My dear readers,

Be Righteous for Self and Others

Proverbs 11:6: “The righteousness of the upright shall deliver them: but transgressors shall be taken in their own naughtiness.”

The righteousness of a Christian cannot be inherited or gained by good works. God gives every believer the righteousness of the law upon their salvation. This is God’s testimony of Abraham, the father of all the faithful in Romans 4:23-25: “²³Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him; ²⁴But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; ²⁵Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.” God declares that all sinners who have received Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour are righteous because Christ’s blood has washed away all their sins. These believers are perfectly righteous before God. It is a declaration that cannot be reversed, lost or diminished, unless Christ’s work at Calvary’s cross was not finished and/or Christ died after His resurrection. 

Righteousness Snatches -- Being righteous before God is permanent; as long as Christ remains alive in His resurrected body, all believers will remain righteous. No one can take this righteousness away from God's children. What happens when a believer sins? When he sins, the righteousness of God, his standing before God having God’s righteousness, remains unchanged or untouched. His sin will result in sinful behaviour. Those who saw him sin will say that he is no longer righteous. His testimony is tainted and affected before God and man, but his righteous standing as a child of God remains the same. Theologians describe this as the “positional righteousness” of the child of God. His practical life that is visible and manifested may be unrighteous, but his standing before God remains righteous. When he repents of his sin, he will be cleansed by the blood of Christ. If sin remains in his life, his walk or fellowship with God is affected, but not his relationship as a child of God. Psalm 66:18-20: “¹⁸If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me: ¹⁹But verily God hath heard me; he hath attended to the voice of my prayer. ²⁰Blessed be God, which hath not turned away my prayer, nor his mercy from me.”

Because the believer has been made righteous upon salvation, and he knows it in his heart, he has a strong desire to repent of his sin and be righteous within and without. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit will assist him in his repentance. The believer will not allow pride to stand in the way of his repentance and restoration of his fellowship with his God. How can he allow his worship and prayers to not be heard by God? He will be rendered spiritually useless before God and all his loved ones. He knows he cannot pray for his loved ones as long as he regards iniquities in his heart. The Holy Spirit and his righteous heart will definitely compel him to cry to God in repentance and seek forgiveness. Repentance is the only way he can return to a righteous testimony for Christ.

The constant demonstration of the righteousness of the upright has the God-given potency to deliver, i.e. snatch away, those who are in trouble. Firstly, the righteous delivers himself from sin. He makes the right decisions. The decisions he makes will always be right because they will be based on the Holy Scriptures. Some decisions may not be right in the eyes of man, but they will always be right in the eyes of God. Pleasing God will always be the most crucial basis for decision-making. He may end up in prison for it and even die for it, but he remains steadfast in his obedience to his God because righteous living characterises him within and without. His righteous life reflects the image of his Saviour, Jesus Christ, the Son of God. God is pleased with his life. When a righteous man lives in such a godly manner, God will bless the people he comes into contact with. When he sins, he repents, for he knows that what God desires from him is not perfection in life, which is an impossibility; the desire in his heart is never to sin again and be perfect. With this righteous desire for perfection within him, he will always repent because he knows that as long as he regards iniquities in his heart, his Lord will not hear his prayers or accept his worship. His righteous soul will never allow that to happen in his relationship with his heavenly Father and his Saviour Jesus Christ.

This brings us to the second deliverance. The righteousness of the upright delivers others who are in trouble. When others do not know how to make decisions in life, he has the wisdom from God to help them make the right ones. The wisdom he possesses will help others know and obey God’s Word. He brings salvation to the sinner. He helps fellow believers better understand God's Word and know how to apply it correctly, strengthening their faith. In this manner, he helps them conform more and more to the image of Jesus Christ, their common Saviour and Lord. With their faith strengthened, these believers have the discernment they need to face the world with courage and strength. Although Jesus has sent believers into the world as sheep among wolves, they are sheep endowed with the wisdom of God to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. They will no longer become casualties but strong and victorious soldiers of Jesus Christ. The upright delivers, i.e. snatches, others from dangers and from hell for the glory of God and the blessings of all who come into contact with him.

