WICKED CONSEQUENCES

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In Christ, Mark

The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

Do not plot harm against your neighbor, who lives trustfully near you.

Do not accuse anyone for no reason—when they have done you no harm.

Do not envy the violent or choose any of their ways.

For the Lord detests the perverse but takes the upright into his confidence. The Lord’s curse is on the house of the wicked, but He blesses the home of the righteous. He mocks proud mockers but shows favor to the humble and oppressed. The wise inherit honor, but fools get only shame.

Proverbs 3:29-35

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

From the earliest years of our lives, we have an innate sense of what is right and what is wrong. I used to think it came much later in life until I became a parent and got to observe my daughter growing up. She was at the point where she was not able to walk on her own but able to get around in a walker which meant she had access to things she had not been able to access before.

With this, we had to keep a very close eye on her because like any adventurous, curious child, she had to put her hands on everything and there were things we didn’t want her to handle. And so there was a constant volley of “No, no, no. Don’t touch thats” spoken trying to teach her what she could and couldn’t do. It was as we were approaching one of these moments that I noticed my daughter do something very different than what she had ever done before. For just before she was about to touch something that she had been corrected about before, she looked back at me to see if I was watching her.

It was at that point that my little, precious girl knew that she was about to do something that she wasn’t supposed to and had I not been watching, she would have carried on with the impulse to do wrong.

It seems that was the start of a lifetime of correcting as my little grew up, leaving that walker far behind and advancing to walking on her own, then running, then heading off to school for the first time, and then advancing from elementary school to middle school to high school, and eventually, to adulthood and a life on her own and the task of self-correcting her actions. No parents were around anymore to keep an eye on her but that didn’t mean she was void of being monitored or receiving continued guidance on how to live (and how not to).

I say this because we all have the best guidance possible for living righteously and away from wickedness in the Holy Scriptures and the illumination and conviction of the Holy Spirit who brings the words of God to life within us. And as we are provided this consistent counsel toward living upright and virtuous, God is always watching us, seeing our every outward action and examining the state of our hearts and minds. Nothing we do, nothing we say, nothing we think is beyond the sight of God. Nothing will ever be concealed from Him (Hebrews 4:13).

Friends, this should get our attention and drive us away from sin and toward being obedient to God word, way, and will. For the righteous will be rewarded but the wicked, those who choose to shun the Lord and His desires to pursue evil, will face consequence. God’s word makes this very clear in many places including these remaining verses of Proverbs, Chapter 3:

Do not plot harm against your neighbor, who lives trustfully near you.

Do not accuse anyone for no reason—when they have done you no harm.

Do not envy the violent or choose any of their ways.

For the Lord detests the perverse but takes the upright into his confidence. The Lord’s curse is on the house of the wicked, but He blesses the home of the righteous. He mocks proud mockers but shows favor to the humble and oppressed. The wise inherit honor, but fools get only shame.

Friends, sin is ever crouching at the door of your life, waiting for you to let it in. It desires to have you (Genesis 4:7) and no one is exempt or immune. It’s in our very DNA and has been so since the Eden’s garden but that doesn’t mean we’re defeated and without hope. For we have a choice as to whether we will allow sin or righteousness to dominate our lives. And God’s word for today gives us some incentives and deterrents to help us choose properly.

Before we get to that, Solomon does give us some specific actions to avoid and does so with a list of three warnings.

First, we are to not plot harm against our neighbors, those who live by us in trust. There has been no shortage of incidents where people were violated in some way by the neighbors they thought they trusted, whether by theft or assault or even infidelity (I have had the experience of having a neighbor have an affair with my spouse). Obviously, any action such as this constitutes wickedness and as we will see in a moment, the consequences aren’t worth the sinful behavior.

The second warning involves false accusations, another matter we find happening way too much today. Relationships, professional and personal, have been wrecked because someone chose to either directly or indirectly blame someone for doing something they didn’t do. Sometimes this happens because people just don’t take the time to get all the facts. At other times, people seek to discredit another intentionally and so they make up things that can damage another’s character. Either way is wrong in God’s sight and we need to remember that.

