Proverbs 13:21

MAIN HOMILETICS OF Proverbs 13:21

PURSUIT AND REPAYMENT

I. Evil pursues sinners because sinners pursue evil. The huntsman who pursues the hare in the direction of a precipice is pursuing a course which, if continued, must be followed by evil. It is an evil thing for him to follow such a trifle at such a risk. There is evil before him in the form of the precipice, and evil will follow if he continues to pursue his present course. Should he try his strength against the law of gravitation by leaping over the precipice, he will find that that law will exact its penalty. There are but two things that will prevent evil from pursuing him, either he must desist from his present course or a great law of nature must be suspended. The first alternative rests with himself, the second does not. He will find that this “battle is to the strong,” and that “this race is to the swift,” even to the mighty law which holds together the material universe. So with sinners against the moral law. “Evil be to him who evil thinks” is a wish that is always fulfilled. It is a law in constant operation. The consequence of pursuing evil in the form of evil thinking is evil thinking, the consequence of evil feeling is evil feeling, the consequence of evil doing is evil doing, for it is the tendency of evil to repeat itself, and this in itself is a punishment. Peter speaks of sinners who “cannot cease from sin” (2 Peter 2:14). They have sinned until they have bound themselves in fetters of sinful habit. Evil, in this sense, pursues them, and will pursue them so long as they pursue it. Then there is, of course, the positive retribution, which both in time and beyond time visits pursuers of evil. Of this we have several times treated.

II. Good men are repaid with good because their characters are righteous. The law of repayment runs through nature. He who sows seed is repaid by a harvest. All her forces—rain, sunlight, heat and cold—combine to give back to the husbandman that which he has entrusted to her care. And she repays of the same kind, wheat for the sowing of wheat, thistles for the planting of thistles. She also repays with liberal interest. One head of thistledown scattered over a field will reproduce a hundred heads in a few months. One grain of corn will produce an ear of thirty or forty grains. The law in the kingdom of nature is also the law of the kingdom of grace. Evil sown, as we have just seen under another metaphor, necessitates a reaping of evil. Good sown ensures a reaping of good. And grace is not behind nature in liberal repayment. He who sows handfuls shall reap armfuls. He that goes forth with the seed basket returns with sheaves (Psalms 126:6). The one “corn of wheat bears much fruit” (John 12:24). This repayment begins in time, and extends beyond it. Righteousness as well as sin is its own present reward, and is the present first fruits. But the righteous man must wait for the “resurrection of the just” for the abundant harvest.

OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS

“Evil” is rapacious in its gains. Each inch “evil” holds. It never lets back any advance. It is versatile to tempt, and ruins with many instruments, while the good, however, have just the opposite lot. They gain by every advance. Each act that is holy in their lives is rewarded by better acts and higher holiness on through their whole probation,—nay, eternally! The pit is bottomless. But evil never ceases to hound sinners and make them worse.—Miller.

The representation here is very striking. “Evil pursueth sinners.” It follows them every step. It keeps pace with the progress of time. Each moment it comes nearer. Silent and unperceived it tracks them through their whole course. Insensibly it gains upon them; and at last—it may be suddenly and when least expected—it seizes and destroys them.—Wardlaw.

Not the smallest good, even “a cup of cold water to a disciple” (Matthew 10:42), or honour shown to his servants (Matthew 10:41; 1 Kings 17:16) shall “lose its reward” (Hebrews 6:10). And if a single act is thus remembered much more “a course, a fight held out to the end” (2 Timothy 4:7). How manifestly is this the constitution of grace; that when perfect obedience can claim no recompense (Luke 17:10), such unworthy, such defiled work should be so honoured with an infinite overwhelming acceptance.—Bridges.

To be out of the hands of evil is not to be free from it; for it still pursueth sinners, and it ceaseth not until it be gotten to the place where they are.… For, as St. Augustine saith, that God doth not forthwith avenge sinners is His patience, not His negligence. Wherefore it is to be feared lest by how much He stays the longer that we may repent, by so much He will punish us the more, if that we will not amend.—Jermin.

Caius—Agrippa having suffered imprisonment for wishing him emperor—when he came afterwards to the empire, the first thing he did was to prefer Agrippa, and give him a chain of gold as heavy as the chain of iron that was on him in prison. Those that lose anything for God He seals them a bill of exchange of a double return.—Trapp.