However, transgressors snare themselves and all who trust in them. The literal translation of Proverbs 11:6 is, “The righteousness of the upright shall deliver them: but in their eagerly coveting mischief, deceitful transgressors shall be caught in a trap.” These transgressors are deceitful. They deceive by pretending to be Christians. They will not stop at this pretence; they will elevate themselves to positions of leadership such as elders, pastors, teachers and preachers of God’s Word, in churches, Bible Colleges, and seminaries. They know that these are the places they can do tremendous damage as they continue to do what is right in their own eyes. They entrench themselves in untouchable, powerful positions of leadership, and only Almighty God can stop these spiritually despotic leaders. The more they do their evil deeds, such as teaching errors, playing church politics, drawing men after themselves with their cultic methods, and surrounding themselves with “yes” men, the deeper a hole they will dig that is too deep for them to climb out of. If they do not repent, and if the Lord wants to protect His people and His work from these despotic spiritual dictators, He can easily remove them at any time. He is the one living and true God such that all must fear! The trap these transgressors set for others will boomerang back on them, like Haman, who was hanged on the gallows that he built to hang Mordecai, God’s servant. These transgressors have no fear of God. If they do, they would not become transgressors.

These transgressors are not only deceitful but also very eager. Proverbs 11:6b says that in their eagerness to do mischief, they will fall into their own trap. For example, when they repeatedly teach errors, they put themselves into a bind. They tie themselves in a Gordian Knot by their unceasing foolish rejection of the truth. Their continual propagation of errors has numbed their unregenerate minds into thinking that a lie can become a truth if they believe it and proclaim it long enough. Is this not how errors become truth in the minds of foolish men? The gullible and undiscerning will fall into their traps and believe their lies. Take the health-and-wealth gospel of the Charismatics as a simple example. The proponents have snared themselves in a ministry so large that they cannot free themselves, like prey caught in the jaws of a great white shark. These proponents live a luxurious lifestyle and lie to themselves, claiming that what they preach must be right; otherwise, how can they be so rich, and why do tens of thousands follow them? The truth of God is measured against God’s Word, not circumstances or the majority. Bible citations usually undergird their lies without explanation. Thus, their interpretation of God’s Word is so blatantly wrong and ridiculous, and only the spiritually blind will be deceived. These deceitful transgressors hope that the hearers and readers will be lazy and not check the Bible passages that they cite.

These spiritual traps set by deceitful transgressors are increasing in number and are found in all segments of Christianity, from the fundamental to the liberal. The only way to see through the deception of these deceitful transgressors is to be righteous before God, according to the Scriptures. The biblical reason God is sure that these deceitful transgressors will receive their just end is His sovereignty. He will not let them escape their just punishment. These deceitful transgressors hurt the work of God and God’s children whom He has saved with Christ’s blood and left behind on earth to serve Him and do His will. These deceitful transgressors, by their lies


and misrepresentation of God and Christ, eagerly rush to do mischief and set traps to stumble God’s children. They commit all these deceits by pretending to be Christians and pastors, elders, teachers, preachers and theologians. Through their diabolical writings and poison-filled teachings, the testimonies of God’s children have been wrecked. Sinners have stumbled.

The lies they have sown have made them liars before God. Unrepentant and deliberate teaching of falsehood is a theological lie. Liars will not enter into God's kingdom. To be righteous before God is the work of the Holy Spirit that evidences salvation in a believer’s life. To be a wilful and unrepentant deceitful transgressor evidences a lack of salvation in the transgressor’s life. All of us

must take heed to the warning of Christ in Revelation 21:6-8: “⁶And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. ⁷He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son. ⁸But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.” Amen.