Proverbs 1:20: Answering the call of Wisdom

“Wisdom cries aloud in the street, in the markets she raises her voice;”
-Proverbs 1:20

I really wasn’t a very bright kid.

There was one time when I took the ladder that went up to my bunk bed and leaned it against the wall and climbed up. I don’t even know why I did it, but I did. While I was up there, I saw my parents turning the corner in the hallway to come see me. I leapt off and sat on the bed, feigning innocence.

My parents came in and asked me if I had been on top of the ladder.

Now, it seems pretty obvious that they had seen me, but there was a slim chance that they hadn’t, so I lied and said no. Of course, I got in trouble not for climbing the ladder, but for lying. If I had just admitted it, I probably would have only gotten a warning.

Well, I don’t think I’ve done anything quite that moronic in a while, but I still do my share of hiding in the shadows.

The Bible tells us something strange. It tells us that “the gate is narrow and the way is hard” to heaven (Matthew 7:14), but it is not a HIDDEN way.

In fact, it is in the open. It is the path of light.

It is the ways of selfishness, of pride, of lust, and of hatred that is concealed in darkness. Even today, when sin is celebrated on the streets, are we very careful about who sees us in the act. We scheme and disguise ourselves; we don’t like to admit it.

The way to God is obvious. The Bible even tells us that. “For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse” (Romans 1:20).

Wisdom here is actually plural in the original: “wisdoms.” As though it is the ultimate Wisdom, the most important. We are talking about understanding of the highest order, and she is in the streets, crying for others to see her.

Do you see her? Can you look outside and admit the obvious, that God is wondrous and powerful, high above all things; that we do not measure up to His holiness; that we cannot reach Him on our own? That is evident to me in every sunrise. I see it every time I look at the sky. I see clearly that I am not worthy, and that my only chance is Grace.

And Grace is available to us in Christ Jesus. One commentator I read says that Wisdom in this passage is referring to Jesus Himself. I do not disagree. Instead of staying in heaven, Christ came to us, to stand before us, to teach us directly, to show us the way, and to die for us. He stands in the open, calling. Has He called for you? Answer Him by bowing before Him (for He is worthy) and praying for mercy.

It is the wise action.

Proverbs 1:19: You only have yourself to blame

“Such are the ways of everyone who is greedy for unjust gain; it takes away the life of its possessors.”
-Proverbs 1:19

Have you ever really noticed the way young students talk, especially in the high school years? Think about it. How often have we heard the following two phrases: “I got an A!” “The teacher failed me!”

Did you notice the difference? In the former example, the student earned something great. In the latter, the teacher was the one at work, giving the failing grade.

It’s almost never the other way around. Very rarely will you hear anyone say that the teacher gave him an A, while he earned an F.

In truth, if a high school student fails, it’s almost always because that’s exactly what he earned. This is especially true now, since high school teachers are told to do whatever is in their power to make sure everyone passes.

But we, as people, are big on excuses. If you boss calls you in to praise you for a project, it’s usually only with false modesty that you will mention your coworkers, if you mention them at all. Meanwhile, if he calls you in to tell you how much you messed the project up, then all of a sudden your coworkers’ names are coming up a lot.

We come by it honestly (if that phrase is at all appropriate here). We’ve been making excuses since the third chapter of Genesis. When Adam and Eve sin, and God asks them about it, what do they do? Adam blames both Eve and God, and Eve blames the serpent.

We’ve been perfecting the practice ever since.

In the latest few verses of Proverbs, we’ve been looking at the results of sin. Solomon is telling us here that the paths of sin look very nice, but they lead to death. In this verse, he emphasizes the point by making it a universal truth. This happens to “everyone who is greedy for unjust gain.”

And let’s not pretend that we are only speaking of thieves here. Notice that he is speaking of a motive here, not an action. Do you desire those things that don’t belong to you and that you didn’t earn, whether money, things, women, men, a position at work? Even if you don’t act upon it, this verse is talking about you.

