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Bible Notes - Tabernacle Commentaries
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Proverbs 29:16
Comments
It is a Biblical principle that good triumphs in the end. The righteous can therefore afford to wait patiently for the completion of God’s plan. It is with this hope that they continue another day in this world where it is hard to experience the ascendancy of the wicked. God’s children can only bear this because they remember that although he allows it for a time, it is not the end of the story. While the wicked prevail, the upholding of righteousness is a fight against a world that wishes to suppress all loyalty to God, but when the kingdom of this world is removed and Christ’s kingdom is established, righteousness will be easy: a joy and a delight. The righteous need to be assured that God’s rest is coming, for they sense that, if the foundation were to be removed, their limited strength would fail. They therefore long for the day when Christ asserts his righteousness over all the power of the enemy of souls. Then they will be able to fall back into those everlasting arms knowing that their work is finished.In the meantime the righteous observe a world which flaunts God’s law and it causes them much pain to think about it. They understand why God does not judge immediately and why he gives a licence to sin for a limited time. They know that evil must be allowed to show its hand, that the battleground of this world is a training program for the righteous for them to prove their loyalty to God, that the kingdom of heaven when it comes will be so much more appreciated because God’s children have experienced the awful alternative, and chiefly they know that this delay gives an opportunity for the elect to be gathered in in their full number; they know all these things and yet they long for it to be over. It is a cause of distress to see God’s rule not being exerted. Christ is Lord even though his lordship is not acknowledged, and every departure from his law is therefore an act of rebellion against him.
Application
The righteous start where they can, and first of all they examine their own hearts to correct every lack of conformity to God’s rule within them. They care about holiness everywhere, but right now the only domain over which they have full responsibility is their own souls and to an extent their own families. Here they pray for help to not be conformed to the world around them. They are confident that the world will not last long and that when Christ appears, they will experience the tremendous relief of knowing that their loyalty to him during the period of darkness has been rewarded. This hope makes the project of preparing the next generation to be worthwhile.
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