The third and final caution involves choosing to follow the actions of the violent. The Contemporary English Version of the Bible translates violent to cruelty and exhorts believers to not follow the example of those who practice it. A good common day example of this would be those who choose to seek revenge on another for being wronged in some way. It’s little wonder Jesus touched on this matter in His teaching. Look at His words:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.” Matthew 5:38-39

Jesus said this and then He put into practice. As He was being beaten and abused before being nailed to the cross, He never once lashed back at His assailants. He could have brought down the wrath of heaven on them, annihilating them in the blink of an eye, but instead we witnessed divine restraint. And on the cross, we would find our Savior, the One through which we identify ourselves with as Christians, not speak words of condemnation but rather words of reconciliation and grace and mercy. You remember His words right?

When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left.

³⁴ Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Luke 23:33-34a

“Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.”

Indeed, anyone who would choose to live wickedly is obviously out of their mind. I mean, you just have to be crazy to willingly opt for sinfulness.

Why?

Look at what our passage goes on to say about the Lord and His feelings toward wicked behavior.

1. The Lord detests the perverse.

A lot of people think of perverse as being sexually related but in actuality, the word simply means turning away from what is right or good. In other words, choosing wickedness and sin over righteousness and holiness, selecting Satan’s ways over God’s.

The Lord detests this and will bring consequences on those who reject Him for evil. Trust in this.

2. The Lord’s curse is on the house of the wicked.

What happens when the Lord’s curse is upon a wicked house?

Go back and look at what happened to Sodom and Gomorrah:

Now the people of Sodom were wicked and were sinning greatly against the Lord. (Genesis 13:13)

The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. When he saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground. “My lords,” he said, “please turn aside to your servant’s house. You can wash your feet and spend the night and then go on your way early in the morning.”

“No,” they answered, “we will spend the night in the square.”

But he insisted so strongly that they did go with him and entered his house. He prepared a meal for them, baking bread without yeast, and they ate.

The two men said to Lot, “Do you have anyone else here—sons-in-law, sons or daughters, or anyone else in the city who belongs to you? Get them out of here, because we are going to destroy this place. The outcry to the Lord against its people is so great that He has sent us to destroy it.”

By the time Lot reached Zoar, the sun had risen over the land.

Then the Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah—from the Lord out of the heavens. Thus He overthrew those cities and the entire plain, destroying all those living in the cities—and also the vegetation in the land. Genesis 19:1-3, 12-13, 23-25

Wicked behavior will lead to God’s curse and wrath. None of us should want this to happen to our house.

3. He (the Lord) mocks proud mockers.

One of the Facebook pages I post to, Christianity Today, has several non-believers who like to post items mocking God, Jesus, and anyone else who believes in them. I pray for these people as they are only bringing judgment upon themselves through their mocking behavior. Know that God will not be mocked and will have the last say on things. He will stand for being slighted and those who choose to speak wickedly against Him will find themselves silenced.

4. He (the Lord) gives shame to fools.

As mentioned prior, anyone who chooses to be wicked cannot be in their right mind. There can be no greater display of foolishness in life. For God’s word is crystal clear, those who are foolish and choose sin over righteousness will be brought to shame. The Lord has not and will not glorify or reward wickedness. If you want to be in His favor, then obey and respect His word, will, and way for they will never lead you to foolishness but rather to divine wisdom and proper discretion.

Yes, there are wicked consequences for those who decide to pursue wickedness in life. My prayer is that you will heed this stern warning from God and instead desire the benefits of living in His righteousness and holiness. For those who do will live in His confidence, find their home blessed, and inherit His honor.

We should be seeking and finding all of these things, yearning to be blessed abundantly through every day, month, and year that the Lord grants us. Thanks be to God for His word and Spirit that helps us toward that end.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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