Proverbs 1:11: Highway robbery

“If they [sinners] say, ‘Come with us, let us lie in wait for blood; let us ambush the innocent without reason;’”
-Proverbs 1:11

Did you ever want to run around with bandits,
To see many places and hide in ditches?
It’s not always easy, it’s not always easy
When the winter comes and the greenery goes
We will make some shelter

I couldn’t help but think of this song when I read this verse. It’s my favorite song from what very well could be my favorite album: “Bandits” from Midlake’s “The Trials of Van Occupanther.” This is a side note, but I do recommend this album extremely highly. “Bandits” is a song about a couple whose house is completely emptied by bandits while they are out looking for food, forcing them to start over. Another family comes by, having also been robbed on the trail. So the narrator invites them to stay for a while.

In time, though, the narrator, who is a romantic and prone to daydreaming, begins to wonder what it would be like to be a bandit himself.

Few would be as honest as the narrator in this song. Few would admit to romanticizing thievery. And yet this call is not so unfamiliar to us.

The “sinners” in this verse are tempting someone to become a highway robber, to kill and rob innocent people. Now would be a good time to look at what I felt was a difficult phrase in the verse, which is “without reason.” The robbers certainly have a purpose: money. So we really can’t say they don’t have a reason to do what they are doing. What they are really saying is that the victims don’t deserve it. The sinners are saying, “Let’s ambush the innocent who don’t deserve it.”

Is this something you daydream about? Probably not. What part of it are you guilty of? The verse is talking about being tempted to take advantage of someone who doesn’t deserve it, not necessarily highway robbery specifically. How are you tempted in this way? I’m not asking you IF you do it, because you do. So how is it that you do it?

Did you talk another person down at work so you would get a promotion? Did you lie a little on the last business deal for a little more money? Fib on your taxes? Get angry and demanding with some cashier until the store gave you a discount you really didn’t need?

Did you cut back on your church offering so you could buy something you really didn’t need? Did you give anything at all to the church? It’s not your money, after all; it’s God. And if you horde it rather than use it the way He would want you to, you are trying to take something that isn’t yours.

I am so happy that God doesn’t treat us the way we treat Him and the way we treat each other. On a whim, we will take the things that should belong to others, people who don’t deserve it. And yet we DO deserve to have everything taken from us, and yet God has mercy. He has so much mercy that He sent His Son to die in our place.

We are guilty of standing with sinners in situations like this. But God has given us a way to stand with the righteous instead. Jesus took the punishment we all deserve, and if we repent of those old ways and trust in His forgiveness, we can take on His righteousness.