CONFRONTING WICKEDNESS

CONFRONTING WICKEDNESS

A righteous man who falters before the wicked is like a murky spring and a polluted well. Proverbs 25:26

What do you do when confronted with wickedness? You and I have options. We can turn the other way. We can resist. Some encounters with "the wicked" will demand that hide ourselves (remember the prudent from chapter 22?). Some of us don't see wickedness as dangerous, so we hang around it. We tolerate more than we should. We even enjoy it a little bit.

Wisdom Writers want us to understand the danger of wickedness and the damage it does to us. They want us to understand the consequences of dancing with the devil. I worked for a furniture company while I was in Bible college. I spent every afternoon in a delivery truck with a chain-smoker. When I returned to the college campus for dinner each afternoon, I could see other students sniffing as I walked by. I reeked of the cigarette smoke!

Wickedness does that to us. These lines paint a graphic word picture for us. If we hang around the wicked . . . if we let wickedness live close to us, we'll discover its smell becomes our smell. Its influence will make us like a spring murky and useless. Imagine you've worked at a hard, dirty job all day. You come home pretty filthy, and you want a long hot bath. Think about the bath water after you've used it to get clean. That's what you and I look like when we hang around wickedness!

This verse brings caution to us, and we can't misunderstand it. It warns us about the people we hang out with. The writer wants us to think about our entertainment choices. He wants us to think about what we read. Everything we allow into our lives comes up for review after reading this verse! Wicked people and wicked things pollute our lives. Wickedness ensures our defeat in the fight for freedom.

Yesterday, the Wisdom Writer warned us about fainting from lack of strength. Today, he warns us about faltering before gross, useless, polluting wickedness. I pray every Freedom Fighter who reads this will reject even the mildest form of wickedness and avoid polluting his soul.

Don't forget: Murky springs and polluted wells aren't becoming to Freedom Fighters. (Pastor John Strain -- First Baptist of Toms River)

GREAT QUOTE: Pride slays thanksgiving, but an humble mind is the soil out of which thanks naturally grow. A proud man is seldom a grateful man, for he never thinks he gets as much as he deserves.

Harry Ward Beecher