I know there are some people reading this that are ready to bail on me now. Motives? Am I expecting everyone to be perfect in motive?

Yep.

You see, Jesus tells us that morality can be summed up in two rules: Love God completely, and love others. Any time you’re not doing that, you are sinning. The wages of sin are death. It’s not enough to not kill someone; if you are angry with that person without cause, you’re still a murderer. You’ve earned eternal death (check out Matthew 5:21-22).

So if even bad motives earn death, then is there a way out? Because no one I know has perfect motives.

Yes, because that is why Jesus died. Your sins deserve death, but Jesus was without sin, and He died anyway. Because He did that, He is able to take your sins upon Himself and pay the price you were meant to pay. If you turn away from your greedy, lustful, prideful ways and submit to Him, you will find life.

Proverbs 1:18: The Gospel according to Looney Tunes

“but these men [sinners] lie in wait for their own blood; they set an ambush for their own lives.”
-Proverbs 1:18

I was always a big fan of the Road Runner cartoons. I mean, all of the old Looney Tunes cartoons followed a similar theme: one character was always chasing another and usually ended up being hit in the head five or six hundred times. But the Road Runner ones were special to me. They were unique from the others in two ways: 1) they were all about the bad guy, Wile E. Coyote, rather than the good guy, like the others, and 2) they were more patient in delivering the laughs.

You remember. Wile E. Coyote would spend an inordinate amount of time building some crazy contraption, and then the Road Runner would zoom by, and Wile E. Coyote would hit the button, only to fall off a cliff, smack himself in the head, or rocket himself into a huge rock. It was this long set up for a half-moment worth of punch line. But what a punch line! It was worth it every time.

We’re looking a few verses here that talk about the futility of sin. The sinners in these verses are compared first to people who set a trap for a bird while the bird is watching (thus gaining nothing). Now we are told that they are actually setting the traps, much as Wile E. Coyote does, only to fall into the traps themselves.

This is very true in this life, but it is even more true in the next. But consider, how many of your problems in life are not ultimately of your own making? There are times when this is not true, but most of the time it is. You try to take advantage of a situation, maybe in a relationship, maybe at work, maybe elsewhere, and it comes back to bite you. It is rare that we ever experience a problem that could not have been avoided by a better decision in the beginning. It happens, certainly, but it’s rare.

In the next life, no one will have an excuse. All sins will be paid for. I find it somewhat funny that some people say that they will get to heaven because they are “good people.” That is nothing but pride talking, and pride got Lucifer kicked out of heaven. I tell you the truth, if all your anger, your lust, your greed, and your pride were laid before you, you would know that you deserve nothing better than death.

Sin is a trap of our own making, constructed to gain some advantage for ourselves, and yet will bring about our own destruction.

Like Wile E. Coyote, we think we have everything under control, and we end up making a man-shaped hold in the side of a cliff.

There is only one way out of this. It’s not being a better person, because we’ve already gone too far for that. It’s not balancing your sins with good works, because even the smallest sin is too much to ever be repaid. It’s Jesus.

Jesus lived a perfect life and died undeservedly. But in that death He took on our sins and paid for them with His blood. If we repent of our sins and follow Him, then His Blood will take the place of our own in death.

Or we can keep chasing the Road Runner.

Th-th-th-th-th-that’s all folks!

Proverbs 1:17: A pretty trap gone to waste

“For in vain is a net spread in the sight of any bird,”
-Proverbs 1:17

My grandfather is a deer hunter, and I remember one time having a conversation with him about the feeders. For those who don’t know, these feeders sit up on stands and, at the same time every day, whirl out corn in a wide circle. It’s somewhat noisy, but it shoots out the food within sight on the deer stand, where the hunter is hiding. The hope is that the deer would come to eat in front of the hunter.

I had this conversation with him because he was going out to the location well before deer season started to put feed in the feeder. That didn’t make much sense to me immediately, but when he explained it, it did.

