At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)

“A prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself; But the simple pass on, and are punished”

Proverbs 27:12

We begin with what we might assume to be the common sense side of this. The prudent man checks the weather forecast and takes an umbrella with him. The simple does not, and it is the simple man who is soaking wet. The shrewd businessman has a contingency fund for when a crucial piece of machinery might break down, and the simpleton does not. He does not have the machinery anymore, but he does have a really good excuse.

The Lord told the parable of the wise virgins and the foolish ones. Those who were wise were prepared beforehand, and the foolish ones were living in the moment (Matt. 25:1-13).

But if the wise are those who look ahead, and anticipate the things that might happen, one of the other things they must do is look at the entirety of Scripture. This enables them to prepare beforehand through knowing that they are situations where you should not prepare beforehand.

“And he called unto him the twelve, and began to send them forth by two and two; and gave them power over unclean spirits; And commanded them that they should take nothing for their journey, save a staff only; no scrip, no bread, no money in their purse: But be shod with sandals; and not put on two coats” (Mark 6:7–9).

And then there is this scenario. 

“But when they shall lead you, and deliver you up, take no thought beforehand what ye shall speak, neither do ye premeditate: but whatsoever shall be given you in that hour, that speak ye: for it is not ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost” (Mark 13:11). 

There are times, in short, when the best preparation means knowing that you must speak without notes. 

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At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)

“Wrath is cruel, and anger is outrageous; But who is able to stand before envy?”

Proverbs 27:4

As many people know, envy is ranked as one of the seven deadly sins. But this ranking was bequeathed to us by a previous generation of Christians, one that was more attuned to the spiritual danger involved with it than we have been. What previous generations considered to be a soul-threatening vice, we have come to accept as a constitutional right. 

Let us first consider what the proverb teaches. The clear idea is one of growing dangers, with each one more daunting. Wrath comes first, and it is cruel. Anger comes second, and it is outrageous. But then comes envy, and lays waste to everything. In other words, envy is far more of a threat than is wrath or anger.

In part this is because wrath and anger are both quite visible. You can see them coming. It is possible to take cover. You might be able to think about some possible countermeasures. You might be able to get your shield up. 

But envy is much harder to see. It does not usually erupt into shouting or overt violent attacks. Envy is even difficult for the envious one to see. He thinks that he is just focused on justice, or fairness. Nobody wants to admit to being envious, because that involves acknowledging the superiority of someone else. They have better looks, or a better car, or they are smarter, or they earned the promotion that passed over you. 

Envy is more than covetousness. Covetousness simply wants their own version of what someone else has. Envy is a teeter totter sin, meaning that when one person goes up, the other must come down. Envy wants to have what the other person has, and also wants the other person to no longer have it. 

It is malevolent and quite destructive. Who can stand before it?

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At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)

“Debate thy cause with thy neighbour himself; And discover not a secret to another: Lest he that heareth it put thee to shame, and thine infamy turn not away”

Proverbs 25:9-10

“Debate your case with your neighbor, and do not disclose the secret to another; Lest he who hears it expose your shame, and your reputation be ruined”

Proverbs 25:9-10

This is a proverb that warns us about that dangers of talking out of school. If you have a dispute someone, your neighbor, say, this text says that you should go to him directly. Deal with him, the one with whom you differ.

While you are doing this, Scripture says, deal with him alone. Do not play to the nickel seats. Do not canvas the surrounding population to see what they think. In short, do not be political.

The assumption made here by the Word of God is that if word of your behavior gets out, it will be seen for what it is—disgraceful. When a problem arises, one of the ways you can identify the responsible people in the situation is by looking closely at how they handle the situation with others. Apart from the merits of the dispute, are they handling the manner of the dispute responsibly? 

It is important not to let the dispute spread any more broadly than it needs to. There are many who like to style themselves as peacemakers when they are actually agitators. Say that someone comes to the pastor with “a concern.” You know, one of those. They talk about it for a while, and when the pastor fails to give satisfaction, what should we conclude when the person then says something like, “You know, there are many others who feel the same way that I do . . .”

To which the pastor should say, “Ah, I see. You’ve been talking to a lot of people about this then?”

That’s not peacemaking, and it truly is disgraceful.   

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At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)

“The robbery of the wicked shall destroy them; Because they refuse to do judgment”

Proverbs 21:7

“The violence of the wicked will destroy them, Because they refuse to do justice”

Proverbs 21:7

The disparity between the KJV and NKJV (robbery/violence) is not the result of mistranslation, but rather the consequence of the underlying word having a broad semantic range—despoil, oppress, devastate, deal violently, rob, pillage. 

The principle here is that a certain kind of wickedness, greedy for gain, snatches at that gain in counterproductive and suicidal ways. Because justice is not their concern at all, they refuse to “do judgment.” They do not recognize any standard over them that arises from outside the realm of their own lusts and desires. All their guiding principles arise from within, and the end result of that is self-destruction. 

They fall into the pit they dug for others. Haman built a gallows for Mordecai, and yet he was the one who wound up swinging from it. They scheme and plot without reference to righteousness, which is why a righteous universe will not suffer them to get away with it. The way the world is recoils upon them. They get caught in their own traps, tangled up in their own wires, ensnared by their own tricksy hearts. 

All of this is because they would not tolerate that hateful word no. They refused accountability, and resolved to ignore any admonitions that went contrary to what they wanted in the moment. As it turns out, this is a very poor strategy for making your way in the world. It is an artificial feedback loop that provides you with nothing but lies to go on. 

There is only one thing that the violent robber does recognize that is outside of him, and that would be the shiny bauble that he is reaching for. But it, like everything else in this arrangement, is deceptive. 

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At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)

“Mercy and truth preserve the king: And his throne is upholden by mercy”

Proverbs 20:28

Thrones are established by two things. One of them is intuitive, and we understand it naturally, and the other is pretty counter-intuitive. 

First, kings are frequently established by strength, by conquest. That is pretty simple to understand. Either it happens, or somebody understands that this is how it frequently happens, and so they make their attempts on the basis of it. “Let us go up against Judah, and vex it, and let us make a breach therein for us, and set a king in the midst of it, even the son of Tabeal” (Isaiah 7:6).

The counter-intuitive way to establish a throne is pointed to by our proverb. Truth and mercy are a king’s preservation. One of the things that upholds his throne is mercy. 

In this, our thrones are like God’s throne. But what is counter-intuitive to us (because of our sin) is not at all counter-intuitive to Him. “Justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne: Mercy and truth shall go before thy face.” (Psalm 89:14). Notice how these things harmonize—justice, judgment, mercy, truth. There is no discordant note there. 

“And in mercy shall the throne be established: And he shall sit upon it in truth in the tabernacle of David, judging, and seeking judgment, and hasting righteousness” (Isaiah 16:5).

Christian leadership understands that these things all go together. Righteousness and peace are friends, after all. They kiss each other (Ps. 85:10). This should not be surprising to any Christian, because when we petition the Lord for mercy, we are coming to a throne of grace. “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16). An understanding of this should be down in our bones, in such a way as to enable us to petition the Lord for mercy with boldness. We must not come to Him crawling. His promises are stronger than that. His throne is mightier than that.

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