are godly and biblical boundaries, I believe, and there are guidelines in Scripture that teach that when there is abuse occurring, that the biblical precedent is to flee and then to seek reconciliation and healing. We are not to be doormats. We are to be wise women, strong women who choose and make choices, even those hard choices, and we do not give in to fear. We are told scary stuff by the world that if we follow God’s plan, “Man, kiss your womanhood, kiss yourself goodbye. You’re going to be a doormat. You’re going to suffer.” But that’s not the reality, and that’s not the truth of God’s way. It’s quite the contrary, as a matter of fact. Commitment—a woman is committed.

The final point, point 21, point of contrast, is a heart for God , and this is what I find very interesting in this passage. This woman, she acts like a prostitute; she dresses like a prostitute; she’s wayward, but this is a woman who is part of the religious community. This is a woman who has fellowship offerings. She’s just given her offering. She’s just gone to church, this woman has. This woman has fulfilled her vows; she’s fulfilled her obligation in terms of going to church and her religious behavior. So we’re not talking about a pagan woman here . We’re talking about a religious woman who has gone wayward and wild—not only a religious woman, but a married, religious woman who has gone wayward and wild.

Ladies, our relationship with our Lord needs to make a difference in the way that we relate to men . It needs to make a difference. The behavior of women who profess to worship God is different than the behavior of women who do not. If we profess to worship God, we welcome His spotlight on our lives, and we say, “Lord, shine it. Show me where I’m wrong, and in Your love and grace and mercy, correct me and give me the strength and the guts to make it right.”

It’s not always easy, particularly in this culture. Some of these things go against the very grain of everything we have ever been taught by the world. But let me tell you this, there is great joy in righteousness—even if it’s tough slugging, and the Lord wants to challenge you as women.

I’ve put together 21 beauty questions. I’m going to fire through them really quickly, and if you would like to have a copy of these, you can go to my website, and on Monday, when I get home, I will post them. Okay? 21 Beauty Questions—you might even be able to find them now if you go and look around—www.MaryKassian.com. Here are the 21 beauty questions, and to each of these questions, I want you to consider in your heart, is the answer never, seldom, occasionally, often, or habitually.

Number 1: Are you preoccupied with your appearance, outward appearance? Are you more concerned with what’s on the outside, the way you look on the outside, than the way you look on the inside?

Number 2: (These all relate back to our points that we talked about, the 21 points.) Do you wear revealing, tight, and I say “spray painted,” or skimpy clothes? low necklines or waistbands? Do you flaunt your body? Do you try to look sexy or seductive in the way that you dress? Is that your goal? You know what I’m talking about.

Number 3: Do you wear sloppy scruffy clothes? Do you fail to dress in a feminine manner? Do you neglect your appearance, your femininity? That is one that the Lord convicted me of at one point in time.

Number 4: Are you flirtatious? Do you come on to male prospects? Physically, do you sit in their laps, drape your arms and legs around them, cuddle up, use your body to entice them? I see this. I see when we have parties at our house. My boys are always like, “Our house, yeah.” It’s a revolving door—people, strangers, eating, fridge. I once found some people in my fridge. None of my kids were home. I said, “Who are you?” “Oh, I’m a friend of Matt’s.” “Oh, I guess our fridge is your fridge.” But I see this. I see young women draping themselves just all over the guys.

Number 5: Do you seek to be a guy magnet? Do you go to places with the goal of attracting men? Do you size up every man you see as a potential prospect? Do you spend a great deal hanging out instead of busying yourself with your godly mission?

Number 6: Are you aggressive? A lot of these also can be applied to marriage, so this isn’t just for single women; these are for married women. Are you aggressive in your relationship with men? Are you the pursuer? Are you the one who initiates contact, makes all the phone calls, asks them out, sets the pace. For married women you could add, are you nags?

Number 7: Do you put yourself in potentially compromising situations—secluded cars, apartments, bedrooms, dorms, hotels, sleepovers, vacations?

Number 8: Do you manipulate or scheme in your relationship with men? Do you orchestrate situations in order to manipulate things so they go your way? Do you resort to trickery or deceit?

Number 9: Do you try to verbally entice them? Are you suggestive in your speech? Do you manipulatively flatter or try to smooth talk or even shame him into doing things? Because we use our mouth both ways—when one doesn’t work, we’ll try the other.