What if you go out hunting, and the very morning you plan to hunt, you set up the feeder, then you set up your stand and climb inside? And then the feeder goes off noisily, and you wait.

You’ll never get a deer. Why? Because you set up the trap right in front of them. They aren’t completely stupid. They certainly noticed this guy setting up a new feeder and a new stand and climbing inside.

But if the feeder has been there a while, and it shoots out its feed every day, even though there’s no one around, and if the stand has been there years, then they probably won’t notice that a guy slipped into the stand before dawn.

Solomon is using this very analogy to describe the schemes of sinners. They work really hard to achieve their goals, but they have no real chance to accomplish them.

Oh, left to our own devices, we can certainly accomplish things. We can build a business, or we could get away with crime, or we could score with that hot girl from the bar, or we can be secure financially.

But it is all temporary. When we seek out security, love, or life, we may get it for a season, but then it’s gone.

We’ve really gained nothing at all.

Jesus one time told the religious leaders of His time this: “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life” (John 5:39-40).

It wasn’t that they were looking for the wrong thing, but they were working extremely hard in the wrong way. They were setting this elaborate trap right in front of the bird.

The answers you seek are not in one night stands or more money or power or in friends or even spirituality. They are in Christ. He paid the price for our mistakes and crimes on the Cross. If we repent of our old ways, those silly traps we set in front of birds, and come to Him, we will find that He is the only source for eternal life.

Proverbs 1:16: B-line to sin

“for their [sinners’] feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed blood.”
-Proverbs 1:16

This weekend I went to see Burn After Reading, which was a pretty interesting movie. There was one character, played by George Clooney, who was making a concerted effort throughout the film to sleep with anyone possible. He was married, and he had a girlfriend, and he was also on an online dating service to meet more women.

It was so ridiculous that it was funny, which I think was rather the point. He was an outrageous character, certainly, but outrageous in a rather realistic way.

We’ve probably all known someone like this, someone who just sprints toward any opportunity to do wrong.

Someone like me.

Look, I’ve never been a violent person, but you don’t have to strike someone to shed blood. All of sin sheds blood. Even if it is not in this life, blood will be shed.

Some of you may be very surprised that I say this. Why would being a little promiscuous cause bloodshed? Why would shoplifting something small cause bloodshed.

Our criminal justice system ascribes certain punishments for certain crimes. Frankly, it is a system set up by sinners who don’t expect any good to come from the bunch of sinners they govern. If we all got what we deserved, the politicians would probably be the first in line on the way out. This is a fallens system, and we do the best we can with it. God, on the other hand, is perfect, and if He is just (and He is very just), He has to punish wrongdoing properly.

The writer of Hebrews says it this way: “Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins” (9:22). Paul gives it to us much more succinctly: “For the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23).

Perfection is the standard for life, and so any sin brings about the shedding of blood. All sin will be punished.

I really like what G. K. Chesterton says:

If it be true (as it certainly is) that a man can feel exquisite happiness in skinning a cat, then the religious philosopher can only draw one of two deductions. He must either deny the existence of God, as all atheists do; or he must deny the present union between God and man, as all Christians do. The new theologians seem to think it a highly rationalistic solution to deny the cat.

Whether or not we deny the cat, it remains true that we all, left to ourselves, are capable of terrible things. We are slaves to sin.

“I’m not a slave!” you may say. I will borrow from Mark Driscoll in answering, “Really? Then stop sinning and never sin again. Impossible, you say? That’s because you’re a slave.”

I may not have shed blood of another person, but I have earned my own death a thousand times over.

But here’s the good news. All sin will be punished, yes, but the punishment does not have to be taken out on you. When Christ died on the cross, He took on my sins and took the punishment so I don’t have to.

When I repented of my sins, I laid them upon Him, and He took the death that should have been mine. And then, He gave me His righteousness, freeing me from slavery to sin.

For the first time, my feet are not turned constantly toward sin. For the first time, when I run, I am running toward Him.

Because His blood was shed for me, my blood does not need to be spilt. God’s justice is satisfied, and His mercy shines through.

