Proverbs 28:1
For the first foray into Proverbs 28, we're going to camp in verse 1 pretty hard.
The wicked flee when no one pursues, but the righteous are bold as a lion.
The wicked flee when no one pursues. What does that even mean? Wicked, at least in this sense, definitely means evil or immoral people. Why would they run away and vanish at the slightest hint of someone coming after them? Matthew Henry may tidy it up a bit:
Guilt in the conscience makes men a terror to themselves, so that they are ready to flee when none pursues; like one that absconds for debt, who thinks every one he meets a bailiff. Though they pretend to be easy, there are secret fears which haunt them wherever they go, so that they fear where no present or imminent danger is.
Or, put even more succinctly,
Sin makes men cowards. Whatever difficulties the righteous meet in the way of duty, they are not daunted.
This is all too true. I could probably think for mere moments and easily name at least 5 times sin made me to be the hugest of all cowards, especially in my marriage. However, when the Lord came and plucked His lost sheep from the wilderness and took him back to be with the 99, he has given me strength to overcome the sin of cowardice to boldly proclaim Christ to all. To bring it home in a more contemporary fashion, we have John MacArthur exhorting:
A guilty conscience imagines accusers everywhere (Numbers 32:23, Psalm 53:5), while a clear conscience has boldness to face everyone.
It's a rather interesting duplicity. Since the days of Adam, the fall itself brought awareness of the conscience, and conscience ever gnaws at us all. Conscience is bound up in guilt and shame, all direct descendants of that one deception by the father of lies himself. Adam and Eve hid because they were afraid; they covered themselves from shame. All of these emotions bind us and leave us as helpless cowards, twisting in the wind. When we have no other choice but to be found out, we flee.
There have been so many times I have fled when I should have stood fast and resolute. Especially when I was in the wrong. I don't mean that I should have stood proudly or stubbornly in my wrongness, by no means. Instead, I should have laid claim to the error, taken it into consideration, asked for forgiveness, and owned it. We only learn by our mistakes; we are not God and we are not perfect. I let one small thing snowball into a mountainous dung heap and ended up rotting everything from my passivity. Let that be a warning to all men - retain your spine, you need it for your station.
As a parting gift, I leave you with the verse in 1 Samuel 17 where David boldly proclaims that he will righteously stand up against the Philistine champion. May that encourage us that we are not meant to always be passive and on the sidelines.
1 Sam 17:32 And David said to Saul, “Let no man's heart fail because of him. Your servant will go and fight with this Philistine.”
God has made men warriors just as much as He has made us gentle. It seems we have forgotten this truth in our postmodern feminist society, with its squishy love bombing and sissified, needy Jesus.