Proverbs 9:7-10
Whoever corrects a scoffer gets himself abuse, and he who reproves a wicked man incurs injury. Do not reprove a scoffer, or he will hate you; reprove a wise man, and he will love you. Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be still wiser; teach a righteous man, and he will increase in learning. The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.
Have you ever notice how sometimes reproof of un-confessed sin in our lives turns us into scoffers? Christians have great truth and wisdom at our disposal, we may be even living gloriously in that truth and then the reproof comes. Our first reaction is one of self defense, our second self preservation.
Then comes the fear of the Lord. The wisdom of whatever it took to bring our attention to the sin.
Psalms 1:1-2
Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.
To protect us from the scoffer’s self-abuse, we need to focus our delights on the law, expose the sin in our lives and go to God for confession and repentance. To often we sit now aware of our sin either in the denial stage (my wife likes to point that one out to me) or we try and rationalize it away.
“My sin is okay because ….”
We must be on guard against such fleshly mindset. It doesn’t matter what grade we measure our sin against, any measurement other than the comparison to the sinless Christ and we are robbing God of Glory and ourselves of victory. Yet here we sit having our own pity party thinking “this is just not fair” and we are sinning even more.
Christian: What will you do with your sin? Will you become a scoffer and walk, stand then finally sit with the scornful? Get up off your ash heap and get back to the work of the Gospel that the Holy Spirit called you to.
UnChristian: Are you in denial of your sin? Have you lived the perfect life pleasing to God that you are worthy or “holy enough?” All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. (Romans 3:23) and it is that recognition of our sin that should spur us to seek God’s face.