Be not thou envious against evil men, neither desire to be with them

"Be not thou envious against evil men, neither desire to be with them. For their heart studieth destruction, and their lips talk of mischief" (Prov. 24:1,2). There are some things that need to be understood by people who love the righteousness of God; about the love of God, and where to draw some lines in our lives with people. If you feel comfortable hanging out with people whose "lips talk of mischief," and whose hearts are not repentant toward God, then you just don't love the righteousness of God; and you don't love Jesus. Our text passage says that the hearts of the wicked "study destruction," so what exactly does that mean? One might think, "Well, that sounds like terrorists planning an attack on innocent people." While that certainly falls into that category, people 'study destruction' by doing a lot less that planning terrorist attacks. The real 'destruction' that people are actually studying to pursue is how to go to hell, and everyone who is not repentant toward God and seeking to be closer to him, is simply studying on how to go to hell; which is the ultimate destruction, or 'ruin' as the term is also defined. If you do love Jesus and the righteousness he imparts to true believers, and you don't like being in the presence of people who are proudly contrary to that righteousness, there is nothing wrong with feeling that way. If we have malice or a judgmental, condemning spirit toward people for their sins, that is wrong on our part. But if we do NOT have that problem, and our love is intact; we SHOULDN'T want to be with anyone who is against that love! Allow me to show you something from the scriptures that better explains what I'm saying: "Behold, the Lord maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof... The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate: therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men left" (Isa. 24:1,5,6).

That passage is speaking of the second coming of Jesus to this world, when he will literally burn up the wicked people who have held to their wickedness. Why will he do this? Well, for starters he doesn't want to be around them, and secondly they have no right or privilege to be around him; seeing they have "trodden under foot the Son of God," and have already clearly demonstrated that they didn't want to be in his presence anyway (Heb. 10:29). The Bible plainly tells us, "God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble" (Jas. 4:6). Why would the hearts of the righteous want to be around those who are opposed to God, and those whom God is opposed to? That is where the following exhortation from the apostle Paul comes from: "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you" (II Cor. 6:14-17). These verses are most often associated with the issue of marriage, but why wouldn't they apply to other relationships and associations as well? In fact they do. A lot of people get fooled by the old "I'm going to win them" line that Satan loves to throw at unstable and unlearned souls, in regard to the love of God. And the truth is we do have to be around a lot of different kinds of people in this world, and we do have to have God's love and patience in our dealings with people. And of course we want to win EVERYONE to the love of Christ, but that doesn't mean that we throw in our lot with the wicked and hang out with those who are proudly against the righteousness of God in order to achieve that objective. If we can't establish a dominion of God's holy love in an environment, then we should not be a voluntary partaker of it.

There are some who make themselves quite available and quite a help to those who have consistently shown no motivation whatsoever to repent and make Jesus their life. And they think they are pleasing God in doing so, and that they are slowly but surely 'winning them to the Lord.' These should take heed to what a prophet once told a righteous king of Judah: "And Jehu the son of Hanani the seer went out to meet him, and said to king Jehoshaphat, Shouldest thou help the ungodly, and love them that hate the Lord? therefore is wrath upon thee from before the Lord" (II Chron. 19:2). Actually Jehoshaphat had been visiting others who were part of the household of God as well, but those others were disobedient and wicked. God was displeased with this righteous king of Judah hanging out with the unrighteous king of the northern kingdom of Israel, and his wicked family. Actually bad things came from it, as Jehoshaphat let his son marry Ahab and Jezebel's daughter, which only led to ruin. He should have despised the presence of Ahab and Jezebel, and had nothing to do with them. That may not sound like 'love' to a lot of folks today, but that's because a lot of folks today don't understand the love of God and his righteous judgment. If we have to conform to the environment of people who are not interested in holiness, in order to be around them, then we are sinning against God. Plain and simple. Listen to what Jesus said about this matter: "No man, when he hath lighted a candle, putteth it in a secret place, neither under a bushel, but on a candlestick, that they which come in may see the light" (Lk. 11:33). Sinners love to talk about how Jesus hung out with sinners when he was here, and he did indeed. But somehow the core of that matter always gets left out of the conversation, which is that Jesus ONLY hung out with sinners when HE WAS THE ENVIRONMENT! In other words, it was actually the sinners who hung out with Jesus because THEY WANTED OUT OF THEIR SINS, and he was and is the only way to solve that problem!

If we want to do things the way Jesus did things, first of all we need to "be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might" (Eph. 6:10). Then we can either establish the dominion of God's Spirit wherever we are, or people will simply not want us around. It's pretty clear with a lot of people as to whether they want the righteousness of God in their midst, and if they don't then we should sense that and not want to be in their midst either. So what I'm trying to say here is that it is a GOOD THING to not want to be around those who don't want to be around Jesus. We just don't want to become 'separatists,' and get too comfortable not being around anyone who needs to be redeemed from their sins. Neither can we "judge according to the appearance," and count people out because of where they are presently at spiritually (Jn. 7:24). I personally can be in just about any kind of environment, at least for a time, because I cannot be intimidated to subject myself to any environment that is contrary to God. I also know how to leave a situation without worrying about someone's 'hurt feelings,' if I see that is what is in order. We just don't want to fall prey to an intimidating spirit that makes us feel that we don't love people because we refuse to entertain their evil ways in order to be around them. There is absolutely no larger factor than a person's associations, that will determine what direction they will take in their lives; especially when it comes to following Jesus. One man asked Jesus if he could simply bury his father before following him. Seems reasonable enough, but Jesus had another idea about it: "Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead" (Mat. 8:22). Those who love the righteousness of God that is in Christ, and are pursuing eternal life, should not want to be voluntarily around those who are pursuing death. If we are going to be those who "follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth," it should be our first nature to cast our lot with those who are doing the same, and to not accompany those who are defiantly going in the opposite direction (Rev. 14:4).