Let not your heart envy sinners,
Proverbs 23:17-18
but continue in the fear of the Lord all the day.
Surely there is a future,
and your hope will not be cut off.
Here, the writer encourages his reader to take the long, eternal perspective. The natural tendency is to desire that which we can see. And in this case, the implication is to chase whatever it is that sinners have or are doing. Maybe it’s wealth. Prestige, perhaps. Whatever it is, the writer says, Don’t long for that! It’s here today, gone tomorrow. It’s temporal (see Ecclesiastes 1:3-4, Hebrews 11:24-25).
In contrast, we are encouraged to continue trusting, by faith, in the Lord.
The New Testament shares this same theme:
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
Hebrews 11:1
Hebrews 11 continues, “By faith …
- we understand that the universe was created by the word of God
- Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Can
- Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death
- Noah built an ark
- Sarah received power to conceive
- Abraham offered Isaac on the altar
- Isaac invoked future blessings on Jacob and Esau
- Jacob, while dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph
- Moses left Egypt
- the people crossed the Red Sea
- the walls of Jericho fell …”
What is to be gained for those who fear the Lord rather than envy the sinner? A hope and future that will not be cut off (Proverbs 23:18).
Questions:
What do you envy about sinners, in general, or a specific sinner?
Why is that, whatever it is, more inviting than a future that will not be cut off?
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