Posted on 08/23/2022 6:18:09 PM PDT by Pilgrim's Progress
“Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth: Lest the LORD see it, and it displease him, and he turn away his wrath from him. Fret not thyself because of evil men, neither be thou envious at the wicked; For there shall be no reward to the evil man; the candle of the wicked shall be put out” [Proverbs 24:17-20].
The lesson of these verses is that mercy is better than judgment.
“For he shall have judgment without mercy, that hath shewed no mercy; and mercy rejoiceth against judgment” (James 2:13).
“Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again” (Matthew 7:1-2).
The kind of judgment we mete out is the kind of judgment that we will receive. If we judge with truth and mercy, then that is what kind you will get.
“Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth. Lest the LORD see it, and it displease him, and he turn away his wrath from him.”
Perhaps the Lord will turn his wrath against you instead: “. . . he that is glad at calamities shall not be unpunished” (Proverbs 17:5).
Half of America would go into a panic if a professed Communist/Socialist were to be elected president of the United States. Well, so what? Paul lived under Nero—and the early church for it’s first century served God under the thump of some very vicious Caesars.
Nero took Christians and stuck them on poles and made them into human torches to light the Amphitheatre for night games. That’s a pretty wicked ruler, yet we never read one time where Paul had anything negative to say about Nero.
When you study church history you very seldom find a situation like we are in right now. You cannot judge 2,000 years of Christianity by America. We have it soft with our Constitutional form of government which guarantees the right to worship God however way our conscience dictates. Now, I know this is slowly changing to anyone but Bible-believers, but for now we are still enjoying liberty to worship and to build churches.
If a Communist were to be elected president, is God going to fall off the throne? Is the Bible going to quit being true and perfect? Will we lose our Final Authority? Right now, we are struggling un the political correctness run amok, and it is considered a hate crime to place any person under mental anguish. Do you know what that is in biblical terms? Conviction. You make someone feel bad because of his sinful condition before God, and you are going to jail. We have freedoms today, but the tide is shifting.
“Fret not thyself because of evil men, neither be thou envious at the wicked; For there shall be no reward to the evil man; the candle of the wicked shall be put out.”
“The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord,” as Solomon wrote in 20:27. When God judges the wicked, and that man would not yield to God, and the reins of his heart will not be controlled by God—God puts out the light in that man. Pharaoh’s light went out long before he ever died in the Red Sea. God saw that Pharaoh was not going to yield. God knew him and He knew his heart and knew that he was a lost cause. When a man totally rejects the truth of God, the truth of God, and the revelation of God—God cuts him off—even though he may not die physically for years, but the candle is put out. In every situation from that day on, the sinner’s heart only grows harder and harder and harder.
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Words we need to keep in mind these days when we see evil and evil men flourishing.
It is very frustrating and aggravating to watch.
Yes it is.
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