At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)
“The integrity of the upright shall guide them: But the perverseness of transgressors shall destroy them” (Prov. 11:3).
“The integrity of the upright will guide them, But the perversity of the unfaithful will destroy them” (Prov. 11:3, NKJV).
The import of this proverb really is straightforward. The integrity of an upright man is a guide. The perverseness of transgressors is something that destroys them. But how does this destruction come about? The parallelism here would indicate that the transgressors are destroyed because they have no guide.
Whenever we make decisions about our path forward, we are looking at a world filled with countless variables, and they are variables that we don’t know. An unjust man is out for number one, and this means that he is on his own. And that means that he has to guess at all the variables, and to troubleshoot as he goes, trying to calculate what will redound in his best interest.
A man of integrity has the law of God in his right hand, in his heart, and in his mouth. And what that does is simplify his decision-making. I don’t know the future, but I can know the book of Deuteronomy. I can read the book of Proverbs.
“Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” (Psalm 119:105).
The hymn says it well. We don’t know what the future holds, but we do know who holds the future. And, as it turns out, He has written a book. The perverse man ignores the book because he would rather drive on into the darkness, just so long as he is behind the wheel.
It is not difficult to see how this results in what the proverb promises—the car upside down in a field, all four wheels pointing toward the sky.
