June 6

Jun 6 - Today from Proverbs 6 we look at verses 30 & 31
"Men do not despise a thief if he steals to satisfy hunger when he is starving. Yet if he is caught, he must pay sevenfold, though it costs him all the wealth of his house."

Have you ever been burglarized? Your home? Your office? Your car? I have. I remember one of my earliest experiences. My car was broken into and the thief stole my eight-track tape deck. (You younger folks can ask your parents what an eight-track tape is.) My initial reaction was an eerie sense of being personally violated. I had never quite experienced such an emotion before. But that quickly changed to anger, and then almost to a vengeful rage. I imagined myself discovering who the perpetrator was, and then how I would get even with him for such a covert and uninvited intrusion into such an intimate and personal part of my life. I guess that's what made me so angry - it was such an intrusive act!
I suppose that had the perpetrator been discovered, and found to be a starving soul who acted out of desperation, my feelings would have changed considerably toward this unknown intruder into my life. We can identify with desperation. We can almost excuse such a person. Almost. But there is always that gnawing little part of us that wants to see justice served -- especially on others. So we back off from the revenge scenario of strapping his hand to a table and chopping off a finger or two for stealing a valuable and practically irreplaceable eight-track tape deck, and we seek only justice. Heck, considering the circumstances, we're going to be very sympathetic and ask for soft justice. The guy has had a meal now, but he still needs to learn that he can't go around violating other's private property in order to eat. So, let’s take his property, something he values. Then maybe he will think twice before he breaks into someone's car again.
Of course I am speaking of attitudes of the heart. We can understand motivations of desperate people, especially when the motivation is survival. It can cause us to soften from an attitude of revenge to discipline. True justice never crosses over to revenge. Revenge is a personal matter. It involves a grudge, a personal resentment. It is that part of us that would like to extract a finger or two from a punk thief who would dare to break into our car and steal our personal property. We probably would never really do it, but it gives us some level of satisfaction to think about it. Some people do let revenge take hold of their heart. They are the ones who grab a gun and shoot the place up. We call it senseless, but in reality, it lurks deep in the heart of each of us. God exhorts us not to entertain vengeful thinking. Romans 12:9-21 is a beautiful discourse on living a righteous life, of which love is the foundational motivation. In verse 19 we are instructed, "Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "I will repay," says the Lord." You see, God is really the only One who has the right to vengeance. The rest of us are all guilty punk thieves, in a manner of speaking. None of us are able to cast the first stone. It's a difficult attitude to maintain when we are personally violated - that's why God gives grace. We do need justice in the world. The thieves do need to give recompense for their crimes. God has established authorities in governing systems to administer justice and discipline, and He calls us to utilize those authorities He has put in place. The next chapter in Romans, Romans 13:1-8, gives clear instruction in this matter.
Up to this point, I have shared some principles found in this verse. When dropping the verse back into the context of the passage, you will discover that there is an area where men find no compassion or understanding when their intimate life has been personally violated -- and that's when another man sleeps with his wife. How can the state serve justice when something so truly personal and intimate has been intruded upon? The best the state can do is grant a bill of divorce, but this is hardly recompense. Marriage is such a holy and personal institution that violation within its bonds has devastating consequences not only to the intruder, but to the innocent victims as well. And the victims are more than the wounded spouse. Perhaps there are some answers in here that might explain the unprecedented rise in acts of vengeance in our society over the past fifty years. Particularly our children taking guns to school and shooting the place up. This is not the wrath of God. They are acts of revenge grown out of unseen seeds sown in ignorance and darkness. The seventh commandment is no more arbitrary than any of the other nine.