I ask you, dear reader, to repent of those old ways. None of us, save Jesus, can reach the standard of perfection. Only in following Him will we be able to stand before God blameless.

Proverbs 1:15: Walking in the valley

“my son, do not walk in the way with them [sinners]; hold back your foot from their paths,”
-Proverbs 1:15

I’ve been reading in Oswald Chambers’ great devotional My Utmost for His Highest lately. Actually, I’m always reading in it lately, since I’ve probably read it through three or four times by now. But it was probably a few weeks ago when I reread one of my favorite subjects of his, which is the difference between the mountain and the valley.

These are figurative, of course. The mountain represents those places we go and things we do just to rest in God, to feed off His Word, to be revitalized. Maybe this is church, or a certain group of friends. Maybe it’s your quiet time. But the temptation is to remain in those places and never go into the valley, which is the lost world, to spread the news about God. We don’t want to do that because the valley is hard!

Chambers explains that a lot better than I do, admittedly. I highly recommend reading it.

C. S. Lewis had a similar idea in The Silver Chair, which is one of his Narnia books. In the beginning, a character named Jill finds herself on a mountain with Aslan, and Aslan tells her everything she needs to know to quickly end the threat to Narnia. Looking down from the mountain, everything seems so clear to her. But then she goes down into Narnia, and things aren’t as clear anymore, and she keeps forgetting Aslan’s words, or see fails to recognize his true meaning until it is too late.

Things get murky in the world. Things get complicated. At least they seem to. Loneliness, greed, pride, or despair gets to us, and we lose our way. Sometimes we just jump on the path of the nearest person, one who seems to care.

It is not hard to focus on Christ right after a moving sermon or when sharing with a small group. But the next day, we forget that focus, and suddenly we are tempted to date that unbeliever, or cheat a little at work, or laugh at the dirty joke with friends.

How do we resist? There is only one way. You can try sheer force of will, but that will betray you. The only way is this:

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
-Hebrews 12:1-3

It is He who perfects our faith. It is He who started that faith in the first place. The only help we have in this verse in our run is “looking to Jesus.” That’s all the help we need.

Practically, this means reading the Bible more just on Sunday. It means praying more than just at bedtime. It means talking about Jesus with friends. (It’s really hard to tell a dirty joke when the discussion is always on Christ.) It means praying for focus every time your mind wanders somewhere it should not.

Ultimately, it means having faith in Him, for only He can perfect that faith. Only He has the power to wash us clean from our sins and bestow us with His righteousness.

Proverbs 1:14: Ah! The Commies are coming!

“throw in your lot among us [sinners]; we will all have one purse”
-Proverbs 1:14

For the last few verses, we’ve been hearing from a group of sinners trying to tempt us into evil ways. This is their last temptation in their speech, and we may think it is a little strange. They want us to come hang out.

A lot of the commentaries I read were written in the last fifty years, and so they latch onto the phrase about sharing one purse. “Communism!” they cry. “That’s the terrible temptation in this verse. The sinners want to be communists!”

That’s not the temptation here. In fact, Christians are supposed to share things amongst themselves. The temptation is for community.

When I was younger and not a Christian, I was rather lonely, and I started hanging out with a group of coworkers. This was not a good crowd, I’ll admit. They were constantly drinking, doing drugs, and sleeping together. I never joined in for those activities. Even though I was not a Christian, I guess I knew better even then. If drugs appeared or if people started pairing off, I would simply leave. But even if I didn’t join in on the activities, I found myself influenced by their attitudes and emotions. It was a train wreck of a time, and I grew more and more depressed and selfish. Had I stayed with them too much longer, I probably would have started in on the drugs and sex. Thankfully, other circumstances (and God’s providence) tore me away from them before that.

There was very little really wrong in my life at the time, and yet I was depressed. Several years later, when my life really was a wreck, between a divorce, poor health, and a dead-end job, spiritually and emotionally I wasn’t doing that bad. Why? Because I first had Jesus, and second a group of friends who loved me and loved the Lord. They took care of me and encouraged me.

