Posted on 12/05/2022 12:40:42 AM PST by Pilgrim's Progress
“I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly. Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well” (Proverbs 5:14-15).
“I was almost in all evil,” just got into every kind of mess you could think of, “in the midst of the congregation and assembly,” right in the midst of having heard the truth and knowing the truth, getting in trouble. A man can be in the center of Christian activity and still be a mess if his life if his attitude stinks. That is why it is so important back there in chapter 4:23 and the issue with the heart. There are a lot of people to go to church and live like the Devil, look like the Devil, act like the Devil. That is why churches have splits, and churches have troubles, because one or more people in the midst of the congregation are full of evil.
This was true of David right down to the end. I mean, right down to the end of his affair with Bathsheba, he was right in the midst of the congregation. Right down to the murder of Uriah, he was looking just as spiritual as everyone else. Right up to the time that Nathan came to him, he knew about the lamb for a lamb. David knew where that was without even looking for it. Scofield doesn’t even have a cross-reference for it. David was right in the midst of the congregation and he was just as backslidden as a man could be. He was in all evil. You can do it in church.
The rest of the verses to the end of the chapter are obviously teaching us to just be content with what you have. The plain, down-to-earth, bottom line of these verse is be content with what you got.
“Drink waters out of thine own cistern,” doesn’t the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence? Some folks have just got it better than me! One of the really bad things about TV is that it gives you the false picture of life that everybody is doing better than us. If we have a house and an automobile, we are doing vastly better than 95% of the rest of the world. That’s what you need to understand. What you need to do is to see about a four-hour documentary on what life is like in India, Pakistan, Thailand and places like those. I guarantee you that those will make you appreciate what the Lord has given you in America.
“Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well,”
Discipline yourselves to realize that nobody has it any better than you—and if they do, they must deserve it. Or God is damning them with it. Just because a man has more than us doesn’t mean that he has it better than us. God will damn folks with prosperity if that is what they want, if that is all they want out of life. Do you realize this? Look at it this way. All the hell that you as a Christian will ever see is right here. And this is a close to heaven as an unsaved man will ever get. Let him have his do, let him have his fling through this world.
It is like the wife that was daily put upon by her drunken, no good husband that would make her get up at all hours of the night to fix dinner for his drunken companions. Another woman asker her why she put up with it. She said, “I love my husband, but I know he is going to hell if he does not get saved. When he is in hell, I want him to at least have the joy of remembering that someone truly loved him—and maybe hell won’t be so bad for him.”
Don’t be envious of sinners. They are going to spend an eternity in hell, this is the best that they are ever going to get.
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That's a very interesting comment.
Another view of that wife is that she is enabling her husband's debauchery and sinful existence. She needs to leave him instead of feeding/abetting his evil behavior.
Many preachers would advise her that she is co-dependent and is encouraging her husband's evil behavior the same way a wife who puts up with a husband's drug addiction is enabling that addiction.
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