Have you ever heard the expression, "he (or she) had the last laugh?" Proverbs 1:26 speaking of God says, "I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh..." There are certain verses in the Bible that makes me sad. I'm sad for a lost and dying world that does not know the Lord Jesus. For me, the verse in Proverbs is one of them. There are others also. Another passage is found in Matthew 27:3-5. The Bible says, "Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, Saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, What is that to us? see thou to that. And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself." I know what the Bible says in Acts 1:16-20 but it still makes me sad. I also think of Esau, who the Bible says in Romans 9:13, "Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated." It would surely be a sad day when God would say, I hate you!
You may say to me, "but they deserved it!" I would have to agree, they did. And so do we! I have said many times, I am not worthy of the least of God's mercy and He has shown to me the greatest of them. Surely the Apostle Paul felt that way when in 1st Timothy 1:15 he said, "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief."
I remember a brother (I can't recall his name) who was in the VA hospital in Vancouver Washington many years ago. He was being examined by some staff psychiatrists who told him that his problem was that he thought himself to be unworthy. He told them that indeed he was unworthy of Christ's love. When he testified in church, he professed his continued unworthiness. He was right! None is worthy of God's love and grace. The Bible says in Romans 3:23, "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God..." Romans 3:10-19 (which if you have never read it, you should and if you have read it, read it again) tells the story, "There is none righteous, no not one."
Oh I know that we should love ourselves for as one preacher said, If we are to love our neighbor as ourselves, as the Bible tells us to do in Matthew 19:19, we can't hate ourselves. Who hasn't sung the chorus to their children,
"Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world.
Red and yellow black and white, they are precious in His sight,
Jesus loves the little children of the world."
Then the second part to the same tune,
"Jesus died for all the children, all the children of the world.
Red and yellow black and white, they are precious in His sight,
Jesus died for all the children of the world."
But it was more than little children He loved and died for.
In Romans 5:8b (oh I love the Book of Romans) The Bible says that "while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." In fact in Romans 5:6-11 in the message of the gospel, the Bible says that "when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life." Someone has written a song that has the following words,
"such love, such wondrous love such love, such wondrous love
that God should love a sinner such as I how wonderful is love like this."
Oh friend, if you have never experienced God's love for you, let me say to you that He loves you. He loves you with an unending love, a love that caused Him to leave His throne of glory and take upon Himself your and my humanity. He came and lived a spotless sinless life that He might be able to take the judgment of our sins upon himself. The Bible says in 2nd Corinthians 5:21 that God, "hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him."
Do not reject His great love for you. The day is coming that the Lord Jesus, the Bible says in 2nd Thessalonians 1:7-9, "...shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power..." When that day arrives all who fit the following description found in our text, Proverbs 1:24-32, will be lost forever.
God will say, "Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; But ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof: I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you. Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me: For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the LORD: They would none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof. Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices. For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them."
If you do not know the Lord Jesus, turn from your wicked ways to God's righteousness, repent of your sins. Find someone to baptize you in the wonderful name above every name, the name of Jesus Christ to have your sins expunged. God has promised to fill you with His Holy Spirit. (See Acts 2:36-40) Then the scripture found in Proverbs 1:33 will be yours. "But whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil."
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