We were made for community. The first thing in Creation that is said to be “not good” is that Adam had no companion. In fact, this is the only thing that was “not good” before the Fall. Everything else was good. In countless passages in both Testaments we are encouraged to hold fast to one another and take care of each other. I will quote my favorite of these: “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2).

And yet community is something that Christians can be very bad at. Let’s face it, few of us hang out with the people from church. We normally hang out with people from work of school who don’t necessarily want to talk about Jesus or live morally. So we just shrug off their behavior. But then it starts to show up in us as well.

It is not good for us to be alone. It isn’t. But it is also not good to be constantly in the wrong crowd. We should hang out with the lost, yes, to teach them of Christ. But for support, guidance, and advice, we should be with our brothers and sisters in the Lord.

I’m guilty of this as well. In recent days, someone I love very much left me, and I found myself talking to the people at work. I just don’t have many Christian friends, and they were there. It was nice to talk about it, but their advice was rather worldly. They didn’t understand my priorities.

So after that, I intentionally sought of Christians. Their words were focused on Christ, which was exactly what I needed.

And best of all, I prayed. Contrary to what many people believe, Jesus understands exactly what we are going through. He is not some distant deity that doesn’t know what it’s really like down here on earth, because He was here. He went through it all. “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15).

And furthermore, He is a friend (John 15:15). He will hear us, and He understands. And through His Spirit He will guide us.

And He loves us. He loves us so much that He died for us, so that we could live.

There is no better companion than Christ, no greater comfort. In repenting of our sinful ways, we can come to Him, be cleansed and be filled with Him.

So the next time sinners come with the temptation of companionship, you will not need to get into a destructive relationship just because you are lonely. But you will be able to introduce them to the One who rescued you from that life.

Proverbs 1:13: What is your price?

“we [sinners] shall find all precious goods, we shall fill our houses with plunder;”
-Proverbs 1:13

I’ve heard this joke several times (and will probably get in trouble for repeating it here, but I think it’s appropriate):

A man and a woman meet in the bar, and they talk for a while. After a few minutes, the man asks the woman if she will go to bed with him for a hundred thousand dollars. Her eyes go wide, and after a moment’s pause, she accepts the terms.

They talk some more, and eventually the man reveals that he doesn’t have a hundred thousand dollars, would she consider fifty dollars?

She slaps him hurriedly, saying, “I’m not a hooker!”

The man calmly replies, “We both know what you are; now we’re just negotiating price.”

This verse in Proverbs speaks of another temptation we sometimes face. We’ve already discussed, in previous blog entries, temptation of power and revenge, but in this verse Solomon is telling us about greed.

Money, in and of itself, is not an evil thing. People will often misquote the Bible, saying, “Money is the root of all evil.” The Bible doesn’t say that, and it doesn’t even suggest that. What it does say is, “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs” (1 Timothy 6:10).

Huge difference here, and an important one. Solomon was a rich dude, and he knew it wasn’t a sin to have money or get money. The moral question was what do you do with it, and what do you do to get it?

I like the way Mark Driscoll puts it: You either love people and use money, or you love money and use people. Isn’t that true? We all know people who use money as a tool, and others who have money as a goal.

If money is your goal, then this temptation is going to be a difficult one for you. Like the woman in the joke, you will eventually betray all of your beliefs if the price is right. In the end, you may say, “I’m not a hooker,” but if you sell yourself out for money, no matter the amount, then that is exactly what you are.

The sinners in this verse are tempting us to commit highway robbery for money. Maybe you wouldn’t go that far. But what is your price? People say that everyone has a price.

I’m glad Jesus does not. When He came to earth, Satan tempted Him in the wilderness. There were three temptations, but this one is particularly appropriate for us:

And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and said to him, “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” And Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.’”
-Luke 4:5-8

The whole world. That is what was offered. Everything. Not a hundred thousand, not a hundred billion, but every bit of it. And all He had to do was bend a knee.

