# 443 The Proverbs – ‘A manual for living’ (MSG). Proverbs 16 (1). The problem of sin and God’s answer!

If you lived in my city (Perth, Western Australia) between September 1958 to August 1963, you would have been excused if you didn’t sleep soundly at night because you were concerned that you may be the next victim of a serial killer who was terrorising the suburbs. Eventually he was caught having committed at least 20 violent crimes, eight of which resulted in deaths.

I was aged between 7-12 years old at the time and can remember it well. It certainly was a relief when he was eventually caught and convicted. In fact, he was sentenced to death and was hanged in 1964, the last person to be executed for any crime in the State of WA.

Not a pleasant story, but the grim reality of the power of sin in a human life that can lead to devastating results for them and all those around them. Despite our society playing down “sin” today and calling black as white in so many areas, when we are being realistic, the world is a tragic place due to sin, and that is not due just because of the obvious sins such as murder, theft, violence, adultery, etc., but concerns so much more, such as greed, pride, lying, arrogance, selfishness, etc.

Proverbs 16 mentions sin as follows:

¹⁸ Pride goes before destruction,
    a haughty spirit before a fall.   (see also Proverbs 11:2)

¹⁹ Better to be lowly in spirit along with the oppressed
    than to share plunder with the proud.

²⁷ A scoundrel plots evil,
    and on their lips it is like a scorching fire.

²⁸ A perverse person stirs up conflict,
    and a gossip separates close friends.

²⁹ A violent person entices their neighbor
    and leads them down a path that is not good.

³⁰ Whoever winks with their eye is plotting perversity;
    whoever purses their lips is bent on evil.

The end is inevitable, as it was for that serial killer.

²⁵ There is a way that appears to be right,
    but in the end it leads to death.

I’m not sure if he ever considered that what he was doing was “right” but certainly his end was “death” as we read above.

Paul in Romans confirms this truth and, whether we like it or not, he includes all of us:

There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, ²³ for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.  (Romans 3:22-23). For the wages of sin is death.  (Romans 6:23).

But Proverbs has more helpful things to say on this subject as follows:

1. “Sin is not outside of God’s sovereign control.”

⁴ The Lord works out everything to its proper end—
    even the wicked for a day of disaster.

Nielson continues: “This does not mean that God is the author of sin, but it does mean he is sovereign over it, and that his purposes prevail through it… [commenting on Acts 4:24-28 she says] What a strangely comforting truth: that in the evil we see around us, we can know that God’s purposes prevail.”

2. “sin… will be punished.”

⁵ The Lord detests all the proud of heart.
    Be sure of this: They will not go unpunished.

“This arrogance of heart is the opposite of the humility in a heart that fears the Lord (see 15:33).  How revealing that it’s not an evil action receiving punishment here, but rather an evil heart – the heart being the inner source of all our actions, and the deep place where we either fear God or reject him.”

3. “The third truth about sin in this passage is the most startling, and ultimately the most comforting. It is that sin is atoned for…” [to reconcile and restore our relationship with God].

⁶ Through love and faithfulness sin is atoned for;
    through the fear of the Lord evil is avoided.

“The kind of wickedness we’ve seen in verses 4-5 will demand atonement that is greater, it seems, than any man would be capable of providing – unless that man were somehow perfectly righteous in the Lord’s eyes… It was indeed through the Lord’s steadfast love for his people that he mercifully provided a way for their [and our] sins to be forgiven, or atoned for … ultimately through the one perfect sacrifice … Through the blood of Jesus, the sinless Son of God, our sin was finally atoned for, as Jesus himself took the punishment for our sin in our place on the cross.”

Paul continues in Romans:

There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, ²³ for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, ²⁴ and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. ²⁵ God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith.  (Romans 3:22-25) …For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:23)

“When we by faith trust in Christ for the forgiveness of our sins, we are experiencing the full and final meaning of Proverbs 16:6” (# 55)

Through love and faithfulness sin is atoned for.