Proverbs 23:17-18 - Homiletics

Envying sinners

I. THERE IS A GREAT TEMPTATION TO ENVY SINNERS . The wise man would wastewords in giving a warning if he saw no danger. This temptation is fascinating on various accounts.

1 . Sinners prosper. This was the old ground of the psalmist's perplexity. The righteous were suffering while the wicked were fattening in ill-earned luxury ( Psalms 73:3-9 ).

2 . Sinners take forbidden paths with impunity. They trespass and are not arrested. Thus they attain their ends by easy ways from which conscientious people are restrained. They are not troubled with scruples.

3 . Sinners escape onerous duties. There are great and weighty obligations that rest like a heavy yoke on the shoulders of an earnest man who tries to do his duty to God and his fellows, all of which are simply ignored by the man of lower morals. Hence the apparently easier course of the latter. He can refuse the subscription list, decline to work in the benevolent society, and shirk all the burdens that come from sympathy with the suffering.

4 . Sinners enjoy wicked pleasures. They are pleasure seekers, and they seem to obtain pleasure. Thus at a superficial glance they appear to have sources of happiness from which those who are more rigorous in regarding the law of righteousness are excluded. The child of the Puritan home envies the gay cavalier his merry revelry.

II. IT IS WRONG TO ENVY SINNERS .

1 . This is to doubt God ' s justice. Though we cannot yet see the issue of events, we must believe that God will not allow injustice to flourish forever, unless he cares not for the course of the world or is unable to set it right. To suppose any such condition is to distrust God.

2 . This is to form a low estimate of the purpose of life. We are not sent into the world simply to enjoy ourselves, but primarily to do our duty. If we are fulfilling that great purpose, it is a degradation to envy those who seem to be more fortunate than ourselves in the mere enjoyment of worldly pleasures.

3 . This is to yield to the attraction of unworthy delights. The pleasures of sinners are sinful. To lust after such forbidden fruit is to have a depraved appetite. The soul that is truly pure will loathe the delights of sin. It will not be hard on a good man that his conscience forbids him to frequent the haunts of vicious revelry. He could find no true pleasure for himself amid such scenes.

III. IN THE END THE MISTAKE OF ENVYING SINNERS WILL BE DEMONSTRATED . "For surely there is an end" The pleasure seeker is short-sighted. To judge of the wisdom of following his course, we must see what it leads to.

1 . The pleasure must end. The delights of evil are brief, and they are followed by wretchedness. The wild devotee of pleasure soon becomes a debauched and blase wreck of humanity. If one is prudent enough to avoid extreme folly, still death will soon come and put an end to all worldly pleasure.

2 . Sinful pleasure produces suffering. It corrupts body and soul; it sows seeds of disease and misery. They who sow to the flesh will reap corruption.

3 . There will be retribution in the next world. There is a future. Does the sinner consider this? Does the foolish man who envies him remember it?