Number 10: Do you try to monopolize his time? Do you resent the time he commits to other relationships and pursuits? Do you clamor for his attention? That’s more for singles. There’s a necessity for marriage relationships to cultivate relationship.

Number 11: Do you demand your own way? Do you pout, nag, or badger until he gives in?

Number 12: Are you rebellious? Do you have an independent, unbending spirit? Do you resist input from men? Do you dig in your heels or recoil or fight back whenever he tries to provide leadership or direction?

Ladies, a lot of the reason why our men are not providing leadership these days is because we are not letting them. When they do try to do the littlest thing, we belittle them for it because it wasn’t good enough.

Number 13: Do you denigrate the woman’s role as wife, mother, and homemaker? Do you regard homemaking activities such as cooking, cleaning, baking as lesser, less importance than ministry or paid employment?

Number 14: Do you seek, pursue, desire men more than you seek, pursue, and desire Christ?

Number 15: Are you consumed with the goal of finding that perfect boyfriend, husband, lover, whatever?

Number 16: Are you distracted with thoughts of romance? Do you play out romantic scenarios in your mind? Does the concept of forbidden romance such as adultery and affairs appeal to you? Do you look for romantic excitement in books or on television, in magazines, or movies?

Number 17: Do you physically or mentally compromise God’s standards for sexual purity? Are you involved in sexual expressions of any type outside of marriage, or thoughts of sex outside of marriage?

Number 18: Do you use sex as a weapon to seduce or to punish? Do you deny your husbands, or do you wrong other men by engaging in inappropriate sexual advances or activities?

Number 19: Do you feed your mind with worldly values—the linens of Egypt. Do you read sexy women’s magazines, steamy novels, watch TV shows or movies that compromise Christian values, surf inappropriate websites?

Ladies, what we put in . . . We had a saying with our kids. We had this little song, it went: “GIGO, GIGO, G-I-G-O—garbage in, garbage out.” It basically said, if you put garbage in your mind, then garbage is what’s going to come out of your life, so don’t put the garbage in. If you put the garbage in, then sooner or later, the garbage is going to come out. You might go, “Oh, where did that come from?” But ladies, garbage in, garbage out—GIGO. My kids know that. They can sing it for you still.

Number 20: Have you been involved in a long string of relationships? Have you given your heart away often?

Guard your heart, ladies, guard your heart. Don’t give it away in the wrong time and in the wrong way to the wrong person. It’s the most precious thing you have. Guard it.

Number 21: Do you use and discard men, or do men use and discard you? Do you bash males? Do you mock them, scorn them, or demean them? Do you make sarcastic jokes about them? Do you cut them down? And here’s the clincher: Is the way that you interact with men different than the unsaved women around you?

The Lord is calling us to be wise women, and the only way He wants us to go wild is about Him and for Him and for His glory. So ladies, we all fall short in this in many ways, and the Lord is challenging you this weekend, and He’s challenging us to have a look at our lives as women and say, “Yes, Lord, I want to be Your woman, and I want to reflect Your glory.”

Will you stand, then I will pray for you.

My heart is heavy as I look at this audience here because I know that the Lord has convicted a lot of you about some things. I know that some of you have made poor decisions, walked paths that are not good paths. There’s some brokenness and some healing, some repentance that needs to be done, and I want to encourage you that if you have some business with God that you’ll go to the prayer rooms or even come to the front here, pull out your kneeling pad, wherever you are, that little white kneeling pad, and kneel down and do business. I believe the Spirit of the Lord is here this weekend to give you power and strength, to convict you out of His great love, not a condemning conviction, but a conviction that challenges you to be a woman and step up and don’t be a wimp.

Heavenly Father, I pray for the women in this room who have swallowed the line of the world hook, line, and sinker, and who have discovered that it is not the path of joy. Father, I pray for those women who need to do business with You in terms of their attitudes as women, their attitudes towards their husbands, their attitudes toward men in general.

Holy Spirit, come and counsel and guide and convict. Your strength and surety is our courage. As we kneel before You, may we have courage to kneel before you and wave that white flag of surrender and say, “Yes, Lord.” In Jesus’ name, amen.

True Woman is a ministry of Revive Our Hearts, helping you become God’s true woman.