Serves Them Right
Posted by: ba <ba@...>
http://www.forthright.net
Straight to the Cross
COLUMN: Thankful
Serves Them Right
by A. A. Neale
When the traffic light turned green in Allentown,
Penn., Dwight Steidel watched the driver in front
of him continue to chat with a pedestrian. Steidel
rolled down his window and told him to move or
pull over. "He immediately began to curse at me. I
believe he did not know I was a police officer,"
Steidel said, since he was driving an unmarked
police car. The officer pulled the man over. His
driver's license had been suspended. And he was
carrying cocaine and lots of cash. And he was
driving a stolen car.
Bank officers called police in Hillsborough, N.C.,
about a suspect. Capt. Dexter Davis confronted him
and asked him if he had a weapon. "He pulled his
book bag off his shoulders. He opened the bag up
and held it open to me," Davis said. No gun, but a
note in clear view demanded, "I want $10,000 in
$100 bills. Don't push no buttons, or I'll shot
you." Davis laughed out loud. "I was looking for a
weapon, but here was this note with nice large
letters." The 42-year-old would-be bank robber was
arrested.
Doesn't it give you just a little bit of
satisfaction when somebody gets what's coming to
them? Especially when the thief or perpetrator is
rather dumb? Serves them right, don't we say?
If we do say or think such a thing, watch out! We
may get what's coming to us.
So said the Lord to Edom:
"But you should not have gazed on the day of your
brother In the day of his captivity; Nor should
you have rejoiced over the children of Judah In
the day of their destruction; Nor should you have
spoken proudly In the day of distress" (Obad. 12,
NKJV).
The Edomites even took advantage of the Israelites
when the Lord punished them. So he tells Esau,
"For the day of the Lord upon all the nations is
near; As you have done, it shall be done to you;
Your reprisal shall return upon your own head"
(Obad. 15).
The Lord punishes no one out of pleasure. "'Do I
have any pleasure at all that the wicked should
die?' says the Lord God, 'and not that he should
turn from his ways and live?'" (Ezek. 18:23).
He doesn't want us to get our kicks from the
wicked's downfall either. So says Proverbs:
"He who is glad at calamity will not go
unpunished" (Prov. 17:5b).
"Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, And do not
let your heart be glad when he stumbles; Lest the
Lord see it, and it displease Him, And He turn
away His wrath from him" (Prov. 24:17-18).
As much as we hate the sin, and even, in Old
Testament perspective, the sinner,* we always
regard it a sad day when Satan claims another soul
and the Lord must express his ire toward the
rebellious.
Let's be sure that, when we smirk at the wicked's
downfall, we're not being the dumb ones.
__________ *Randal Matheny, "Hate the Sinner,"
Forthright, January 7, 2003,
forthright.antville.org/stories/250024/
----
Read this article online, tell us what you think,
see who's commenting, click here:
forthright.antville.org/stories/703101/
----
You can help us get the word out. Here's how:
forthright.antville.org/stories/340415/