Proverbs 24:17-18 (NLT)
Don’t rejoice when your enemies fall;
don’t
be happy when they stumble. For the Lord will be displeased with
you and will turn His anger away from them.
This
is one of those several passages in the Bible where I cringe when I
read/mediate on them because I know that they are so difficult to follow. Other examples, at least for me, and this is
only a partial list:
Luke 6:27-28: “But to you who are willing to
listen, I say, love your enemies! Do good to those who hate you. Bless those
who curse you. Pray for those who hurt you.”
Luke 14:33: “So
you cannot become my disciple without giving up everything you own.”
Matthew 12:36: “And I tell you that on the Judgment Day
people will be responsible for every careless thing they have said.”
Philippians 2:14: “Do everything without complaining or arguing”
Matthew 5:29-30: “If your right eye causes you
to sin, take it out and throw it away. It is better to lose one part of your
body than to have your whole body thrown into hell. If your right hand causes
you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better to lose one part of your
body than for your whole body to go into hell.”
I
don’t have many “enemies” in my life, but the few I do, I would have a very
hard time being sad and unhappy for them when they might stumble. Yet these verses remind me that my natural
attitude against my enemies is not the attitude of a believer in God and His
Son, Jesus Christ. I remember how good I
felt one day when I heard that a former boss who I thought really mistreated
me, wouldn’t give me good assignments, showed partiality to others, and did
everything he could to discourage me was demoted. Oh, indeed, I felt so good about this news
about this former tormentor. Then I read
these verses not too long after this demotion.
I was convicted of my sin. All I
could do was confess my sin and pray that the Lord no longer be displeased with
me. This is one of those verses, I
believe, that many believers are not aware of so when they violate it, they are
not judged as transgressors. However,
once they are aware of what these verses teach, then to violate them now
becomes a sin. This is an illustration
of what James 4:17 teaches.
It
is very interesting what the last part of these verses says----that if you
rejoice when your enemies stumble, the Lord will turn away His anger from them. When the Lord’s child is hurt by another, the
Lord gets angry (Deut 32:35-36, Rom 12:19).
You must give way to the Lord and let Him deal with whoever has hurt
you. You are never to seek revenge. Instead you are to overcome evil against you
with good (Rom 12:21). Oh, how difficult
this is for us humans. Our instinctive
nature is to fight back when insulted, hurt, taken advantage of, any kind of
evil perpetrated against us. But that is
not to be part of our spiritual nature as obedient followers of the Lord. It takes all of the Lord’s strength within us
not to rejoice when our enemies fail and not to seek retribution and revenge
against them.
Think
about it……did Jesus rejoice when his enemies stumbled and failed? Did he laugh or smirk or show any kind of
pleasure when those who confronted him constantly during His ministry were made
foolish by His words? Did He ask God to
hurt or destroy those who were torturing and crucifying Him? Quite the opposite, He asked God to forgive
His enemies. Such is the attitude we
Christians must have even though it perhaps is the hardest thing we ever have
to do in our lives.
Do
you need to confess, as I had to do, the times when you know that you rejoiced when
an enemy failed and were happy when he/she stumbled? Oh, yes, it may very well be the most
difficult thing you’ve ever had to do, but it is the right thing, it shows your
obedience to the Lord, and He will bless you for your humility including the sense
of true freedom (example of Joseph in Gen 45, Luke 6:36-37, Matt
18:21-35).
“Good
sense makes a man restrain his anger, and it is his glory to overlook a
transgression or an offense.”
Proverbs 19:11
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