The Expositor's Bible: The Book of ProverbsHorton, Robert F. (Robert Forman)
Religion
The Expositor's Bible: The Book of Proverbs
Horton, Robert F. (Robert Forman)
Bible. Proverbs -- Commentaries
No human being is compelled to bear his bitterness alone, for though
he cannot tell it or explain to his fellows, he can tell it, and he
need not explain it, to God. Is the bitterness an outcome of sin, as
most of our bitterness is? Is it the bitterness of a wounded egotism,
or of a remorseful conscience, or of spiritual despondency? Or is it
the bitterness which springs from the cravings of an unsatisfied
heart, the thirst for self-completeness, the longing for a perfect
love? In either case God is perfectly able and willing to meet the
need. He delights to turn His knowledge of our nature to the purpose
of cleansing and transforming the sinful heart: "By His knowledge
shall My righteous servant justify many," He says. He is ready, too,
to shed abroad His own rich love in our hearts, leaving no room for
the hankering desire, and creating the peace of a complete fulfilment.
No human being need imagine that he is unappreciated; his fellow-men
may not want him, but God does. "The Lord hath made every thing for
His own purpose, yea, even the wicked for the day of evil."[430] He
apprehends all that is good in your heart, and will not suffer a grain
of pure gold to be lost; while He sees too every particle of evil, and
will not suffer it to continue. He knows where the will is set upon
righteousness, where the desire is turned towards Him, and will
delicately encourage the will, and bountifully satisfy the desire. He
sees, too, when the will is hardened against Him, and the desire is
set upon iniquity, and He is mercifully resolved to visit the corrupt
will and the evil desire with "eternal destruction from the face of
the Lord, and from the glory of His might,"--mercifully, I say, for no
torture could be more terrible and hopeless than for the evil man to
live eternally in the presence of God.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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