Walking with the Wise #449: When They Stumble

“Do not rejoice when your enemy falls,
and let not your heart be glad when he stumbles,
lest the LORD see it and be displeased,
and turn away his anger from him."
—Proverbs 24:17-18

We all have enemies—people who hate us and can’t stand who we are and what we believe. If we are on the side of God, we are to follow His command to “love our enemies and pray for those who persecute” us (cf. Matthew 5:44). We are to love our enemies because we have to remember that we were, at one time, God’s enemies. But it was while we were enemies that Christ came to die. As the Bible says,

“For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life”—Romans 5:10.

By treating our enemies with dignity and respect, we have the chance of winning them to the Savior. We know that they are our enemies, but must remember that they were God’s enemies first. God’s enemies must become our enemies, not vice versa. We know that we have tried to make God in our own image when God hates the people we hate. If we try to project onto God the feelings we have toward someone we loathe, we have committed sin. That’s what many have done who tried to find justification for their racism—make God hate the people they hate. That’s not what we are to do, nor is that what is going on in this passage. We don’t make God hate those we hate. It cannot begin with us, but must begin with the person of God.

If we are followers of God, we hate those whom He has instructed us to hate, as the psalmist wrote:

“Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD?
And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
I hate them with complete hatred;
I count them my enemies”
—Psalm 139:21-22.

But wait. The psalmist says he hates those who hate God, yet Jesus tells us that we are to love our enemies. Is there a contradiction? No. We “hate” in the sense that we despise the fact that they hate God and stand against everything He is and stands for.

The proverb says that if we taunt them God will remove His anger from them. Yet, is that something we should want—God’s anger removed from them? Shouldn’t we want to have God be pleased with them rather than be angered with them? And why would we want God to be angry with them? Why would He use the removal of His anger to be a consequence for us taunting them?

The point of the proverb is that God’s enemies are under God’s judgment for persecuting His people. We are not to gloat over them as if we are the reason for their defeat—instead we are to remind ourselves that they are at war with God. God removes His anger when we gloat, because He doesn’t want us to think it's because of our righteousness—rather it's because He is inflicting vengeance upon them in the hope for repentance.

We can see in Scripture that David refused to gloat when King Saul was killed, even though Saul had tried to kill him numerous times (cf. 2 Samuel 1). And God judged the nation of Edom for their attitude, because they gloated and mocked Judah after defeating them (Obadiah 1:12). For us to gloat over our enemies’ miseries is to put ourselves in the place of God, who alone is the Judge of the earth—because He is the one who exacts vengeance in His time and in His own way (cf. Deuteronomy 32:35).

Following the words of Jesus we can see that we are to love them, remembering that if God does not delight in the death of the wicked, and desires that they turn from their sin and live—then we should as well (cf. Ezekiel 18:23, 32; 33:11).

So, we don’t delight when they stumble, knowing that they stumble because they disobey the word as they were destined to (cf. 1 Peter 2:8). God’s anger is upon them for His own reason and one of our responsibilities is to fearfully love and trust in Him, as well as love our enemies and hope and pray for their repentance. We want God’s anger to be meted out upon them, because we want to see God be God—displaying His justice toward those who deserve it and giving mercy to those who don’t.

Our goal is to hope for, long for, and pray for their repentance—so that they might no longer be enemies, but brothers in the kingdom of God—partakers of grace just as we are, reconciled by the blood of Jesus Christ and given new life in Him. That is our hope and our prayer. Amen.