Faith and Fear in our Falling

Proverbs 24:13-22

13 My son, eat honey because it is good,
And the honeycomb which is sweet to your taste;
14 So shall the knowledge of wisdom be to your soul;
If you have found it, there is a prospect,
And your hope will not be cut off.

15 Do not lie in wait, O wicked man, against the dwelling of the righteous;
Do not plunder his resting place;
16 For a righteous man may fall seven times
And rise again,
But the wicked shall fall by calamity.

17 Do not rejoice when your enemy falls,
And do not let your heart be glad when he stumbles;
18 Lest the LORD see it, and it displease Him,
And He turn away His wrath from him.

19 Do not fret because of evildoers,
Nor be envious of the wicked;
20 For there will be no prospect for the evil man;
The lamp of the wicked will be put out.

21 My son, fear the LORD and the king;
Do not associate with those given to change;
22 For their calamity will rise suddenly,
And who knows the ruin those two can bring?

There is faith and fear in our falling; we fear God as our sovereign Lord and fear His displeasure, yet know in our stumbling and falling along the way we rely on His grace and mercy to pick us up again, unlike the evildoers set against His wisdom.  When we eat of His word as it it was sweet like honey, then we gain the knowledge to understand Him and His working in us to make us wise for living.  When we find that knowledge know our end and understand that our hope is steadfast, unable to be cut off by us by our falling and not by Him according to His promise.  This is our eternal security to persevere to the end.  We do not live for plundering others as the evil-minded, but fall again and again to be picked up by mercy and grace to follow the path of continuing sanctification set before us (Hebrews 6:18, 12:1) as we confess and turn away from our sin each time we stumble (1 John 1:9).  Since we do not deserve to be lifted up from the muck we fall into, we should be humbled and not be happy and point fingers when another falls, as if we were somehow any better than they.  This is not pleasing to the Lord.  He may even prosper our enemy whom we so treat and gloat over in their falling if we do not instead pray for them and know apart from God’s grace so would we go.  The scriptures here remind us not to worry when evil men seem to prosper then, nor be envious of what they fleetingly possess in this world.  They have no future in their end to come at the judgment seat.  Their lamp will be extinguished without the hope of grace and mercy if they die in their sin (John 8:21).  We are to plead with our enemies and pray for them that they may also be given this grace in which we stand (Romans 5:2) and likewise fear the Lord as their sovereign and His wrath over their unrepentant sin of rejecting Christ as the wisdom of God, the living Word speaking life to us (1 Corinthians 1:24, 30, John 1:1, 14).  We are also to honor the rulers set over us with a lesser fear to their punishment, for their authority comes from God and it is His correction we should fear through those He puts over us (Romans 13:1-2, 3-4).  There is also a warning not to associate with those who constantly seek to change God’s word (wisdom) and put aside the clear teaching of the scriptures established over time.  They and their ways only end in abrupt ruin.  We hold therefore to the established foundational truths of fear and faith and falling, for we have a certain hope in the good news given us.