The fear of the Lord prolongs days,
But the years of the wicked will be shortened.
The hope of the righteous will be gladness,
But the expectation of the wicked will perish.
The way of the Lord is strength for the upright,
But destruction will come to the workers of iniquity.
Proverbs 10:27-29 (NKJV).
In a somewhat recent discussion a favored Christian Philosopher of mine, William Lane Craig, discussed the "Meaning of Life". A super-shortened version of his claim is that "without the supernatural, and therefore without God, life is ultimately meaningless, because the universe won't persist forever."
One of the other participants rejected this in favor of the "if you feel like your life has meaning, it does" argument, ignoring the practical reality that was serving as the context for WLC's claim.
In short, that it doesn't matter what happens outside one's life if what happens inside of it had meaning. Yet this view is essentially hedonistic in nature, betraying a childish understanding behind the concepts of "purpose" and "meaning".
If "right" and "wrong" do not objectively exist, then perception truly is reality, and there can be no coherent discussion about even things like "better" or "worse". You just "are" and it's up to you to supply subjective meaning because nothing external to you tangibly exists apart from your ability to perceive it. This is why, without at least the supernatural, all discussions of the meaning and purpose of life fall flat.
If our reality, our current circumstances the result of chance and objective truth does not exist, then there is no "good" or "bad". What you do, the consequences, exist only so far as you are required to perceive them, and they only impact others so far as they perceive them, so "good" is possible just by eliminating the perception of consequences.
Like someone overdosing on drugs.
This is an inherently wicked mindset, and why the passage discusses the disparity in behavior because, long before modern and postmodern philosophies found philosophical rationalization, the themes and premises had already existed in the human mind, they just needed a new coat of paint.
The fear of the Lord brings about respect for God's design of reality, and accepting the consequences that come from bad behavior. There is no accident that those who reject understanding of germs, of infections, of the consequences of their behavior so frequently die before those that do.
In the "Middle Ages", deaths from the "Black Plague" are almost mythical in nature, yet when you look at the numbers, a disproportional amount of deaths occurred among those with a lower intelligence, thus resulting in the average IQ of Europeans going up, not because they were smarter, but because only the smarter survived, even despite the lack of complete or correct understanding as to what caused the plague and how to avoid it.
The "hope of the righteous" is grounded in the idea that God rewards obedience, and the expectation of the wicked is that God won't punish disobedience. Can you see how, in a system designed by God where one's individual beliefs don't change the rules, the wicked who expect to escape the consequences of their choices would end up in such a bad state?
In both a literal and figurative sense, we cannot escape the consequences of our choices, and God set up this reality such that aligning with God aligns with the "rules of reality", and so that is why those in rebellion with God are so frequently challenging the "natural order" of things, so frequently trying to develop technology and laws to alleviate or eliminate the negative consequences from bad choices, so frequently trying to convince themselves that they have the power to re-write the "rules of reality".
Their hope is not in finding favor with God, but in replacing God with themselves. Their inevitable failure is always predictable, if not in the timing, the mechanisms. Evil always loses in the end, not because there's a bad hand dealt or a dice rolled, but because evil is literally fighting against God's design of reality, of existence.
Sin is, in many ways, just the label we apply to rebellion against God, who logically has every right to make recommendations as to the behavior of creatures which didn't deserve to exist in the first place. In turn, the wrath that is poured out due to the infinite ingratitude of those creatures who do not show God any respect or honor for the infinitely great gift of existence versus non-existence is terrifying, but understandeable.
Solomon is highlighting that where those who follow God have hope, those who do not have no hope, for they cannot ever succeed at doing anything but delaying their own perceptions. Consequences will come, one way or another, whether we like it or not.
And consequences scale with the sin. So learn from your own life, before it's too late, from your own failures that were not mortal in nature, lest you get caught up believing that when consequences do grow significantly in severity, you'll be able to escape them just as you think you escaped before.
You won't.
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