But He didn’t. Jesus knew that some things were more important than wealth. “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” He would later ask us (Mark 8:36).

Christ is worth our worship, and worth our praise. He is worth giving up everything else to acquire. And once obtained, the wealth of this world will seem less important. If you do not know Him, turn away from the ways of this world, which will wither and fade, and turn to Him, for He does not fade, and He does not wither, for He is forever. Do not put yourself in me, or yourself, or your spouse, or someone else who may have a price, but in Him who obviously does not. In His death He can grant you life, for in death He took the punishment that was rightfully yours because of your greed, ambition, and lust.

If you do know Him, spend some time in praise today, for you have something that is far better than gold or jewels, and you got it freely.

New song -- "Change"

A quick note for everyone. This morning I was trying to sort of manage everything I was feeling by working out a new song and laying down a demo version of it. I hope to do an arranged version of it in the next couple of months. But you can listen to or download the demo at http://www.paullytle.com/music/Change.mp3.

Proverbs 1:12: The cure for sin

“like Sheol let us [sinners] swallow them [the innocent] alive, and whole, like those who go down to the pit;”
-Proverbs 1:12

I had actually begun writing about verse 13 tonight. I was ready to move on, ready to tackle another verse. And then something happened, and I am not exaggerating when I tell you it changed my life permanently.

I was supposed to be married in less than a month, but tonight my fiancée called it off.

The other day I wrote about this verse, and how it seems like so many of us just have the desire to see people fall. Tonight I feel something else, and it made me run to this verse again.

It’s hard to explain what I’m feeling. It’s changing by the minute, and so if I start to explain, it’ll shift a half dozen times before I’m done. When I was talking with her, I felt the urge to defend myself at first. A lot of what she said made sense, and she was dead-on right, but a lot of it I thought was unfair, so I wanted to justify myself. Even when I was wrong, I wanted to point out when she had been just as wrong in exactly the same way.

Then I wanted to tear myself down, and I just took everything she said with hardly a “You’re right” as we went.

I’m angry, I’m lonely, I’m worried, I’m terrified, I’m all these things in turn. And then I go back through them all. I found myself pacing, thinking that it was her fault, and then deciding it was mine, and then I finally become somewhat rational and realize that we’ve both been building up to this for a long time. We’ve been terrible in communicating, and neither of us really understood the other person’s frustrations and concerns. The discussion would get convoluted whenever we would bring those issues up, and they would get worse. We were working on communicating, but not working very hard.

Most of the time it was really wonderful, don’t get me wrong! We just didn’t talk very well.

At this moment I’m somewhat at peace with the whole thing. Five minutes ago I wanted to break something. I didn’t, but I wanted to. Ten minutes before that I wanted to give up on love and live like a hermit, and before that I wanted to break someone else’s heart. I won’t, if you’re wondering. Not intentionally.

And for a moment, I wanted to break hers. I wanted to call her back and just lay into her and make her feel bad.

For a moment. That’s what made me go back to this verse.

When I’m upset and lonely, that’s when I’m most vulnerable to sin. I think that’s true with pretty much everyone. When it’s late and you’re still up and you’re thinking about all the things you wanted to do with that person that you’ll never get to do, all the things you wanted to show her and teach her and learn from her, it’s easy just to slip and do something stupid. Like call her up and say something you’ll regret.

So why didn’t I? Because I love her. Because I love her more than I love myself. No matter what happened tonight, and no matter what happens tomorrow, I’m still going to want the absolute best for her.

Even if that isn’t me.

The cure for sin is love. That’s why Christ came, out of love. That’s why He died for us, because of love. And in the end, I love Him too, and so I’m going to cry tonight, and I’m going to pray, and I’m going to read my Bible, and that’s all.

It’s enough. It’s enough right now just to talk with Him.

