15 Do not lurk like a thief near the house of the righteous,
do not plunder their dwelling place;
16 for though the righteous fall seven times, they rise again,
but the wicked stumble when calamity strikes.
You Can’t Keep A Good Man Down
Although God sometimes allows the righteous to go through hell for his own purposes, the laws at work in the world frequently turn on those who perpetrate evil. It is not good to throw in your lot with those who are making the most profit by exploiting their workforce, destroying the planet, or weaving a web of lies. In act it is good to be part of the process that exposes such things rather than trying to hide them under the rug.
In North America people often take a pragmatic approach. They try and calculate risk and reward and will do that which gives them what they want. This is the measure of what ‘works’. A damning response in America is, ‘that didn’t work’ rather than ‘that wasn’t right.’ Ultimately in the eternal scheme of things choosing to do what is right truly ‘works’. It does not work in ways that we can measure in our finite lives, but it works in the grand scheme of God’s story.
Questions
- What should a person avoid doing?
- What will happen to those who throw in their lot with an attack on the righteous?
- How do we explain those times when evil schemes sem to prevail?
- When have you been tempted to do something unethical to get the result that you wanted?
- How might you change your behaviour or decision making based on these verses?
Plymothian 