Proverbs 2:10-15. 10for wisdom will come into your heart…12delivering you from men of perverted speech, 13who forsake the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness, 14who rejoice in doing evil and delight in the perverseness of evil, 15men whose paths are crooked, and who are devious in their ways.
Solomon’s words here are reflective of Psalm 1. Blessed is the man who doesn’t sit, stand, walk with the wicked, or the perverse, twisted. In what way are such people perverse? They actually delight in evil. They have a twisted view of happiness. This person says, let us eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die.
You don’t have to look far to find those who are perverse. Crooked and devious men and women are everywhere. In our churches. In our politics. In our work places. In our homes. In the mirror. Chances are you are living under the influence of a perverse and twisted person, and are quite possibly following in their same crooked path.
What’s the cure for our perversion? Wisdom will come into your heart.
Deliverance is found in God’s wisdom, the fear of the Lord, entering into the center of your being and changing what you desire from the inside out. Avoiding sin, perversity, crookedness and evil becomes more and more natural, more instinctive, the more you know and love God. Like those who are trained to spot counterfeit currency by studying the real thing, we too learn to spot darkness by becoming so familiar with the Light that every other way of evil, even the subtle one, is glaringly obvious.
When Jesus taught his disciples to pray he said these words, Our Father in Heaven…deliver us from evil. But how does this deliverance come? In two ways. First it comes ultimately in our rescue from the forces of darkness, sin and death, by our being placed in Christ through faith in him. Satan’s accusations against us have been silenced in the courtroom of God. We are in Christ who is free from any and all accusation.
Second, we are delivered from evil in our daily walk, just as we said above, when Wisdom comes into our heart. That is, when Christ, the wisdom of God, dwells in us. He’s the real thing. He is truth. He is righteousness. He is goodness, love, and mercy. So we study him, we know him, we trust him, we follow him. We love him. As we grow in this knowledge of Christ, all the twisted counterfeits become glaringly obvious. Counterfeit gospels like:
I just need to get over it and move on with my life.
I need to start thinking about myself for a change.
I can willpower my way to transformation and happiness.
I can do it on my own.
Can you recognize any such perverse, twisted, crooked thinking in your own mind? I’m sure it’s there to some degree. Let it be rooted out by the gospel – your great need, and his great satisfaction.
You: Can you identify any perversity in your heart (twisted desires, crooked paths)?
You in Christ: How does knowing that your union with Christ has delivered you from the Evil One and made you new help you to steer clear of evil in your daily walk?
Christ in you: In what way can you keep your eyes on Christ today and every day? Do you need to establish a daily habit of looking at him?
Pray: Father, you have delivered me from evil by the cross of Christ. Help me to fix my eyes on Jesus, becoming more and more familiar with him until all the perverse counterfeits are easy to spot. Amen.
To Live is Christ 