I’ve been divorced before, and when my ex left me, I got very destructive for a while. I wonder how many people I pulled with me into the pit then. I’m going to try to do better this time. Not because I think I have to or anything like that, but because I know love a little better now.

Not well enough, I suppose, but I’m learning.

Proverbs 1:12: Celebrity death match!

“like Sheol let us [sinners] swallow them [the innocent] alive, and whole, like those who go down to the pit;”
-Proverbs 1:12

(First thing’s first: what is “Sheol?” There’s some debate on this, so let me try to be brief. Think of it like “death.” Sometimes we use the word death to mean more than death, right? We mean eternal death, as in hell. Sometimes we just mean death. I may worry that an unbelieving friend will “DIE,” meaning that I’m afraid he will go to hell when he dies. But I will also “die,” though the words do not mean the same thing. Sheol is the same way. Righteous people in the Bible are said to go to Sheol, simply meaning they have passed over into the spiritual realm. But sometimes the word is used in a darker sense, as in this verse, probably meaning hell. When you come across the word, check the context of it, and you’ll be fine. Now on to the actual content!)

So sinners are crazy, huh? We’re in the middle of the speech of the sinner here, where a group of bad fellows are trying to get us to go attack some people on the highway. At first, they seemed to just be after some money, but now they’re really going overboard with it. Now they really seem to be out for blood.

I have to admit, the first time I read this section of Proverbs, I thought it was just a little over the top. I know there are some people out here who really do think this way, but I certainly don’t, right?

Except that I do, and you do too.

Let me give you an example. The other day I was at work, and my coworkers and I were talking about a celebrity that I actually admire. I usually don’t get into the whole celebrity thing, but this person had always seemed like a stand up person to me. Well, one coworker of mine had heard some, er, not nice things about this particular celebrity.

And I found myself online, looking it up to see if it was true.

I’m surprised I was so interested. I like to think I’m not susceptible to the lure of gossip and rumor. But the truth is, even though I’m not as interested in that sort of thing as so many people are, I still need to watch myself.

There’s something in us that likes to watch people fall. If you doubt it, take a look at the news. If there is a story about a celebrity, it is that this one went to rehab, or this one shaved her head, or this one tried to commit suicide, or when this one gets divorced for the tenth time. There isn’t a story when one regularly spends time with the family. Why not? Because we don’t care about that!

Take a look at the things you find interesting. Are you more interested when a nationally known pastor has a loving relationship with his wife, or when he has an affair? Even amongst friends, we just have to know when something goes wrong. It’s just INTERESTING.

Much of the time, we seem to be lying in wait, ready to watch someone be swallowed whole by Sheol. Sometimes, sometimes, we actually help. Have you done this? Have you exaggerated to your boss when reporting on a mistake a coworker made? Have you spread rumors about someone that put that person in a bad light? There is more than one way to watch someone go down.

And sometimes you are pulled yourself.

You know, this is the whole problem with most religions in the world. They ask you to be good enough for God. Our instincts, desires, and entertainment are all so slanted toward evil, and these religions are telling us, “Do better.” Well, we have all watched someone be pulled down and smiled. We have all pulled someone down personally and laughed. And then we have all been pulled down ourselves. Friends, we are not good enough for God.

But God had mercy on us and sent His Son Jesus. And we, in our darkness, killed Him, even though He hadn’t done any of those evil things we all do. We were the sinners from this verse, dragging down the only perfectly innocent man in history into Sheol. But in that death He took the punishment we all deserve.

Christianity is not about becoming “good enough” for God. It’s about Jesus being good enough for God, and letting us in with Him. When we recognize our inability to be that good, we repent of those efforts. We ask for His forgiveness. On the Cross, Jesus died in our place, taking on our sin, so we don’t have to die. He traded us. He took our sin, and He gives us His righteousness.

Walk no more in the ways of the sinner; turn away and come to the Cross. It’s our only hope. Once there, Jesus will give us His Spirit to teach us how to walk in righteousness, so that next time the sinners come calling for us, we can keep our eyes on He who saves us.