But the way of the wicked is like deep darkness;
they do not know what makes them stumble.
Summary: Darkness is a metaphor for being blind. Blindness can be complete or partial. A partial blindness of the mind is called a “blind spot.” We all have them, but the wicked are especially good at making them a way of life.
In Genesis 3 we find the serpent selling Eve on the idea of disobeying God and eating fruit from the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (Gen 2:17). A good salesman can get his customer to be so focused on the product features that the customer forgets to consider if there are any bugs in the product. A great salesman can convince the customer that a bug is actually a feature. The serpent was a great sales-serpent.
(In fairness to Eve, the story takes place in a time before salesmen. She had no experience with salespeople and consequently had no sales resistance. If she lived in our world of endless ads, robocalls, and unlimited emails, she might have been more callused.)
The serpent convinces Eve that if she eats from the forbidden tree, she “will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen 3: 5). The emphasis here is being like God. But seeing what God sees without his power to resist evil is a death sentence.
Ever since, we have been prone to stumble through life without God’s light. God can tell the difference between good and evil. On our own, we cannot. Those who reject God also reject his light. Without God’s light, we stumble over and over again.
How does this work?
When we acknowledge God, we are at the beginning of the road to understanding (Proverbs 1:7). Wisdom, understanding, and knowledge are the light that allows us to make sense of everything else in the world. The Bible uses the metaphor of light because light allows us to “see” what is there. Darkness hides everything.
When we deny God, we deny reality. That denial has a cascading effect on everything else. If we close our minds to the truth of God, we automatically close our minds to reality. We have, in effect, turned off the light that allows us to see truth.
It is a bit silly to think about, but imagine a person who believes that “natural” light is the only light people were meant to use. Light of any kind that is not the sun is forbidden in this person’s house. Will they have an easy time getting around at night? No. All because they refuse to use light that does not come from the sun.
It is the same way with God. God is the Creator and Sustainer of all things. The only way any of this world we live in makes sense is if we acknowledge God as Creator. The wicked refuse to do that and consequently live in a darkness of their own making.
Application: Seek the light that only comes when we acknowledge our Creator.
Food for Thought: What kinds of things do the wicked stumble over?
The most important thing, or in this case Person, whom the wicked stumble over is Christ Himself. 1 Peter 2: 4 – 9. They stumble because they disobey His word and reject the light of Christ. They stumble in the darkness while the righteous proclaim the virtues of the One who called them out of darkness into His wonderful light. See also Isaiah 8: 13 – 15; Isaiah 28: 16; Psalm 118: 19 – 24.
Brother Rich,
I can’t argue with that! 🙂
Ultimately, everything is about Jesus.
Thank you for the great passages. I have put a link in here.
What R said
Is light from a wood fire not a natural light? I actually like the idea of only using natural light. It’s got me curious.
God created the day and the night. The light and the darkness were created by God. But his darkness is different than the darkness that we create. We can create deep darkness, but we really cannot create natural light. We can prevent the sun from shining on us, but we can’t make it stop shining. Christ invited us into that light, but we have to step into it. His light can be just as blinding as darkness for a moment, but when we adjust, and allow the darkness to be pushed out, there is no better way to live. Jesus way. It’s funny, even when we are in complete darkness, when we allow our eyes to adjust, the light still tries to push in. I’m so grateful that the light of Christ never stops shining. Even into the darkest palaces.
Mr. B –
Nice meditation! Thank you for sharing.
I struggled with the “natural light” thing, too. When I wrote the first draft I used the phrase “artificial light” and immediately the metaphor started breaking down. Thank you for exploring the metaphor at a deeper level.
What kinds of things do the wicked stumble over?
Not an all-inclusive list by any means, but these are the ones that came to mind this morning: Idolatry, immorality, self-centeredness (is that a word?), and cruelty in dealing with others.
Matthew 6:24 ““No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”
1 Corinthians “Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.”
Philippians 2:3-4 “Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.”
Proverbs 11:17 “A man who is kind benefits himself, but a cruel man hurts himself.”
Chris – My apologies for the delay in posting. Technical issues.
Chris,
Your words remind me of a story I heard once. It was about an older brother who got revenge for his younger brother by beating up the kid who hurt the younger brother. Afterwards, he felt horrible about what he had done. It sounded like a noble idea, but turned out to be an awful one. A big stumble!
02-25-2022, Proverbs 4:19, What kinds of things do the wicked stumble over?
As Rich writes, they stumble over Jesus Christ. Anyone who has at some point in their life walked in total darkness, can recall how it was to shuffle their feet as they slowly moved forward with their arms stretched out. You are blind to reality and depending 100% on your physical feeling of touch to guide you.
Wickedness will blind the mind and the light of Christ will not be seen.
But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost. In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
2 Corinthians 4:3-4
Ron,
Thank you! I also wonder about those who have never known the light… what it is like to think that the darkness is all there is.
Life in the darkness for me was filled with pleasing the desires of my flesh as I went deeper and deeper into sin. It was filled with noise and distractions which blocked the quiet voice of conviction from the Holy Spirit. We would laugh and boast of how we were living the good life.
Then the Lord raised the volume, I saw where I was wrong and then I turned to Christ for life.
Don’t know what they are like on the death bed, To my knowledge, those in my family voiced no regrets, but were very bitter.
I have a theory about the bitterness that you mention.
Without God or God’s Word, we have to ‘invent’ our own answers to what life is about. Satan coaches us into a series of “shoulds.” Life should be this way. People should act that way. If I get this or that then I should feel a certain way (happy).
When life does not work out the way we think it should we have a couple of options. The first is to re-evaluate what we expect of life. Maybe our expectations, our shoulds are wrong? For some reason people tend to avoid this choice.
The other option is to push harder. It should work so I will make it work. When it doesn’t work, then bitterness and anger are the results.
Good theory Jeff!
Blessings,
Ron
Ron — My apologies for the delay in posting. Technical issues. 🙁
No problem, just returned from Costco.
……….. What the Bible says.
🕯🔦💡 👍
🙂