The wicked flee when no one pursues, but the righteous are bold as a lion.
Several weeks ago, our small Maltese began clawing at the door and barking. When I opened the door, she darted out into the yard, barking furiously and pawing at the ground. When I saw what she was chasing, my heart froze. It was the biggest fox I’ve ever seen—grey and dirty, with a hungry look in its eye. From the look of things, our six-pound dog did not look like a threat. It looked like supper!
But our dog was undaunted, barking and snarling and charging… and every so often, looking over her shoulder to make sure I was still there.
What makes the difference in a person (or dog) that is courageous and bold, and a person (or dog) that runs to hide? The Bible gives an answer that might surprise you. Take a look at Proverbs 28:1, “The wicked flee when no one pursues, but the righteous are bold as a lion.”
This verse may seem confusing, especially since we don’t normally use words like “wicked” and “righteous” any longer, but the principle of this proverb is eternal.
There are two important concepts embedded in Proverbs 28:1. First, consider why “the wicked” so often flee even when no one is pursuing? The short answer is: a bad conscience. When you are driving on Highway 52 and see a police car ahead in the median, how do you respond? Are you confident and relaxed, or do you begin to slow down even when he has no intention to pursue you? Similarly, sometimes people will schedule an appointment to come to my office and talk, and when they arrive they will begin to defend themselves as if I called them to criticize something.
Guilt is the parent of fear, and when you have a bad conscience, you flee even if you’re not pursued. That’s because your conscience pursues you. It will not let you rest until you are “caught.”
Do you remember the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden? After he sinned, Genesis 3:8 says that they “heard the sound of the Lord walking in the garden in the cool of the day.” Not stalking, just walking. He was not pursuing. He came to walk with Adam and Eve almost every day… but something is different now. Adam and Eve now have a guilty conscience. As John Piper so eloquently explains: “A bad conscience makes breezes into burglars and shadows into ghosts and police into adversaries and parents into police and God into an enemy—even when they are not.”
Verse 8 continues: “And the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.” And then the Lord called to the man and said, ‘Where are you?’ And Adam said, ‘I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid.’ ”
Adam and Eve flee even when no one is pursuing. Why? Because their conscience condemned them, and they felt exposed in the presence of God. (Are you struggling with a guilty conscience? Keep reading to the end):
So why are the righteous as “bold as a lion?” It’s not because they are without sin. It’s because they have a clear conscience through Christ!
In Psalm 32:1-2 David says, “How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered! How blessed is the man against whom the Lord does not impute iniquity!” Then at the end of the psalm, David tells us what sort of person this is whose sins are forgiven and whose transgressions are not counted. Verses 10–11: “He who trusts in the Lord, loving kindness shall surround him. Be glad in the Lord and rejoice you righteous ones and shout for joy all you upright in heart.”
Do you see? The “righteous” aren’t perfect. They simply trust in the Lord. They know their sins are forgiven. They are righteous not with a righteousness of their own, but with the imputed righteousness of God. Their consciences are “sprinkled clean from an evil conscience” (Hebrews 10:22). As a result, they are free from fear.
In other words, they are like our little Maltese—bold and courageous, not because of their own size and strength, but because of the size and strength of the One they trust.
A blog on The Henry Ford website remembers the brave decision made by Rosa Parks in 1955:
It’s one of the most famous moments in modern American civil rights history: On a chilly December evening in 1955, on a busy street in the capital of Alabama, a 42-year-old seamstress boarded a segregated city bus to return home after a long day of work, taking a seat near the middle, just behind the front “white” section. At the next stop, more passengers got on. When every seat in the white section was taken, the bus driver ordered the black passengers in the middle row to stand so a white man could sit. The seamstress refused.
But theologian Michael Horton notes that this extraordinary act flowed from Rosa Parks’ ordinary life of obeying and following Jesus. Horton writes:
Rosa Parks didn’t wake up one day and decide to become the “first Lady of Civil Rights.” She just boarded a bus as she did every day for work and decided that this day she wasn’t going to sit in the back as a proper black person was expected to do in the 1950s in Montgomery, Alabama. She knew who she was and what she wanted. She knew the cost, and she made the decision to pursue what they believed in enough to sacrifice her own security. At that point, she wasn’t even joining a movement. She was just the right person at the right place and time. What made her the right person were countless influences, relationships, and experiences—most of them seemingly insignificant and forgotten. God had already shaped her into the sort of person who would do such a thing. For her at least, it was an ordinary thing to refuse to sit in the back of the bus on this particular trip. But for history it had radical repercussions.
Grab your journal and reflect on these questions:
Nathan and Melissa: Pioneers Ministry in Mountains of Former Soviet UnionBACK TO WEEKLY DEVOTIONS